· Private foundation
Empowering Others the Signature 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 FY2021–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k5 grants · $25k
- $10k–50k2 grants · $35k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| HOPE MINISTRIES | $25,000 |
| RONALD MCDONALD HOUSE CHARITIES | $10,000 |
| ORCHARD PLACE | $7,500 |
| HOME OPPORTUNITIES MADE EASY INC | $7,500 |
| Individual grant recipient | $5,000 |
| PINKY SWEAR FOUNDATION | $3,000 |
| MAKE-A-WISH FOUNDATION | $2,000 |
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 (FY25–25, $3k) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 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.
Where the work is directed
The same grants, placed two ways — where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose earmarks the money.
About 74% of Empowering Others the Signature Foundation’s grant dollars are earmarked, by their stated purpose, for a different county than the recipient’s own address — money that lands at a nonprofit in one place but is meant to do its work in another. Read by recipient address, 92% of the giving stays in IA; read by stated purpose it is 68% — less of the work is directed home than the recipients' locations suggest.
Recipient view: each grant at its grantee’s ZIP, mapped to a county. Directed view: each grant at the county its stated purpose names, falling back to the recipient’s county when the purpose names no place; US grants only. A county shows only if it carries the top 95% of that view’s dollars. Purposes are read from the foundation’s own 990 grant descriptions.
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.
Connecting families affected by childhood cancer by providing opportunities that encourage relationships and strengthen community.
To provide a "home away from home and offer support to families seeking medical care for their children.
Children's physicians delivers the highest quality pediatric primary care while supporting education and research.
Ronald mcdonald house charities of greater washington, dc (rmhcdc) provides essential services that remove barriers, strengthen families, and promote healing when children need healthcare.
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.
Ronald McDonald House Charities of Greater Charlotte (RMHC of GC) provides essential services that remove barriers, strengthen families, and promote healing when children need healthcare. Charlotte is recognized as a leading destination…
As followers of christ, hope haven's mission is to empower individuals with disabilities through work and life skills so that they may enjoy a productive life in their community.
To provide shelter and services to families experiencing homelessness
Knowing that every child's life is sacred, our promise is to improve the health of every child in our region through the prevention and treatment of illness, disease and injury.
Knowing that every child's life is sacred, our promise is to improve the health of every child in our region through the prevention and treatment of illness, disease, and injury.
To keep families close by providing essential resources and a home-away-from-home for families of critically ill children receiving inpatient or outpatient medical care at a nashville area hospital.
To serve as the sole member of the various health care and supporting organizations that comprise st. mary's healthcare system for children
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Orchard Place and the most unlike its peers is AHEINZ57 Pet Rescue & Transport Inc. 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 16 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 HOPE MINISTRIES ↗
- Who funds ORCHARD PLACE ↗
- Who funds HOME OPPORTUNITIES MADE EASY INC ↗
- Who funds Ronald McDonald House Global ↗
- Who funds PINKY SWEAR FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds WOUNDED WARRIOR PROJECT INC ↗
- Who funds MAKE-A-WISH FOUNDATION OF IOWA INC ↗
- Who funds CHILDSERVE INC ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY FDN OF GREATER DES MOINES F/K/A GREATER DES MOINES COMMUNITY FDN ↗
- Who funds COLON CANCER COALITION INC ↗
- Who funds AHEINZ57 PET RESCUE & TRANSPORT 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: Pella Rolscreen Foundation · Prairie Meadows Race Track and Casino Inc · Community Fdn of Greater Des Moines F/K/A Greater Des Moines Community Fdn · United Way Worldwide · Ita Group Foundation · The Merchants Bonding Company Foundation · The Blackbaud Giving Fund · Arthur J Gallagher Foundation · The Pfizer Foundation Inc · Charities Aid Foundation America · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc
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 Empowering Others the Signature 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.
- Wounded Warrior Project Inc — 0% of income from government
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 Empowering Others the Signature Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Empowering Others the Signature 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.