Northfield Shares
Northfield, MN · EIN 27-3080430. Reported 61 grants totalling $3,316,113 to 33 organizations across tax years 2021-2024, on Form 990 Schedule I.
Does this grantmaker accept applications?
Its tax return does not say, and we will not guess. Private foundations file Form 990-PF, which asks outright whether they fund only organizations they select themselves -- 78% say yes, and that one answer is what lets the rest of this site tell you which foundations are worth approaching. Grantmaking charities like this one file a regular Form 990 instead, and the IRS never puts the question to them. Anyone claiming to know the answer from the filing is inventing it.
Three things in the filing do bear on it:
- What kind of organization it is. For Northfield Shares, the IRS classifies it as a public foundation -- a grantmaker that raises its money from many sources rather than from one donor (NTEE T30).
- How spread out its giving is. 33 distinct organizations, with 15% of the dollars going to the largest single recipient. That is genuinely spread out -- the mark of a funder making many independent decisions rather than underwriting one institution.
- How much its list changes. 57% of one year's grantees are funded again the next, across 3 year-to-year transitions. That is about the 57% median for grantmaking charities -- noticeably lower than the 67% private foundations manage. Organizations like this one rotate more of their list each year, which is where an opening for a newcomer tends to be.
How big are its grants?
The median reported grant is $13,000. Half of what it reported fell between $10,000 and $24,042; the smallest was $6,000 and the largest $493,579. If you are asking for materially more than the top of that range, you are asking the wrong organization.
Every organization it funded
This is the complete list from its filings, largest first. Recipients are grouped by the EIN the filer reported, not by name, so an organization that was typed differently in two years appears once rather than twice.
| Organization | Location | Total received | Grants | Years funded | Last |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| St Olaf College | Northfield, MN | $493,579 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| American Friends of Asian Rural Institute Inc | Austin, TX | $488,579 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Doane University | Crete, NE | $488,579 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| First United Church of Christ | Northfield, MN | $488,579 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Carleton College | Northfield, MN | $145,740 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Center for Courage & Renewal | Greenville, SC | $140,000 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| College of Wooster | Wooster, OH | $137,100 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Northfield United Methodist | Northfield, MN | $137,100 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Northfield Healthy Community Initiative | Northfield, MN | $101,445 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| Eastman School of Music | Rochester, NY | $82,260 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| University of Minnesota Foundation | Minneapolis, MN | $67,038 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Community Action Center Inc | Northfield, MN | $59,988 | 3 | 3 | 2024 |
| Great River Shakespeare Festival | Winona, MN | $54,400 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| Northfield Senior Citizens Inc | Northfield, MN | $52,417 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| Rotary Club of Northfield | Northfield, MN | $50,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Women in Northfield Giving Support (wings) | Northfield, MN | $49,817 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| Healthfinders Collaborative Inc | Northfield, MN | $36,000 | 3 | 3 | 2023 |
| Clean River Partners Inc | Northfield, MN | $34,850 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| St Johns Lutheran Church | Northfield, MN | $27,000 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| St John's Lutheran Church | Northfield, MN | $26,000 | 2 | 2 | 2022 |
| Northfield Arts Guild | Northfield, MN | $21,000 | 2 | 2 | 2022 |
| Dam Preservation Corporation | Owatonna, MN | $20,800 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Rice County Neighbors United of Northfield | Northfield, MN | $19,000 | 2 | 2 | 2023 |
| St Olaf College | Northfield, MN | $16,511 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| St Dominic School | Northfield, MN | $14,908 | 2 | 2 | 2023 |
| Opportunity International Inc | Chicago, IL | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Project Friendship Inc | Northfield, MN | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Filmnorth | Saint Paul, MN | $8,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Matter | St Louis Park, MN | $8,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Sharing Our Roots | Northfield, MN | $8,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Northfield Shares | Northfield, MN | $6,800 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Northfield Area Family YMCA | Northfield, MN | $6,623 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Dakota Prairie Adult Basic Education | Northfieldd, MN | $6,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
14 of 33 (42%) received money in more than one year over the 4 years we hold. Remember the $5,000 floor: an organization funded every year at $3,000 shows up here as never funded at all.
What the money was for
Taken verbatim from the purpose column of its filings, largest first. This is the closest thing to a statement of what it funds, in its own words.
- University of Minnesota
MS ACHIEVEMENT CENTER FUND #23692 - Community Action Center
HILLCREST VILLAGE, OPERATING AND YOUTH EMERGENCY CENTER - St Olaf College
EQUALLY SPLIT BETWEEN NURSING PROGRAM & CLASSICS DEPT - Great River Shakespeare Festival
$10K STAGE, $3,600 ONGOING SUPPORT - Dakota Prairie Adult Basic Education
NORTHFIELD ADULT ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNER PROGRAM GROWTH
What kind of organizations it funds
By each recipient's own IRS classification, for the 20 of 33 recipients we could match to a registered organization. These are assigned categories, not our guesses -- Schedule I reports the recipient's EIN, so this is a lookup rather than a name match.
Giving by year
| Tax year | Grants reported | Total | Median grant |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 19 | $2,167,453 | $13,000 |
| 2022 | 12 | $150,857 | $11,500 |
| 2023 | 14 | $168,638 | $11,764 |
| 2024 | 16 | $829,165 | $22,564 |
Tax years, not calendar years, and the most recent year is usually incomplete -- Form 990 arrives about a year after the year it covers, so a low final year means late paperwork rather than a grantmaker winding down.
Where its money goes
59% of its giving went to organizations in Minnesota. Community foundations and federated funds are usually the most geographically bounded funders there are -- being outside the footprint is normally disqualifying in a way that a weak programme fit is not.
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Funders that support the same organizations
These grantmakers and private foundations gave to organizations this one also funded. Shared grantees are the strongest signal available that two funders have overlapping priorities -- and a funder already backing your peers is a far warmer prospect than one that merely lists your cause.
How to approach this grantmaker
- Look for a published programme first. Unlike most private foundations, organizations of this kind often do run open, deadlined grant cycles with written guidelines. Its own website is the authority on that; this page is the authority on who it has actually paid.
- Check you are its size. The median reported grant is $13,000 -- and because grants under $5,000 need not be reported, it very likely writes smaller cheques than this page can see.
- Check you are in its geography. Its giving concentrates in Minnesota.
- Read the recipient list for organizations like yours. If nothing on it resembles your work, that is a real answer and a cheap one to get.
Related guides
Where these numbers come from
Everything above is taken from Northfield Shares's own Form 990 Schedule I filings, which the IRS publishes in bulk. We used 4 returns (tax years 2021-2024). Nothing here is scraped, inferred or estimated.
Address of record on the latest return: Po Box 802, Northfield, MN, 55057.
EIN 27-3080430 · See the original filings on ProPublica · How we build this
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