Minnesota · Nonprofit
WACOSA
WACOSA (Minnesota) receives grants from 14 organizations whose IRS filings report $1,059,421 to it, the largest being COMMUNITYGIVING ($806,183). 11 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 82% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- Revenue FY2024
- $11M
- Funders on record
- 14
- Grants received
- $1.1M
- Net assets
- $14M
What Wacosa does
Mission
To provide individuals with disabilities the opportunity to work and live in their community.
As stated on its FY2024 Form 990.
Programs
Program servicesWacosa's program services consist of Wacosa's south program, north program, seniors program, sauk centre dt & h program, 1st avenue and sauk centre ee program. Wacosa was established as a grassroots organization in 1963 by parents looking to provide services to their children with disabilities. Today Wacosa has grown to serve over 525 adults with disabilities annually. Our clients primarily live in stearns, benton and sherburne counties, with site locations in waite park, sauk centre and whitney senior center in st. Cloud.
$5,634,623 spent$7,160,439 earned by the program74% of program spendingVocational servicesWacosa's vocational services consist of Wacosa's community crews, production crews, thriftworks! And docushred. Wacosa serves people with a variety of mental, physical and cognitive abilities. Some of Wacosa's clients live independently, some with families, and others in group home settings. Through Wacosa's vocational services, clients are employed by local businesses, go out in the community in work crews or they work in one of Wacosa's facilities. Wacosa's in house work is wide ranging. Wacosa does assembly, quality checking, mailing services, labeling, collating, packaging/kitting, re-work, document shredding, thrift store operations, recycling services and much more. Wacosa's clients enjoy working, are dedicated and take great pride in the work they do.
$2,013,755 spent$2,304,322 earned by the program26% of program spending
The 2 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $7,648,378.
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.
Balance sheet
Total assets and total liabilities at each year end, in dollars. The largest one-year move in total assets was 2023 to 2024, from $13M to $15M (+16%).
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: 2017 2% · 2018 1% · 2019 2% · 2020 1% · 2021 30% · 2022 16% · 2023 5% · 2024 8%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 1 of the last 8 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
Sandie Westergren
Board chair
As listed on its FY2024 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 3 funders to 9 funders, grant income rose $57k → $183k.
5 of 14 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 82% 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 WACOSA’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 13 of 14 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
WACOSA leans on a few funders — its largest provides 76% of grant income and the top three 86%; half comes from just 1 funder.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 1 funder to its left
85% 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 WACOSA.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 74% · 2018 75% · 2019 83% · 2020 42% · 2021 79% · 2022 83% · 2023 79% — 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
80% of WACOSA's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 79% 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
82% of WACOSA's grant income arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors, whose addresses record where the money is held rather than where the donor is. Of the $191k that is directly attributable, 71% of it comes from Minnesota funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $868k arriving through sponsors registered in 4 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.
Organizations like WACOSA
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
84% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
98%
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 WACOSA: 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 WACOSA?
- WACOSA (Minnesota) receives grants from 14 organizations whose IRS filings report $1,059,421 to it, the largest being COMMUNITYGIVING ($806,183). 11 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 82% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- How many funders does WACOSA have?
- IRS filings report 14 organizations giving $1,059,421 in grants to WACOSA, 11 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of WACOSA?
- COMMUNITYGIVING is the largest funder on record, with $806,183 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like WACOSA 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 Wacosa →
These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2024 (financials across 2017–2024), and the filings of 14 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