· Private foundation
Gunderson Family 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.
Read this first · the figures below need context
88% of Gunderson Family Foundation’s FY2025 grant dollars went to Schwab Charitable Fund, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2025 names 4 organizations directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it. Everything below is therefore FY2019, the last year Gunderson Family Foundation named its own grantees at scale: 5 organizations, $171k. It is dated, not current.
Organizations named directly on the return
Amber years are those where most dollars went to a sponsor.
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 · FY2019
- Under $10k7 grants · $6k
- $10k–50k2 grants · $45k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $120k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Individual grant recipient | $120,000 |
| KIDS FIRST LAW CENTER | $25,000 |
| IOWA NATURAL HERITAGE FOUNDATION | $20,000 |
| CENTRAL PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH | $3,000 |
| SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION | $1,000 |
| YMCA | $1,000 |
| NEW CHAPTERS LIBRARIES | $500 |
| SELF-HELP INTERNATIONAL | $250 |
| KEEP IOWA BEAUTIFUL | $140 |
| MARYS MEALS | $100 |
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 (FY17–25, $14k) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 74% 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.
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.
13 repeat relationships — 4 still active in FY2019, 9 since wound down; 22 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
Organizations
Total granted
Median revenue growth · since first grant
Still filing today
New vs renewed · share of each year
In FY2025, 59% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $9k 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
IOWA STATE UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION3× · 2018–2023 · $80k · revenue -13%- KFKIDS FIRST LAW CENTER2× · 2018–2019 · $50k · revenue +121%
- IPIOWA PARKS FOUNDATION2× · 2017–2018 · $26k · revenue -9% · 93% of their budget
Funded once
- HAHARVEST ACADEMYgraduatedone grant, 2018 · $25k · revenue ×35 · 31% of their budget
GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITYgraduatedone grant, 2017 · $20k · revenue +47%- YAYOUTH AND SHELTER SERVICES INCgraduatedone grant, 2017 · $10k · revenue +145%
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.
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.
Iowa sister states is dedicated to connecting iowans with the world community. our mission is to develop and implement international partnerships and programs that promote the cultural, economic, and other interests of iowa and its friends…
The university of iowa center for advancement's mission is to advance the university of iowa through engagement and philanthropy. we serve our alumni and friends in the state and the region, throughout the country, and around the world. we…
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…
The foundation is organized to further the growth and development of private colleges and universities of higher education in iowa.
The organization receives, warehouses, and distributes salvageable food items to non-profit tax exempt member agencies to feed the ill, needy, and infants.
The intertribal agriculture council was founded in 1987 to pursue and promote the conservation, development and use of our agricultural resources of american indian and alaska native tribes.
The university of iowa facilities corporation acquires and holds property for the benefit and use of the university of iowa.
The mission of the iowa business council is to engage the personal commitment of its executive members in active leadership roles on major initiatives that offer opportuinities to enhance iowa's overall economic vitality.
Isep empowers higher education institutions to expand the perspectives and potential of students around the world through our wide range of accessible, authentic academic intercultural programs.
The iowa center's mission is to empower iowans with the potential to succeed as they pursue opportunities for financial success. the iowa center achieves its mission by delivering three lines of direct service that open up small business…
Central indiana corporate partnership (cicp) is an alliance of indiana's business and research university leaders coming together to foster long-term prosperity for the region. cicp's mission is to transform the economy of indiana in order…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Keep Iowa Beautiful and the most unlike its peers is Mary's Meals Usa Inc. 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 41 years old; the field is 55. You back the younger end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 8% 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 5% 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.
21 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. 21 of the 47 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 DONOR ADVISED CHARITABLE GIVING INC ↗
- Who funds IOWA STATE UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds KIDS FIRST LAW CENTER ↗
- Who funds IOWA PARKS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds HARVEST ACADEMY ↗
- Who funds IOWA NATURAL HERITAGE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds SUN VALLEY SUMMER SYMPHONY INC ↗
- Who funds YOUTH AND SHELTER SERVICES INC ↗
- Who funds IOWA EUROPEAN CULTURAL CONNECTION ↗
- Who funds CULTUREALL INC ↗
- Who funds HOSPICE AND PALLIATIVE CARE OF THE WOOD RIVER VALLEY INC ↗
- Who funds BLAINE COUNTY SENIORS COUNCIL INC THE SENIOR CONNECTION ↗
- Who funds SUN VALLEY CULINARY INSTITUTE INC ↗
- Who funds GENESIS INC ↗
- Who funds IOWA PUBLIC RADIO INC ↗
- Who funds MIND AND SPIRIT COUNSELING CENTER ↗
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: Community Fdn of Greater Des Moines F/K/A Greater Des Moines Community Fdn · Prairie Meadows Race Track and Casino Inc · Spur Community Foundation Inc · Ita Group Foundation · United Way of Central Iowa · The West Bancorporation Foundation Inc · Lsb Foundation · Idaho Community Foundation Inc · Alliant Energy Foundation Inc · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · American Endowment 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 Gunderson Family 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.
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 Gunderson Family Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Gunderson Family 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.