· Private foundation
Donald and Lorena Meier Fdn
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
- $10k–50k6 grants · $104k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $80k
- $250k+1 grant · $306k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA FOUNDATION | $305,611 |
| COLORADO STATE UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION | $80,000 |
| KEARNEY AREA COMMUNITY FOUNDATION | $25,000 |
| HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF ROYALSTON | $20,000 |
| MISSION COMPASSION PAW INC | $15,000 |
| MARQUETTE UNIVERSITY | $15,000 |
| LITTLE HEROES LEAGUE | $15,000 |
| HAVE DREAMS | $14,291 |
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 13%, against an area that typically sits at 12%. 97% 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 +16% since the first grant, against +7% for the ones you funded once.
8 repeat relationships — 6 still active in FY2025, 2 since wound down; 1 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, 96% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $20k 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
- UOUNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA FOUNDATION6× · 2020–2025 · $1.7M · revenue +31%
- HDHAVE DREAMS4× · 2022–2025 · $69k · revenue +13%
- LHLittle Heroes League3× · 2023–2025 · $50k · revenue +16%
Funded once
- UJUIC John Marshall Law Schoolone grant, 2020 · $100k
- DUDEPAUL UNIVERSITYone grant, 2020 · $100k · revenue +7%
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2023 · $75k
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.
Saint xavier university, a catholic institution inspired by the heritage of the sisters of mercy, educates persons to search for truth, think critically, communicate effectively and serve wisely and compassionately in support of human…
The nmu foundation will establish and foster relationships to generate resources that benefit the strategic goals of northern michigan university.
Nebraska wesleyan university is an academic community dedicated to intellectual and personal growth within the context of a liberal arts education and in an environment of christian concern.
To educate students to be ethical and socially responsible leaders in a global community.
Depauw university develops leaders the world needs through an uncommon commitment to the liberal arts. depauw's diverse and inclusive learning and living experience, distinctive in its rigorous intellectual engagement and its global and…
Avila university, a catholic university sponsored by saint joseph educational ministries, a ministerial public juridic person of the catholic church (sjem), is a values-based community of learning providing liberal arts, professional,…
Mount mary university, an urban catholic university for women sponsored by the school sisters of notre dame, provides an environment for the development of the whole person. the university encourages leadership, integrity, and a deep sense…
The niu foundation's mission is to energize and connect the private sector with the niu community to secure and steward resources that support the future and growth of niu.
Delivers affordable, accessible, and relevant higher education programs.
Manhattan university is an independent catholic instituion of higher learning that embraces qualified men and women of all faiths, cultures, and traditions. the mission of manhattan university is to provide a contemporary, person-centered…
Drury University is an independent university, church-related, grounded in the liberal arts tradition and committed to personalized education in a community of scholars who value the arts of teaching and learning. (Continued on Schedule O)
Benedictine University is an inclusive academic community dedicated to teaching and learning, scholarship and service, truth and justice, as inspired by the Catholic intellectual tradition, the social teaching of the Church, and the…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is University of Nebraska Foundation and the most unlike its peers is National Audubon Society Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
12 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. 12 of the 18 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 UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds COLORADO STATE UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds DEPAUL UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds HAVE DREAMS ↗
- Who funds Little Heroes League ↗
- Who funds KEARNEY AREA COMMUNITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL AUDUBON SOCIETY INC ↗
- Who funds Marquette University ↗
- Who funds MERIT SCHOOL OF MUSIC ↗
- Who funds MISSION COMPASSION PAW INC ↗
- Who funds ERIE ELEMENTARY CHARTER SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds NEBRASKA PUBLIC MEDIA FOUNDATION 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: American Endowment Foundation · National Philanthropic Trust · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Amazonsmile 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 Donald and Lorena Meier Fdn 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.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to Donald and Lorena Meier Fdn?
Find your warmest path to Donald and Lorena Meier Fdn through trustees and officers whose names appear on both boards. Search for your organization and Plinth traces the shortest route it can evidence.
Each link is a name appearing on two organizations’ public IRS 990 filings, matched on that name and, where the filings support it, on location. A same-state match has geographic support, which is a second matching feature rather than confirmation that the two are one person; a cross-state one is the likeliest to be two people who share a name. Every hop shows its tier, low-confidence and distant paths are held back rather than guessed, and it is worth confirming the person before you use the introduction.