· Private foundation
Fahrney Education Fdtn Trust
Its FY2025 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k9 grants · $30k
- $10k–50k7 grants · $150k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $53k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| UNIVERSITY OF IOWA | $52,500 |
| IOWA STATE UNIVERSITY | $47,500 |
| INDIAN HILLS COMMUNITY COLLEGE | $32,500 |
| UNIVERSITY OF NORTHERN IOWA | $22,500 |
| WILLIAM PENN UNIVERSITY | $12,500 |
| CENTRAL COLLEGE | $12,500 |
| SIMPSON COLLEGE | $12,500 |
| WARTBURG COLLEGE | $10,000 |
| DRAKE UNIVERSITY | $7,500 |
| UNIVERSITY OF DUBUQUE | $5,000 |
| MARSHALLTOWN COMMUNITY COLLEGE | $2,500 |
| LUTHER COLLEGE | $2,500 |
| BUENA VISTA UNIVERSITY | $2,500 |
| ST AMBROSE UNIVERSITY | $2,500 |
| NE IOWA COMMUNITY COLLEGE - PEOSTA | $2,500 |
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 (FY17–17) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 76% 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 +20% since the first grant, against -6% for the ones you funded once.
25 repeat relationships — 14 still active in FY2025, 11 since wound down; 3 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, 97% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $8k 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
- IHINDIAN HILLS COMMUNITY COLLEGE8× · 2017–2025 · $202k · revenue +28% · 56% of their budget
- SCSimpson College8× · 2017–2025 · $108k · revenue +30%
- CCCENTRAL COLLEGE8× · 2017–2025 · $106k · revenue +7%
Funded once
- WUWALDORF UNIVERSITYone grant, 2023 · $3k
- ACALLEN COLLEGEone grant, 2022 · $3k · revenue -6%
- UIUPPER IOWA UNIVERSITYone grant, 2017 · $3k · revenue -13%
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.
Union college is a seventh-day adventist community of higher education, inspired by jesus christ, and dedicated to empowering students to learn, serve, and lead.
As an institution of higher education committed to the reformed christian perspective, dordt university equips students, alumni, and the broader community to work effectively toward christ-centered renewal in all aspects of contemporary…
We are a Catholic, co-educational, liberal arts university founded in 1843 by the Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Dubuque, Iowa. Clarke educates students at the post-secondary level in the liberal arts and sciences, the…
Inspired by lutheran scholarly tradition and the liberal arts, augustana provides an education of enduring worth that challenges the intellect, fosters integrity and integrates faith with learning and service in a diverse world.
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…
Hilbert college is an independent institution of higher learning that embraces its catholic franciscan heritage and values. students from diverse backgrounds are educated in liberal arts and professional programs to become informed…
Columbia college improves lives by providing quality education to both traditional and nontraditional students, helping them achieve their true potential.
Education - lagrange college challenges the minds and inspires the souls of its students. founded in 1831 and committed to its relationship with the united methodist church and its wesleyan and liberal arts traditions, the college supports…
Rooted in the liberal arts & sciences & lutheran expression of the christian faith, & is committed to offering a challenging education that develops qualities of mind, spirit, & body necessary for a rewarding life of leadership & service…
See schedule o.we are inspired by the ideals of our founder who, in 1896, emphasized respect for all people and ideas, who honored knowledge with practice, progress and the common good. our historical commitment to experiential learning…
The university of rio grande/ rio grande community college is america's unique private/public institution of higher education designed to provide learners the opportunity to attain a high-quality, high-value education. our personalized,…
Doane university creates distinctive educational experiences, immersed in the liberal arts, to prepare our students for careers and lives grounded in inquiry, ethics, and a commitment to lead and serve in the global community.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Upper Iowa University and the most unlike its peers is Iowa Wesleyan University. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
Your grantees are a median of 80 years old; the field is 55. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 10% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% 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.
22 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. 22 of the 32 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 INDIAN HILLS COMMUNITY COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds Simpson College ↗
- Who funds CENTRAL COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds WILLIAM PENN UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds COE COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds WARTBURG COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds Buena Vista University ↗
- Who funds ST AMBROSE UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds DRAKE UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds GRAND VIEW UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds Iowa Wesleyan University ↗
- Who funds Faith Baptist Bible College ↗
- Who funds MOUND FARM HOLDINGS INC ↗
- Who funds CORNELL COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds LORAS COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY OF DUBUQUE ↗
- Who funds BRIAR CLIFF UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds LUTHER COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds NORTHWESTERN COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds ALLEN COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds MERCY COLLEGE OF HEALTH SCIENCES ↗
- Who funds UPPER IOWA UNIVERSITY ↗
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: Roy J Carver Charitable Trust · Pella Rolscreen Foundation · Ottumwa Regional Legacy Foundation Inc · J Ralph And Gladys Meier Scholarship Trust · Special Needs Foundation of Des Moines County · W E Ruebush Foundation · Bestenlehner D and F Educational Tr · Iowa College Foundation · Willard E and Ella P Thompson Educational Fund · Marguerite V Brown · Community Fdn of Greater Des Moines F/K/A Greater Des Moines Community Fdn · Ch& Helen Sheridan Tuw
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 Fahrney Education Fdtn Trust 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.