· Private foundation
Bernice E Peterson Scholarship Trust
Its FY2025 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| IOWA CENTRAL COMMUNITY COLLEGE | $9,800 |
| UNIVERSITY OF NORTHERN IOWA | $2,800 |
| BUENA VISTA UNIVERSITY | $2,800 |
| NORTHWESTERN COLLEGE | $1,400 |
| DES MOINES AREA COMMUNITY COLLEGE | $1,400 |
| UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH DAKOTA | $1,400 |
| SOUTH DAKOTA STATE UNIVERSITY | $1,400 |
| IOWA WESTERN COMMUNITY COLLEGE | $1,400 |
| UPPER IOWA UNIVERSITY | $1,400 |
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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY17–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 10%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 95% of your 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.
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.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +12% since the first grant, against +1% for the ones you funded once.
13 repeat relationships — 5 still active in FY2025, 8 since wound down; 4 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, 71% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $7k went to new ones.
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
Buena Vista University3× · 2022–2025 · $7k · revenue +12%- MUMORNINGSIDE UNIVERSITY2× · 2022–2023 · $4k · revenue +3%
- NCNORTHWESTERN COLLEGE2× · 2023–2025 · $3k · revenue +17%
Funded once
- COCLASS OF 2019one grant, 2019 · $45k
- COCLASS OF 2020one grant, 2020 · $36k
- COCLASS OF 2017one grant, 2017 · $35k
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.
Union college is a seventh-day adventist community of higher education, inspired by jesus christ, and dedicated to empowering students to learn, serve, and lead.
As an institution of higher education committed to the reformed christian perspective, dordt university equips students, alumni, and the broader community to work effectively toward christ-centered renewal in all aspects of contemporary…
Inspired by lutheran scholarly tradition and the liberal arts, augustana provides an education of enduring worth that challenges the intellect, fosters integrity and integrates faith with learning and service in a diverse world.
Columbia college improves lives by providing quality education to both traditional and nontraditional students, helping them achieve their true potential.
Hilbert college is an independent institution of higher learning that embraces its catholic franciscan heritage and values. students from diverse backgrounds are educated in liberal arts and professional programs to become informed…
Provides innovative education in a dynamic urban setting. dedicated to academic excellence and community engagement,we prepare students of diverse backgrounds with the knowledge, skill,and experience to lead meaningful lives as informed…
Cornell college offers an innovative and rigorous learning community where faculty and staff collaborate with students to develop the intellectual curiosity, creativity and moral courage necessary for a lifetime of learning and engaged…
The University of New Haven is a student-centered comprehensive university with an emphasis on excellence in liberal arts and professional education. Our mission is to prepare our students to lead purposeful and fulfilling lives in a…
Engages, equips and empowers learners to explore their vocations, fulfill their potential and serve the world.
Steadfast in jesus christ as revealed in the holy scriptures, concordia university chicago promotes academic rigor in its liberal arts and professional programs; grounds students in objective truth, integrity, and excellence; and practices…
Founded in 1902, barton college is a four-year, private, liberal arts college located in wilson, n.c. the barton experience focuses on academic excellence within a wide range of professional and liberal arts programs leading to…
True to our christian heritage, we prepare students from diverse religious, cultural, educational and economic backgrounds to live life fully.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Briar Cliff University and the most unlike its peers is Northwestern College. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
9 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. 9 of the 29 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.
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: Louis J Elbert Trust · Joseph J Sinek Scholarship Trust · Roy J Carver Charitable Trust · United Way Worldwide · Paul & Mary Collins Trust · Willard E and Ella P Thompson Educational Fund · Fahrney Education Fdtn Trust · Bestenlehner D and F Educational Tr · Marguerite V Brown · La Amundson Ohana Foundation · Pella Rolscreen Foundation · Mahana-Cong Church Scholar Found
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 Bernice E Peterson Scholarship Trust 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.