· Private foundation
Benson Family Foundation
Its FY2025 filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and did not take unsolicited requests; check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2020–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| FIRST UNITARIAN CHURCH OF DES MOINES | $1,000 |
| ANIMAL RESCUE LEAGUE | $700 |
| IOWA WILD BIRD REHABILITATION | $600 |
| FOOD BANK OF IOWA | $500 |
| MIND & SPIRIT COUNSELING CENTER | $250 |
| THE SALVATION ARMY | $200 |
| HOPE MINISTRIES | $200 |
| WING HAVEN FOUNDATION | $200 |
| Individual grant recipient | $200 |
| PERRY LUTHERAN HOME | $200 |
| SEED SAVERS EXCHANGE | $100 |
| HEIFER INTERNATIONAL | $100 |
| SPECIAL OLYMPICS IOWA | $100 |
| WESLEY LIFE | $100 |
| PUPPY JAKE FOUNDATION | $100 |
Do your dollars go where the need is?
Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, then read against the area’s typical level.
Your human-services grants (FY20–25, $1k) land where the poverty rate runs at 10%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 100% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of your grants land in higher-need ZIPs.
Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty linein the grantee’s ZIP, averaged from the tracts in that ZIP; grantee ZIP can differ from where services are delivered.
Which US states your grants reach
US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are actually delivered. Need from public data — U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA — shown as context about the area, never attributed to your giving.
Who you back again
Which organizations you funded more than once, and which you funded a single time. Each grantee is matched to its own filings.
28 repeat relationships — 13 still active in FY2025, 15 since wound down; 3 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).
How the two cohorts compare
Organizations
Total granted
Median revenue growth · since first grant
Still filing today
New vs renewed · share of each year
In FY2025, 72% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $1k went to new ones.
Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant
First-time = a grantee’s first year in your filing window; renewed = funded in an earlier year too. As a portfolio matures the renewed share naturally climbs — once funded, an org stays “renewable” — so the signal is the years that buck it (a new-grantee intake wave). The earliest year is left-censored: relationships that predate the data read as “new.” Theme is the grantee’s IRS cause.
Backed again, and grew
- FBFOOD BANK OF IOWA5× · 2021–2025 · $3k · revenue +9%
- HMHOPE MINISTRIES6× · 2020–2025 · $2k · revenue +7%
- PJPUPPY JAKE FOUNDATION6× · 2020–2025 · $1k · revenue +47%
Funded once
- FBFOOD BANKone grant, 2020 · $600
- 1F1000 FRIENDS OF IOWAone grant, 2024 · $500 · revenue -14%
ST JUDE CHILDREN'S RESEARCH HOSPITAL INCgraduatedone grant, 2021 · $300 · revenue +74%
Repeat = funded in two or more distinct years; growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.
The map has a center of gravity: the average direction from the rest of the sector toward the organizations the foundation funds — the shape of its giving. Scoring every nonprofit along that direction surfaces the ones that look most like the portfolio. These are the closest matchesthat aren’t grantees — a resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.
This member-supported organization protects and restores iowa's land, water and wildlife for future generations. priorities include permanent land protection, promotion of improved land management and bringing new conservation…
Common good iowa engages iowans to create and advocate for research-based public policy that makes life better and more equitable for all who make iowa home.
Midwest dairy works with others to give consumers an excellent dairy experience increasing sales, fostering innovation, and inspiring consumer confidence of dairy products and practices.
To promote the common business interests of member companies without profit and without the inuring of income to the benefit of any member company or individual. to present the executive, legislative, judicial and regulatory bodies…
Unite the caring power of communities to invest in effective solutions to improve people's lives.
To provide high-quality and compassionate care to community members approaching the end of life.
The iowa soybean association (isa) is driven to deliver increased soybean demand through market development and new uses, farmer-focused research and results, timely information and know-how, and policy initiatives enabling farmers and the…
The foundation works to defend and promote the constitution of the united states, focusing especially on the first, fourth, fifth, sixth, eighth, and 14th amendments. the foundation also works to defend and promote the constitution of the…
The npr foundation ("foundation") is organized and operated exclusively for the benefit of its sole supported organization, national public radio, inc. ("npr inc."). the foundation supports npr inc. through various activities such as…
Providing innovative and life-enriching services for children, adolescents, and adults with disabilities.
