How much does Donlan Foundation give?

Donlan Foundation reported 37 grants totaling $229,220 in its FY2019 IRS filing. It funded between 31 and 35 organizations a year over FY2017 to FY2019.

What does Donlan Foundation fund?

By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2025, its largest causes are Philanthropy (27%), Recreation & Sports (22%), Health (17%).

Who are Donlan Foundation's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2017 to FY2025: The Madonna Foundation ($309k), Lincoln Literacy Council ($179k), Centerpointe Inc ($100k).

Does Donlan Foundation fund new organizations?

In FY2019, 11% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Does Donlan 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 Donlan Foundation?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Lincoln Community Foundation Inc, Cooper Foundation, Abel Foundation.

Where is Donlan Foundation based?

Donlan Foundation is based in KS.

Donlan Foundation

Donlan Foundation at a glance

· Private foundation

Donlan 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.

$229k

Granted FY2019

Grants FY2019

States reached

$59k

Largest

Read this first · the figures below need context

66% of Donlan Foundation’s FY2025 grant dollars went to Lincoln Community Foundation Inc, not to grantees.

Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2025 names 14 organizations directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it. Everything below is therefore FY2019, the last year Donlan Foundation named its own grantees at scale: 26 organizations, $229k. It is dated, not current.

Organizations named directly on the return

’17

’18

’19

’20

’21

’22

’23

’24

’25

Amber years are those where most dollars went to a sponsor.

01What it funds

01100% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2025.

Philanthropy$839kRecreation & Sports$663kHealth$529kEnvironment$434kEducation$255kHuman Services$148kArts & Culture$81kAnimals$29kOther$0

02FY2019 · 37 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2019

Under $10k30 grants · $46k
$10k–50k6 grants · $125k
$50k–250k1 grant · $59k

$1,500

Median grant

States reached

$7.7M

Total assets

Largest grants
Recipient	Amount
LINCOLN PARKS FOUNDATION	$58,500
THE NATURE CONSERVANCY	$40,000
VOICES OF HOPE	$35,000
WICHITA ART MUSEUM	$20,000
MADONNA FOUNDATION	$10,000
PLANNED PARENTHOOD OF THE HEARTLAND	$10,000
MOURNING HOPE GRIEF CENTER	$10,000
NEBRASKA WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY	$5,000
FOLLOW YOUR DREAMS	$5,000
LINCOLN LITERACY	$3,720
FRIENDSHIP HOME	$2,500
GIRL SCOUTS - SPIRIT OF NEBRASKA	$2,500
SALVATION ARMY OF LINCOLN	$2,500
FRESH STARTINC	$2,500
LIGHTHOUSE FOUNDATION	$2,500

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 (FY22–22, $35k) land where the poverty rate runs at 16%, 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.

86%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$1.7M · 41 repeat orgs$271k to everyone else

Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +39% since the first grant, against 0% for those funded once.

41 repeat relationships: 31 still active in FY2019, 10 since wound down; 19 grantees were first funded in FY2019 (too recent to call). Read against FY2019, the last year this funder named its own grantees directly; its giving has since run through a sponsor, which reports no donor behind each grant.

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$1.7M

$271k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+39%

Still filing today

73%

63%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 45% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $51k went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

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

Arts & CultureEducationHealthPhilanthropyEnvironmentAnimalsOther

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

TM
THE MADONNA FOUNDATION
6× · 2017–2022 · $309k · revenue +87%
LL
LINCOLN LITERACY COUNCIL
7× · 2018–2024 · $179k · revenue +322%
NW
NEBRASKA WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY
7× · 2017–2025 · $71k · revenue +21%

Funded once

CI
CENTERPOINTE INC
one grant, 2022 · $100k · revenue -10%
TS
THE SOLIDAGO CONSERVANCY
one grant, 2025 · $50k
PP
PLANNED PARENTHOOD NORTH CENTRAL STATES
one grant, 2022 · $40k

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.

Lincoln Children's Museum

The lincoln children's museum invites children to create, discover and learn through the power of play.

Arts & Culture

The Nebraska Land Trust Inc

To foster the protection of agricultural, historical and natural resources on land in nebraska through education, partnering and permanent conservation.

Environment

Lincoln University Aka Lincoln College

Lincoln college uniquely empowers students to realize their full potential

Education

Urban League of Nebraska

The mission of the urban league of nebraska is to be an empowering voice in the community advocating for economic self-reliance, parity, power, civil rights and equal opportunity for all (see schedule o). the vision of the urban league of…

Human Services

Educare of Lincoln Inc

To help young children thrive socially, emotionally and academically through high-quality early childhood education, and in partnership with their families and the community.

Education

Nebraska Community Foundation

The nebraska community foundation unleashes abundant local assets, inspires charitable giving, and connects ambitious people to build stronger communities and a greater nebraska.

Philanthropy

Lincoln County Community Development Corporation

To promote, facilitate and develop or co-develop affordable housing in lincoln county, nebraska.

Philanthropy

Aclu Nebraska

For over 50 years in nebraska, the aclu has worked in courts, legislatures, and communities to protect the constitutional and individual rights of all people. with a nationwide network of offices and millions of members and supporters,…

—

Museum of Arts and Design

To collect, display and interpret objects in craft art and design.

Arts & Culture

Council of Independent Nebraska Colleges Foundation

The council of indepependent nebraska colleges foundation exists to provide operating funds and scholarship support for students attending nebraska's independent institutions of excellence.

—

Lincoln Land Community College Foundation

Cultivating and stewarding charitable gifts to support lincoln land community college students, programs and services.

Philanthropy

Nebraska State Bar Association

The mission of the nebraska state bar association (nsba) is "helping lawyers help people." the nebraska state bar association works for nebraska lawyers to help them achieve the highest standards of competence, ethics and professionalism…

—

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The Arc of Lincoln; the most unlike its peers is Minnesouri Scholarship Foundation. 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

45 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. 45 of the 62 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)

44/45

Grantees still filing

33/45

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Other$1,307,703Philanthropy$1,131,460Education$256,595Health$162,000Environment$104,050Arts & Culture$77,300Human Services$38,500

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.

Lincoln Community Foundation IncNE57.3× affinity26 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Lincoln Community Foundation Inc · Cooper Foundation · Abel Foundation · Assurity Life Foundation · The Sherwood Foundation · United Way of Lincoln and Lancaster County · D F Dillon Foundation · James Stuart III Family Foundation · Kinder Porter Scott Family Foundation · Rogers Foundation · Lee and Debbie Stuart Family Foundation · Acklie Charitable Foundation

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 Donlan Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Donlan Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

1get no government money at all

11report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)

0rely on government for over half their income

⤢ axis zoomed · 0–30%

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.

05Through Plinth

Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

How do I get to Donlan Foundation?

Find your warmest path to Donlan Foundation 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.

Play a game based on Donlan’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