Minnesota · Nonprofit
EVOLVE Adoption & Family Services
EVOLVE Adoption & Family Services (Minnesota) receives grants from 22 organizations whose IRS filings report $1,260,338 to it, the largest being OTTO BREMER TRUST ($580,000). 8 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $2.5M
- Funders on record
- 22
- Grants received
- $1.3M
- Net assets
- $997k
What EVOLVE Adoption & Family Services does
Mission
To achieve a world where everyone has nurturing, permanent, and supportive familial relationships by providing a full breadth of inclusive, ethical programming in: adoption, foster care, pregnancy support, youth services, cultural support and education.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Programs
Foster Care: EVOLVE's Foster Care Programs include traditional foster care, kinship care, respite care, and emergency shelter care. We specialize in kinship care, working to keep children within their extended family and kin network to reduce the trauma of out of home care whenever possible. In non-relative foster care, we work to recruit and prepare families who are willing and able to provide a nurturing, supporting and affirming environment for children and youth, many who have experienced significant trauma, usually between the ages of 10-18 years old. We conduct thorough home studies to ensure that the families we license are safe and prepared to support the children and youth that will be in their care. We also provide individual and group training and classes that educate families on trauma informed care, the impacts of abuse and neglect, and supporting children's culture, beliefs, identity, emotional, physical, and behavioral needs. Placement support is ongoing until transition or permanency is achieved. The ultimate goal of foster care is high quality temporary care while the children's birth family gets the help that is needed for their children to be returned to their…
$990,571 spent$1,502,119 earned by the program53% of program spendingFamily Support: EVOLVE provides a variety of family connection and cultural support programming through UMOJA MN, including two weekend-long family camps annually to empower and educate adoptive, foster and kinship families raising Black youth; connecting them with their culture and larger community. We provide a four-week Culturally Responsive Parenting Class for caregivers twice annually, Caregiver Connection meetings throughout the year, teach textured haircare support, hold multi-week youth support groups for youth age 9-17, and host a Black Teens in Action group where youth plan and execute a service project to give back to the community and earn a stipend.
$367,311 spent$417,124 earned by the program20% of program spendingAdoption Services and Related: EVOLVE's programs include the Minnesota Adoption Permanency Program (MAPP), focusing on the adoption of children in the foster care system, with an emphasis on older youth and teens, large sibling groups and children with special needs. We also provide ethical private adoption programming in domestic infant open adoption, and home study and post-placement services for families who are adopting internationally. We conduct thorough home studies to ensure that the families are safe and prepared to support the children and youth that will be in their care. We also provide individual and group training and classes that educate families on trauma informed care, the impacts of abuse, neglect, orphanage care, and supporting children's culture, beliefs, identity, emotional, physical, and behavioral needs. We provide Post-Adoption Services, which includes short term case management support for families in need after permanency, as well as assistance to adult adoptees in search and records retrieval. In Pregnancy Services we provide free, non-coercive and non-directive support to individuals and couples experiencing unplanned pregnancy. This includes all…
$273,472 spent$164,056 earned by the program15% of program spendingYouth Services: EVOLVE has two core areas of youth services. EVOLVE's Child-Specific Recruitment (CSR) program is provided for youth in foster care who are in need of a permanent family. Our child-centered approach leads with the unique strengths and needs of each youth, developing a trusting relationship through meaningful engagement, and prioritizing their voice and preferences. We work to identify and assess appropriate adoption matches, engage in Lifebook work, prepare youth for permanency and support them through transition into their adoptive family, from placement through finalization. Our Successful Transitions to Adulthood for Youth (STAY) programming serves youth in foster care aged 14-23, who are at risk of aging out or who have already transitioned out of foster care without a permanent family. These services include individual case management, independent living skills groups and development, assistance with housing and limited material support, as well as Youth Leadership Councils where youth can share their voice and help address concerns within the system. EVOLVE is the designated provider of this service for 13 Minnesota counties.
$248,425 spent$263,984 earned by the program13% of program spending
The 4 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $1,879,779.
The organization over time
Each line starts at 100 in 2017, so what you read is the shape rather than the size: 150 means half as much again as 2017, 50 means half. The number beside each label in the key is where it ended. The shaded band is where the middle 50% of its peers' revenue would sit, given their growth.
Balance sheet
Total assets and total liabilities at each year end, in dollars. The largest one-year move in total assets was 2018 to 2019, from $981k to $1.5M (+56%).
