· Private foundation
Gabus 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 it funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2025.
Where the money goes
Grants by size, and the largest recipients.
By grant size · FY2025
- $10k–50k3 grants · $50k
- $50k–250k7 grants · $450k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| MEALS ON WHEELS | $125,000 |
| CITY OF URBANDALE | $75,000 |
| FOOD BANK OF IOWA | $50,000 |
| ELLIPSIS | $50,000 |
| FREEDOM FOR YOUTH MINISTRIES | $50,000 |
| EASTER SEALS IOWA | $50,000 |
| WILDWOOD HILLS RANCH | $50,000 |
| PUPPY JAKE FOUNDATION | $25,000 |
| FREESTORE INC | $15,000 |
| CAN PLAY | $10,000 |
Does the money reach high-need areas?
Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.
Its human-services grants (FY17–25, $306k) land where the poverty rate runs at 10%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 95% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.
How this is measured
How this is measured
Who it funds again
Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.
Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +38% since the first grant, against +2% for those funded once.
19 repeat relationships: 9 still active in FY2025, 10 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, 97% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $15k went to new ones.
Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant
How this is measured
Backed again, and grew
- FFFREEDOM FOR YOUTH MINISTRIES4× · 2017–2025 · $300k · revenue +47%
- FBFOOD BANK OF IOWA5× · 2020–2025 · $250k · revenue +42%
- EIELLIPSIS INC4× · 2022–2025 · $200k · revenue +38%
Funded once
- ESEASTER SEAL SOCIETY OF IOWA INCone grant, 2018 · $50k · revenue +23%
- GIGREAT IOWA OUTDOORS FOUNDATIONone grant, 2018 · $40k
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2017 · $25k
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.
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.
The organization's mission is to address the immediate needs of sick, injured, and orphaned wild birds, with the goal to return them to the wild and help educate and bring awareness to the global issue that birds are dissappearing at an…
To provide shelter and services to families experiencing homelessness
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.
Seeking to build a stronger, more caring community by forming partnerships with businesses, community experts, education & health & human service agencies to achieve targeted outcomes & sustained changes in community conditions which will…
To eliminate hunger in south dakota.
Unite the caring power of communities to invest in effective solutions to improve people's lives.
The mission of Iowa Policy Project is to promote public policy that fosters economic opportunity while safeguarding the health and well-being of Iowa's people and the environment. By providing a foundation of fact-based, objective research…
Reach for your potential, inc is a provider of adult daycare services and rehabilitation/housing of disabled individuals serving approximately 135 individuals from iowa city and the surrounding communities.
Variety - the children's charity of iowa is dedicated to improving the lives of children who are at risk, underprivileged, critically ill, or living with special needs.
Promoting policies to the general public and policy makers related to clean energy, energy efficiency, and the energy sector.
Our mission is to help nonprofits fulfill theirs.
Iris delivers equal access to information and the arts. through our 24/7 audio signal of print material read aloud and audio desc services the volunteer voices of iris keep print-disabled iowans connected.
How this is measured
19 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. 19 of the 36 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.
Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee
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.
- Who funds FREEDOM FOR YOUTH MINISTRIES ↗
- Who funds FOOD BANK OF IOWA ↗
- Who funds ELLIPSIS INC ↗
- Who funds SCKIC Inc ↗
- Who funds GREAT OUTDOORS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds DES MOINES METRO OPERA INC ↗
- Who funds WILDWOOD HILLS INC ↗
- Who funds PUPPY JAKE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds CAN PLAY ↗
- Who funds URBANDALE FOOD PANTRY ↗
- Who funds EASTER SEAL SOCIETY OF IOWA INC ↗
- Who funds Friends of the Grimes Public Library ↗
- Who funds RHYTHMS OF GRACE ↗
- Who funds SIMON ESTES FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds FREESTORE ↗
- Who funds HOSPICE OF CENTRAL IOWA FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds MAKE-A-WISH FOUNDATION OF IOWA INC ↗
- Who funds FURRY FRIENDS REFUGE ↗
- Who funds EVERYBODY WINS - IOWA ↗
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.
Open a dossier: Prairie Meadows Race Track and Casino Inc · Community Fdn of Greater Des Moines F/K/A Greater Des Moines Community Fdn · The West Bancorporation Foundation Inc · The Merchants Bonding Company Foundation · Ita Group Foundation · EMC Insurance Foundation · Variety - the Children's Charity of Iowa · The Blackbaud Giving Fund · R & R Realty Group Foundation · Meredith Corporation Foundation · Pella Rolscreen Foundation · Wt and Edna M Dahl Trust
How this is measured
How much its grantees rely on government
Each dot is one organization Gabus Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Gabus Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.
How this is measured
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to Gabus Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Gabus 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 Gabus’ filings →