Minnesota · Nonprofit
Foster Advocates
Foster Advocates (Minnesota) receives grants from 26 organizations whose IRS filings report $3,014,551 to it, the largest being THE SAUER FAMILY FOUNDATION ($622,560). 14 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2024
- $977k
- Funders on record
- 26
- Grants received
- $3.0M
- Net assets
- $463k
What Foster Advocates does
Mission
Foster Advocates is not just our name it's what we do. We foster advocacy, policy change, and organizing by partnering with Fosters and impacted communities. We envision a Minnesota where every person involved in Minnesota's foster care system has the same access to opportunities and outcomes as their non-foster peers. We envision a Minnesota where Foster voices are respected and our community expertise is sought in every aspect of the child welfare system.
As stated on its FY2024 Form 990.
Program
This year we successfully organized with our community to address a $5 million funding gap for the Fostering Independence Grant (FIG) in the 2024-25 academic year. Our MN Promise campaign continued, where we hosted our final listening sessions, began data analysis and evaluation, hosted feedback sessions with participants, and initial drafting of the full report. Foster Advocates plans to publicly release the full Minnesota Promise Report, a comprehensive vision for systems-change led by and for Fosters, in 2025. Our Community Board finished its third year, and we expanded our MN Promise Committee to include more participants from our listening sessions. Additionally, we launched our Foster specific college pilot model, to increase support at colleges, and ensure success for MN Fosters in higher education. There is much to be done to ensure Minnesota meets its promise to all Fosters, and we are making significant progress on that thanks to our Foster leaders.
$627,861 spent100% of program spending
The program described on its FY2024 Form 990. Program spending in total: $627,861.
The organization over time
Each line starts at 100 in 2021, so what you read is the shape rather than the size: 150 means half as much again as 2021, 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 2022 to 2023, from $417k to $552k (+32%).
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: 2022 8% · 2023 9% · 2024 39%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
99% of Foster Advocates’s revenue is contributions — more donation-reliant than the typical peer (91% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 1 of the last 4 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.
Board chair
Ed Morales
Chairman
As listed on its FY2024 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2019 → 2023: the base broadened from 2 funders to 15 funders, grant income rose $230k → $732k.
6 of 26 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 9% 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 Foster Advocates’s funders (the co-funder graph). 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
Foster Advocates has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 21% of grant income, and it takes 3 funders to reach half.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 3 funders to its left
31% 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 Foster Advocates.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2019 89% · 2020 55% · 2021 33% · 2022 19% · 2023 20% — diversifying over time.
“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
67% of Foster Advocates's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 54% 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
99% of Foster Advocates's grant income comes from Minnesota funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $271k arriving through sponsors registered in 3 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
Foster Advocates has grown faster than three-quarters of the 21,616 human services nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 21,616 human services nonprofits $100k–$1M, FY2024
Organizations like Foster Advocates
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
70% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
74%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Footprint & structure
Files a return copy in 1 state
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for Foster Advocates: 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 Foster Advocates?
- Foster Advocates (Minnesota) receives grants from 26 organizations whose IRS filings report $3,014,551 to it, the largest being THE SAUER FAMILY FOUNDATION ($622,560). 14 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does Foster Advocates have?
- IRS filings report 26 organizations giving $3,014,551 in grants to Foster Advocates, 14 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of Foster Advocates?
- THE SAUER FAMILY FOUNDATION is the largest funder on record, with $622,560 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like Foster Advocates 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 Foster Advocates →
These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2024 (financials across 2021–2024), and the filings of 26 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