Minnesota · Nonprofit
OPEN ACCESS CONNECTIONS
OPEN ACCESS CONNECTIONS (Minnesota) receives grants from 9 organizations whose IRS filings report $628,225 to it, the largest being SAINT PAUL & MINNESOTA FOUNDATION ($162,500). 7 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2024
- $205k
- Funders on record
- 9
- Grants received
- $628k
- Net assets
- $25k
What Open Access Connections does
Mission
Facilitating communication services to encourage self-determination and stronger community connections for people in need.
As stated on its FY2024 Form 990.
Program
Open Access Connections provides the poorest Minnesotans with free communication tools, helping encourage self-determination and stronger community connections. Through grassroots outreach and partnerships with 320 community agencies, we provided free Community Voice Mail to 2,900 homeless and low income Minnesotans, enabling them to find jobs, housing, health care, social services, safety from domestic abuse, and economic stability. We also distributed 1,200 Lifeline supported cell phones to eligible consumers, as well as provided non-partisan voter engagement within the homeless community.
$185,124 spentof which $177,529 as grants100% of program spending
The program described on its FY2025 Form 990-EZ. Program spending in total: $185,124.
The organization over time
Each line starts at 100 in 2020, so what you read is the shape rather than the size: 150 means half as much again as 2020, 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 2021 to 2022, from $24k to $61k (+151%).
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: 2020 32% · 2022 35% · 2024 67%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
98% of OPEN ACCESS CONNECTIONS’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. 2 of the last 5 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
Tim Gothmann
Chair
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 2 funders to 3 funders, grant income rose $12k → $82k.
2 of 9 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 47% 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 OPEN ACCESS CONNECTIONS’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
OPEN ACCESS CONNECTIONS has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 26% 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
55% 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 OPEN ACCESS CONNECTIONS.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 56% · 2018 35% · 2019 37% · 2020 34% · 2021 34% · 2022 32% · 2023 43% — 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
75% of OPEN ACCESS CONNECTIONS's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 78% 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 OPEN ACCESS CONNECTIONS's grant income comes from Minnesota funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $295k arriving through sponsors registered in 1 state 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
OPEN ACCESS CONNECTIONS's funding base is broadening — from 2 funders to 3 as grant income climbed.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 21,616 human services nonprofits $100k–$1M, FY2024
Organizations like OPEN ACCESS CONNECTIONS
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
92% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
100%
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 OPEN ACCESS CONNECTIONS: 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 OPEN ACCESS CONNECTIONS?
- OPEN ACCESS CONNECTIONS (Minnesota) receives grants from 9 organizations whose IRS filings report $628,225 to it, the largest being SAINT PAUL & MINNESOTA FOUNDATION ($162,500). 7 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does OPEN ACCESS CONNECTIONS have?
- IRS filings report 9 organizations giving $628,225 in grants to OPEN ACCESS CONNECTIONS, 7 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of OPEN ACCESS CONNECTIONS?
- SAINT PAUL & MINNESOTA FOUNDATION is the largest funder on record, with $162,500 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like OPEN ACCESS CONNECTIONS 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 Open Access Connections →
These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2024 (financials across 2020–2024), and the filings of 9 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