A nonprofit scientific research organization that develops vaccines and antibodies for hiv, tuberculosis, and emerging infectious diseases.
The mission of denver botanic gardens is to connect people with plants, especially plants from the rocky mountain region and similar regions around the world, providing delight and enlightenment to everyone.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Special Olympics Iowa Inc and the most unlike its peers is The Rolling Dog Farm. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
For each theme you fund, this compares how the sector’s money is shifting with how your own giving is shifting.
Sector change and giving change are each shown relative to their own range, growing (right) or shrinking (left); both normalized, so inflation isn’t mistaken for growth.
Your grantees are a median of 40 years old; the field is 38. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 13% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 6% of the field you don’t fund.
Age = years since IRS exemption (a founding proxy). “Closed” = auto-revocation for 3 years of non-filing — a floor on closure, not proof, and bigger established orgs lapse least. Association, not causation.
32 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.
Each one resolved to its own IRS returns and tracked year by year — your grant beside their revenue from every source. Association, dated; never a causal claim.
Counted here: distinct organizations you funded across 2017–2025, not grant rows in a single year — so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 32 of the 55 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile; the rest are funded organizations whose filings we could not track year by year.
Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee
Each org by its size and your share of it — top-left is where you’re load-bearing
Go grantee by grantee — a decade per org, and how each moved after you funded them
A decade per grantee — revenue shaded, your grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.
- Who funds FOOD BANK OF IOWA ↗
- Who funds HOPE MINISTRIES ↗
- Who funds PUPPY JAKE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds MIND AND SPIRIT COUNSELING CENTER ↗
- Who funds Wing Haven Foundation Inc DBA Wing Haven Garden & Bird Sanctuary ↗
- Who funds STREET COLLECTIVE ↗
- Who funds THE ROLLING DOG FARM ↗
- Who funds SEED SAVERS EXCHANGE INC ↗
- Who funds DES MOINES PUBLIC LIBRARY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds 1000 FRIENDS OF IOWA ↗
- Who funds ON WITH LIFE INC ↗
- Who funds Lutheran Home for the Aged Association - West ↗
- Who funds GREATER DES MOINES BOTANICAL GARDEN ↗
- Who funds IOWA PUBLIC RADIO INC ↗
- Who funds GUIDE DOG FOUNDATION FOR THE BLIND INC ↗
- Who funds CHILDSERVE INC ↗
- Who funds Wreaths Across America ↗
- Who funds ST JUDE CHILDREN'S RESEARCH HOSPITAL INC ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL PARK FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds WESLEYLIFE ↗
- Who funds BEAVERDALE FALL FESTIVAL ↗
- Who funds DMACC FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Bread For The World Inc ↗
- Who funds BEACON OF LIFE D/B/A THE BEACON ↗
- Who funds STEPHEN SILLER TUNNEL TO TOWERS FOUNDATION ↗
The grantmakers whose grantees overlap with yours far more than size alone predicts. Each orbits closer the stronger the alignment; the arcs between them show where they also fund each other. Here it reads as a tightly interlocked camp — most of these funders back each other's grantees too.
Open a dossier: Prairie Meadows Race Track and Casino Inc · Meredith Corporation Foundation · The Merchants Bonding Company Foundation · Community Fdn of Greater Des Moines F/K/A Greater Des Moines Community Fdn · Gartner Family Foundation % Michael G Gartner · Fred Maytag Family Foundation · Bookey Family Foundation · EMC Insurance Foundation · Pella Rolscreen Foundation · Thomas & Linda Koehn Foundation · John Ruan Foundation Trust · Alliant Energy Foundation Inc
Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. A research starting point: overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.
Government reliance of your grantees
Every dot is one organization Benson Family Foundation funds. Left–right is the share of its income from government; up–down is the share from you. Bigger dots raise more. Filter to federal or a single department — and drag the year to watch it move.
Government income is each org’s traced federal awards (USASpending — grants and contracts) plus state payments (open checkbooks) as a share of its total revenue (IRS Form 990); the self-reported government-grant line (990 line 1e) is carried for cross-check: a grantee that reports government grants we could not trace to a source is left off the chart rather than shown as receiving none. An association, not a claim that your grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first — a floor, not a census; state records exist for 9 states, so a grantee outside them shows no state figure (dimmed) rather than a false zero. Federal award amounts are obligations, which can span years, so a single-year share is indicative. 990 filings lag 12–24 months.