· Private foundation
Brenton 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.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k15 grants · $25k
- $10k–50k4 grants · $61k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| BRENTON ARBORETUM | $28,500 |
| GREATER DES MOINES BOTANICAL GARDEN | $11,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $11,000 |
| DES MOINES METRO OPERA | $10,000 |
| SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION | $5,000 |
| ABOVE AND BEYOND CENTER | $5,000 |
| THE OUTREACH PROGRAM | $5,000 |
| NANTUCKET SWIM ACROSS AMERICA | $2,500 |
| LAKE MINNETONKA GARDEN CLUB | $2,000 |
| DES MOINES PUBLIC LIBRARY FOUNDATION | $1,000 |
| MISSION ANIMAL HOSPITAL | $1,000 |
| DALLAS CENTER FOOD PANTRY | $1,000 |
| SAILDC | $500 |
| YMCA OF GREATER DES MOINES | $500 |
| DALLAS CENTER CELEBRATIONS INC | $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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY20–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 7%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 32% of your dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants skew toward lower-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 +31% since the first grant, against +21% for the ones you funded once.
25 repeat relationships — 11 still active in FY2025, 14 since wound down; 8 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, 68% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $27k 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
- BABRENTON ARBORETUM INC6× · 2020–2025 · $158k · revenue +4%
- DMDES MOINES METRO OPERA INC6× · 2020–2025 · $89k · revenue +89%
- GDGREATER DES MOINES BOTANICAL GARDEN5× · 2021–2025 · $40k · revenue +294%
Funded once
- DCDALLAS CENTER PUBLIC LIBRARYFOUNDATIONone grant, 2020 · $25k
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2020 · $6k
- IAIOWA ARBORETUM INCgraduatedone grant, 2020 · $5k · revenue +69%
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…
To excite, engage & educate constituents through the presentation of collections, exhibitions, and programming; to form mutually beneficial partnerships that will enhance the role of the arts within the community.
To excite, engage and educate through the arts.
Our mission is to inspire the iowa city area to be greater by: 1) elevating business, 2) investing in strategic initiatives, and 3) advocating for the economic resiliency of the greater community.
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.
To collect, display and interpret objects in craft art and design.
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 become a cherished destination for all, where vibrant gardens create transformative experiences that connect people, inspire learning, and deepen appreciation for nature.
We believe in thoughtful, ecologically-minded practices and the curation of accessible, educational, and inspirational experiences that enhance lives.
The museum of danish america explores the danish-american experience, the historic and modern influences of denmark on the united states, and the continuing story of how a nation of immigrants shape american identity.
Engage the midwest in meaningful entertainment, education, and cultural activities. provide performing arts experiences that educate, inspire and challenge.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Iowa Arboretum Inc and the most unlike its peers is Nature Sacred. 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 50 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 — 3% 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.
29 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. 29 of the 46 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 BRENTON ARBORETUM INC ↗
- Who funds DES MOINES METRO OPERA INC ↗
- Who funds GREATER DES MOINES BOTANICAL GARDEN ↗
- Who funds Edmundson Art Foundation Inc ↗
- Who funds SPURGEON MANOR INC ↗
- Who funds THE NATURE CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds MISSION ANIMAL HOSPITAL ↗
- Who funds NATURE SACRED ↗
- Who funds MILLBROOK SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds OUTREACH INC ↗
- Who funds DES MOINES SYMPHONY ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds IOWA ARBORETUM INC ↗
- Who funds ABOVE AND BEYOND CANCER INC ↗
- Who funds DES MOINES PUBLIC LIBRARY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds PLANNED PARENTHOOD OF THE HEARTLAND INC ↗
- Who funds SECOND HARVEST HEARTLAND ↗
- Who funds SALISBURY HOUSE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds SCIENCE CENTER OF IOWA ↗
- Who funds BLANK PARK ZOO FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds FOOD BANK OF IOWA ↗
- Who funds HUNGER FREE DALLAS COUNTY ↗
- Who funds LAKE MINNETONKA GARDEN CLUB ↗
- Who funds GREATER DES MOINES PUBLIC ART FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds IOWA PUBLIC RADIO INC ↗
- Who funds THE YOUNG MENS CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION OF GREATER DES MOINES ↗
- Who funds VOICES OF ASCENSION INC ↗
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: Meredith Corporation Foundation · Community Fdn of Greater Des Moines F/K/A Greater Des Moines Community Fdn · Gartner Family Foundation % Michael G Gartner · Bookey Family Foundation · EMC Insurance Foundation · Prairie Meadows Race Track and Casino Inc · The Levitt Foundation · John Ruan Foundation Trust · William C Knapp Charitable Fdn · Mary K and Daniel M Kelly Family Foundation C/O Dan Kelly · Weathertop Foundation F/K/A Thomas Nelson Urban Jr · The Merchants Bonding Company Foundation
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 Brenton 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.