The Constellation Fund
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 824027046
- IRS 990 coverage
- 2018–2024
- Forms available
- Form 990 2024
- Location
- Minneapolis, MN, USA
- Phone
- 6122631737
- Rating
- 80
- Verdict
- STRONG
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
- Sector
- Fund Raising and Fund Distribution
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $8,272,116
- Expenses
- $7,558,621
- Assets
- $8,060,983
- Liabilities
- $35,556
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2024. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
22 people listed
Executive titles in this filing
- Andrew Dayton (CEO/Treasurer/Secretary)
- Saanii Hernandez (President)
- Matthew Morton (Executive Director)
Highest reported compensation
- Matthew Morton (Executive Director): $259,414 total reported compensation
- Saanii Hernandez (President): $198,885 total reported compensation
- Chris Wentzlaff (VP of Advancement): $178,384 total reported compensation
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2024. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.
Overview
Mission
Fight poverty in the Twin Cities by raising the living standards of individuals living below the poverty line in our seven-county metropolitan area.
What it reported doing in 2024
The Constellation Fund is built to harness the incisive power of modern analytics alongside on-the-ground insights to allocate precious philanthropic resources to the people and partners creating the most impact in the fight against poverty in the Twin Cities. We use quantitative metrics alongside qualitative analysis to select our grantee partners. Our metrics are built using the best available evidence to develop metrics that allow Constellation to reliably project the long-term quality-of-life impact of poverty-fighting services resulting in a benefit-cost ratio used to help objectively build a portfolio of the most impactful organizations across a broad spectrum of programs and interventions. In fiscal year 2025, this approach led Constellation to invest over $3.5 million into 26 poverty-fighting organizations working across four impact areas - education, employment, health, and housing. Constellation's evidence-driven analysis projects that these organizations will turn every dollar of that investment into an average of $8.02 of lifetime health and income improvements for individuals and families experiencing poverty in our community. The average projected impact of the organizations receiving Constellation funding last year was nearly four times greater than the average of $2.18-to-1 for all other organizations that we evaluated in FY2025.The Constellation Fund continues to expand the reach of our signature capacity building program, Beyond Dollars. Beyond Dollars creates best-in-class pro bono experiences through curated teams of volunteer employees from Fortune 500 corporations to mid-sized companies, who deliver unparalleled capacity-building services to our impactful partners.CoLab (Constellation Lab) aims to bolster upward mobility and thriving communities by funding and supporting actionable, longitudinal research on programs, practices, and their effects. Better data will support evidence-informed funding and community efforts to strengthen and scale solutions for children, youth, and families.
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Donor-supported. 97% of the money available for current operations came from contributions and gifts.
- Distribution model
- Hybrid. The nonprofit split its reported program spending across 45% for direct work, and 55% for grants.
- Includes noncash contributions: Reported contributions include donated property or goods.
The verdict
STRONG - A large share of available resources goes toward mission work and the filed numbers largely add up. Fundraising costs are high for each dollar raised and some filing-based governance responses are negative or unanswered.
Rating breakdown
- Financial Efficiency: 78
- Transparency & Controls: 75
- Accountability: 95
- Sustainability: 53
- Growth: 100
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 78.4%; rating input score 78
- Program expense ratio: 85.1%; rating input score 85
- Fundraising efficiency: $16.33 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 53; 53rd percentile among comparable filings
Transparency & Controls
- Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 63rd percentile among comparable filings
- Pay-setting controls: 1 of 6 controls in place; rating input score 17
- Compensation committee: Missing
- Independent consultant: Missing
- Other Form 990s reviewed: Missing
- Written employment contract: Missing
- Compensation survey or study: Missing
- Board or committee approval: Pass
- Foreign activity oversight: Limited
- Grant itemization coverage: 100%; rating input score 100; 72nd percentile among comparable filings
- Major donor itemization: Yes; rating input score 100
- Related-party transparency: Limited
Accountability
- Independent voting board: 100%; rating input score 100; 63rd percentile among comparable filings
- Governance controls: 8 of 9 controls in place; rating input score 89
- Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
- Whistleblower policy: Pass
- Document-retention policy: Pass
- CEO compensation review process: Pass
- Other executive compensation review process: Fail
- Form 990 shared with the board: Pass
- Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
- Audit committee oversight: Pass
- Independent financial-statement audit: Pass
Sustainability
- Operating margin: 8.6%; rating input score 60; 60th percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 1.07; rating input score 39; 39th percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: 0; rating input score 89; 89th percentile among comparable filings
- Officer compensation ratio: 11.8%; rating input score 25; 25th percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: 22.5% per year; rating input score 100; 88th percentile among comparable filings
- Revenue growth: 7% per year; rating input score 100; 55th percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: 7.5% per year; rating input score 100; 47th percentile among comparable filings
Details
- Where the money goes: 78.4% of revenue deployed · 85.1% of spending went to programs
- Governance: 17 of 17 board members independent · 8 of 9 filing controls reported
- Programs: 1 filed program accomplishment · $6.4M in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $259K · 22 people listed · 1 of 6 pay-setting controls reported
- Highest-paid contractors: 2 contractors listed · $325K reported
- Consistency: 32 of 32 current checks pass
- Schedules: 8 filed schedules · includes major donors, grants, and executive pay
- Filing history: 7 filing years from 2018 to 2024
- Contacts: How to reach this organization
- Money network: 31 filed money-flow records
- Related organizations: 26 filed related-organization links
- Grant readiness: Federal tax and exclusion status, award history, and grant-maker relationships.
- People: Everyone the filings name, and which of them the filings identify by more than a name.
Key Signals
Signals prioritize questions for review. They are not findings of misconduct.
- Review — Financial Efficiency: Fundraising efficiency scored 53/100.
- Review — Accountability: Governance controls: Other executive compensation review process not reported.
- Moderate — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 39/100.
- High — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 25/100.