How it's funded, over time
Each bar is one year's revenue split into where it came from, and every bar is the same height — these are shares, not amounts, so a year that raised twice as much looks the same size. Hover a bar for the split.
Government-grant reliance: 2021 13% · 2022 16% · 2023 0% · 2024 0%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
7% of EVOLVE Adoption & Family Services’s revenue is contributions — more earned-revenue than three-quarters of its peers (81% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 2 of the last 9 reported years ran a deficit.
reserve
Leadership and staff
The officers, directors, trustees and key employees listed on each return. Joined and no longer listed compare each filing with the year before, matching people by surname and first initial; a year after a gap, or a roster under three people, has no comparison.
Chief executive
Susannah Barnes
Executive Director
Board chair
Elisabeth Zarnoti
Board Chair
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
The chief executive listed changed between the FY2017 and FY2018 filings.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 4 funders to 7 funders, grant income rose $29k → $168k.
8 of 22 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 33% of grant dollars received. That money is really individual donors directing a sponsor; the institutions to cultivate are the non-DAF funders.
From the IRS filings of EVOLVE Adoption & Family Services’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 20 of 22 funders by total. Association, not causation. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.
How concentrated its funding is
EVOLVE Adoption & Family Services leans on a few funders — its largest provides 46% of grant income and the top three 75%; half comes from just 2 funders.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 2 funders to its left
41% of the income these shares are computed over arrives through pass-through sponsors or from payers whose filings do not say what kind of payment it is. Concentration is still measured over all of it, because the money is real; what it does not support is a claim about how many institutions have chosen to fund EVOLVE Adoption & Family Services.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 51% · 2018 46% · 2019 52% · 2020 38% · 2021 66% · 2022 50% · 2023 56% — growing more concentrated.
“Effective funders” = inverse Herfindahl index (1 / Σ shareᵢ²) — the number of equal-sized funders that would give the same concentration. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.
How long its funders stay
25% of EVOLVE Adoption & Family Services's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 36% give in more than one year at all.
Share of funders still giving k years after their first recorded grant, pooled across every acquisition cohort. A funder counts as retained in a year only if it made a grant that year. Measured to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving — a funder cannot be counted as lapsed in a year most filers have not reached.
Where its funders are
97% of EVOLVE Adoption & Family Services's grant income comes from Minnesota funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $413k arriving through sponsors registered in 8 states is excluded from the map and the split above: a sponsor holds money on a donor’s behalf, so its registered address would place those dollars somewhere no donor need ever have been. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.
Against its field
EVOLVE Adoption & Family Services runs a healthier operating margin than half of the 6,891 human services nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 6,891 human services nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2025
Organizations like EVOLVE Adoption & Family Services
Organizations whose mission and program text most resemble this one, by semantic similarity over every organization in the US filings — the closest peers, and often the clearest route to shared or prospective funders.
In Minnesota
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
80% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
78%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Footprint & structure
Files a return copy in 2 states
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for EVOLVE Adoption & Family Services: IRS status (Business Master File, Publication 78, auto-revocation), the OFAC sanctions lists, the Internal Revenue Bulletin, and California registration, with the Rev. Proc. 2018-32 §8.01 reliance elements stated element by element. Generated from the current files at the moment you download it.
Screens are triage, not determinations; a source that cannot be read reports not screened, never clear. Screen this nonprofit · How the screen works · on the API as GET /api/screening/{ein}?format=pdf
Questions and answers
- Who funds EVOLVE Adoption & Family Services?
- EVOLVE Adoption & Family Services (Minnesota) receives grants from 22 organizations whose IRS filings report $1,260,338 to it, the largest being OTTO BREMER TRUST ($580,000). 8 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does EVOLVE Adoption & Family Services have?
- IRS filings report 22 organizations giving $1,260,338 in grants to EVOLVE Adoption & Family Services, 8 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of EVOLVE Adoption & Family Services?
- OTTO BREMER TRUST is the largest funder on record, with $580,000 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like EVOLVE Adoption & Family Services find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Minnesota. The funding by cause and by state pages list the largest funders for a given area and how to approach them.
Play a game about who funds EVOLVE Adoption & Family Services →
These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2025 (financials across 2017–2025), and the filings of 22 funders that report grants to it. “On record” means captured in the filings we have parsed — a funder that does not e-file, or whose grant detail is not itemized, will not appear. Filings run roughly 12–24 months behind. Trends on this page end at FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving; later years are shown and marked, and move no figure. Data on this page was exported October 14, 2026. What this page cannot tell you · view filing