· Private foundation
Betts Foundation
Its FY2024 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 FY2019–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k3 grants · $3k
- $10k–50k1 grant · $10k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Mind and Spirit Counseling Center | $10,000 |
| Great Outdoor Foundation - ICON Watertrails | $2,000 |
| Scottish Rite Park | $1,100 |
| Community Foundation Greater Des Moines | $250 |
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 (FY19–21, $1k) land where the poverty rate runs at 10%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 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.
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 +29% since the first grant, against -1% for the ones you funded once.
10 repeat relationships — 1 still active in FY2024, 9 since wound down; 2 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (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 FY2024, 76% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $3k 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
- WCWESTMINSTER CHURCH3× · 2019–2021 · $31k
- UWUNITED WAY OF CENTRAL IOWA3× · 2019–2021 · $30k · revenue -19%
- MAMIND AND SPIRIT COUNSELING CENTER2× · 2023–2024 · $11k · revenue -8%
Funded once
DRAKE UNIVERSITYone grant, 2023 · $4k · revenue -1%- GOGREAT OUTDOORS FOUNDATIONone grant, 2022 · $2k · revenue +5%
- DMDES MOINES PERFORMING ARTSone grant, 2019 · $1k · revenue -11%
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.
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.
None
Seeking to build a stronger, more caring community by forming partnerships with businesses, community experts, education & health & human service agencies to achieve targeted outcomes & sustained changes in community conditions which will…
Unite the caring power of communities to invest in effective solutions to improve people's lives.
Raise funds and advocate provide for the des moines public library system.
To improve lives in our global community by educating diverse groups of highly competent and compassionate health professionals.
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.
The foundation is organized to further the growth and development of private colleges and universities of higher education in iowa.
To promote and develop the visitors and convention industry in the greater des moines area and to encourage the utilization of facilities for visitors and conventions.
Upper des moines opportunity, inc. is dedicated to helping build stronger communities by addressing the effects of poverty on individuals and families.upper des moines opportunity, inc. will strengthen communities through: the promotion of…
Engages, equips and empowers learners to explore their vocations, fulfill their potential and serve the world.
Illinois college is a co-educational institution of higher education learning providing a four-year educational program leading to the baccalaureate degree. illinois college is a community committed to the highest standards of scholarship…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Community Fdn of Greater Des Moines F/K/a Greater Des Moines Community Fdn and the most unlike its peers is I Have a Dream Foundation. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
11 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. 11 of the 22 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 UNITED WAY OF CENTRAL IOWA ↗
- Who funds MIND AND SPIRIT COUNSELING CENTER ↗
- Who funds DRAKE UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds ELLIPSIS INC ↗
- Who funds GREAT OUTDOORS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds DES MOINES PERFORMING ARTS ↗
- Who funds JOPPA ↗
- Who funds SCOTTISH RITE PARK INC ↗
- Who funds DES MOINES FILM SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY FDN OF GREATER DES MOINES F/K/A GREATER DES MOINES COMMUNITY FDN ↗
- Who funds I HAVE A DREAM 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: Wt and Edna M Dahl Trust · Mary K and Daniel M Kelly Family Foundation C/O Dan Kelly · The West Bancorporation Foundation Inc · The Merchants Bonding Company Foundation · John Ruan Foundation Trust · R & R Realty Group Foundation · Meredith Corporation Foundation · The Blackbaud Giving Fund · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund
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 Betts 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.