How much does Benson Family Foundation give?

Benson Family Foundation reported 16 grants totaling $4,650 in its FY2025 IRS filing. It funded between 22 and 27 organizations a year over FY2020 to FY2024.

What does Benson Family Foundation fund?

By grant dollars over FY2020 to FY2025, its largest causes are Animals (25%), Food & Nutrition (18%), Health (13%).

Who are Benson Family Foundation's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2020 to FY2025: Food Bank of Iowa ($3k), Hope Ministries ($2k), Puppy Jake Foundation ($1k).

Does Benson Family Foundation fund new organizations?

In FY2024, 27% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Does Benson Family Foundation accept unsolicited applications?

Its most recent filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and does not take unsolicited requests. Check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.

Which funders back the same organizations as Benson Family Foundation?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Prairie Meadows Race Track and Casino Inc, Meredith Corporation Foundation, The Merchants Bonding Company Foundation.

Where is Benson Family Foundation based?

Benson Family Foundation is based in IA.

Benson Family Foundation

Benson Family Foundation at a glance

· 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.

$5k

Granted FY2025still arriving

Grants FY2025still arriving

States reached

$1k

Largest

01What it funds

0199% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2020 to 2025.

Animals$8kFood & Nutrition$6kHealth$4kReligion$4kHuman Services$4kEnvironment$2kEducation$2kArts & Culture$750Other$0

02FY2025 · 16 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

$200

Median grant

States reached

$101k

Total assets

Largest grants
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
VFW AUXILIARY	$200
HOPE MINISTRIES	$200
WING HAVEN FOUNDATION	$200
PERRY LUTHERAN HOME	$200
SEED SAVERS EXCHANGE	$100
HEIFER INTERNATIONAL	$100
SPECIAL OLYMPICS IOWA	$100
WESLEY LIFE	$100
CHILD SERVE	$100

02The need

Does the money reach high-need areas?

Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.

show:

Its 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 its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount

How this is measured

Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty line in the grantee’s ZIP, averaged from the tracts in that ZIP.

Which US states its grants reach

How this is measured

US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are delivered. Need from public data (U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA), shown as context about the area, never attributed to the funder’s giving.

03Its grantees

repeat funding

Who it funds again

Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.

83%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$27k · 28 repeat orgs$6k to everyone else

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

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$27k

$4k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+20%

+26%

Still filing today

68%

50%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 72% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $1k went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant

HealthEnvironmentHuman ServicesAnimalsCommunity ImprovementFood & NutritionOther

How this is measured

First-time means a grantee’s first year in the filing window; renewed means funded in an earlier year too. The renewed share climbs naturally as a portfolio matures, so the signal is a year that bucks it (a wave of new grantees). 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

FB
FOOD BANK OF IOWA
5× · 2021–2025 · $3k · revenue +9%
HM
HOPE MINISTRIES
6× · 2020–2025 · $2k · revenue +7%
PJ
PUPPY JAKE FOUNDATION
6× · 2020–2025 · $1k · revenue +47%

Funded once

FB
FOOD BANK
one grant, 2020 · $600
1F
1000 FRIENDS OF IOWA
one grant, 2024 · $500 · revenue -14%
ST JUDE CHILDREN'S RESEARCH HOSPITAL INCgraduated
one grant, 2021 · $300 · revenue +74%

How this is measured

Repeat means funded in two or more distinct years. Growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.

04Its field

Closest unfunded matches

The nonprofits that most resemble its grantees but are not funded by it, scored along the direction from the rest of the field toward the portfolio. A resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.

Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation

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…

Environment

Common Good Iowa

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 Association

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.

—

Iowa Renewable Fuels Association

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…

Community Improvement

United Way of East Central Iowa

Unite the caring power of communities to invest in effective solutions to improve people's lives.

Philanthropy

Iowa City Hospice Inc

To provide high-quality and compassionate care to community members approaching the end of life.

Human Services

Iowa Soybean Association

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…

—

American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Iowa

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…

Civil Rights

Npr Foundation

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…

—

Homeward Bound Inc

Providing innovative and life-enriching services for children, adolescents, and adults with disabilities.

Human Services

International Aids Vaccine Initiative Inc

A nonprofit scientific research organization that develops vaccines and antibodies for hiv, tuberculosis, and emerging infectious diseases.

International

Denver Botanic Gardens Inc

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.

Environment

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Special Olympics Iowa Inc; 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.

04the grantee network

32 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.

Each grant beside the grantee’s revenue from every source, year by year.

How this is measured

Counted here: distinct organizations funded across 2017 to 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.

Each grantee is resolved to its own IRS returns. Association, dated; never a causal claim.

Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)

Early backer (in before they grew)

32/32

Grantees still filing

25/32

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Other$21,592Food & Nutrition$3,925Human Services$2,700Animals$1,700Environment$1,150Health$1,000Community Improvement$975

Each grantee by its size and the funder’s share of it; top left is load-bearing

Grantee by grantee: a decade per organization, before and after funding

A decade per grantee: revenue shaded, grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.

Co-funders

Grantmakers whose grantees overlap with this funder’s far more than size alone predicts. Closer means stronger alignment; arcs show where they also fund each other. Here they form a tightly interlocked group: most of these funders back each other's grantees too.

Prairie Meadows Race Track and Casino IncIA27.8× affinity11 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

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

How this is measured

Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. Overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.

How much its grantees rely on government

Each dot is one organization Benson Family Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Benson Family Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

0get no government money at all

9report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)

0rely on government for over half their income

⤢ axis zoomed · 0–25%

typical government reliance, FY20–25

How this is measured

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 a grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first, a floor rather than 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 to 24 months.

Play a game based on Benson Family’s filings →

More from the funding graph

The unnamed billions

grants reported with no recipient in the public record

The regranting layer

51% of grant dollars land in the regranting layer

The DAF merry-go-round

$9.7B circulates between donor-advised funds

The endowment market

who holds foundation money, and what just moved

The camps

funders cluster by geography, not ideology

By state

where grant money is based, and what stays home