· Private foundation
Helen J and Thomas Nelson Urban Sr Charitable Foundation III
Its FY2024 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
By grantee IRS cause code (NTEE).
A cause breakdown isn’t shown here: 77% of HELEN J AND THOMAS NELSON URBAN SR CHARITABLE FOUNDATION III’s grantee dollars fall outside its nine largest cause areas, whether because the recipient carries no IRS cause code or because its cause sits in the long tail. A chart would be mostly one residual band and misrepresent the portfolio.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k42 grants · $50k
- $10k–50k1 grant · $19k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| UNITED WAY | $18,743 |
| HOMES OF OAKRDIGE | $7,000 |
| DARTMOUTH ALUMNI FUND (PETER REICHARD) | $6,000 |
| WESLEY LIFE FOUNDATION | $5,000 |
| JEWISH FEDERATION | $5,000 |
| TIFERETH ISRAEL SYNAGOGUE | $4,098 |
| DES MOINES ART CENTER | $2,500 |
| BLANK PARK ZOO FUNDRAISER | $2,500 |
| SKIDMORE COLLEGE | $2,000 |
| CAPITAL AREA FOOD BANK | $2,000 |
| PLANNED PARENTHOOD | $1,000 |
| DES MOINES PASTORAL COUNSELING CENTER | $1,000 |
| SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER | $1,000 |
| BARD COLLEGE - BPI PROGRAM | $1,000 |
| NATIONAL OUTDOOR LEADERSHIP SCHOOL | $1,000 |
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 (FY19–24, $7k) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 93% 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.
Which US states your grants reach
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.
83 repeat relationships — 37 still active in FY2024, 46 since wound down; 6 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (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 FY2024, 61% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $27k 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
- EAEdmundson Art Foundation Inc6× · 2019–2024 · $12k · revenue +18%
- GGGENEVA GLEN CAMP INC2× · 2019–2021 · $10k · revenue +38%
- MAMIND AND SPIRIT COUNSELING CENTER6× · 2019–2024 · $10k · revenue +20%
Funded once
- CICENTRAL IOWA WATER TRAILSone grant, 2020 · $5k
- JHJOPPA HOMELESS SHELTERone grant, 2023 · $5k
- FBFOOD BANK OF IOWAgraduatedone grant, 2020 · $4k · revenue +42%
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.
The foundation works to defend and promote the constitution of the united states, focusing especially on the first, fourth, fifth, sixth, eighth, and 14th amendments. the foundation also works to defend and promote the constitution of the…
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…
The union works to advocate and advance a public policy agenda to support and protect the constitution of the united states and the constitution of the state of iowa. it works to maintain throughout the united states the rights of free…
Midwest dairy works with others to give consumers an excellent dairy experience increasing sales, fostering innovation, and inspiring consumer confidence of dairy products and practices.
This member-supported organization protects and restores iowa's land, water and wildlife for future generations. priorities include permanent land protection, promotion of improved land management and bringing new conservation…
Unite the caring power of communities to invest in effective solutions to improve people's lives.
To strenghten people's ability to guarantee their individual and collective right to a healthy environment, via the development, implementation, and effective enforcement of national and international law.
To promote the common business interests of member companies without profit and without the inuring of income to the benefit of any member company or individual. to present the executive, legislative, judicial and regulatory bodies…
To establish and promote programs to protect the global climate, forests, wildlife and the natural environment, through research, advocacy, and investigation.
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.
To drive transformational adaptation to protect communities across the country from higher seas, stronger storms, and more frequent flooding.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is United Way of Central Iowa and the most unlike its peers is Guardian Scholars Foundation. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
For each theme you fund, this compares how the sector’s money is shifting with how your own giving is shifting.
Sector change and giving change are each shown relative to their own range, growing (right) or shrinking (left); both normalized, so inflation isn’t mistaken for growth.
Your grantees are a median of 37 years old; the field is 38. You back the younger end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 13% startups (under 5 years old) — 1% of your grantees by number, and just 5% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 2% 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.
82 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. 82 of the 157 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 UNITED WAY OF CENTRAL IOWA ↗
- Who funds Edmundson Art Foundation Inc ↗
- Who funds GENEVA GLEN CAMP INC ↗
- Who funds MIND AND SPIRIT COUNSELING CENTER ↗
- Who funds WESLEYLIFE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds PROJECT ANGEL HEART ↗
- Who funds SKIDMORE COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds FOOD BANK OF IOWA ↗
- Who funds ARCADIA EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds YOUNG WOMEN'S RESOURCE CENTER ↗
- Who funds IOWA PUBLIC RADIO INC ↗
- Who funds GEORGETOWN DAY SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds DES MOINES PERFORMING ARTS ↗
- Who funds Dogsters Spay and Neuter ↗
- Who funds DES MOINES SYMPHONY ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds CAPITAL AREA FOOD BANK INC ↗
- Who funds CHOATE ROSEMARY HALL FOUNDATION INCORPORATED ↗
- Who funds DC ABORTION FUND ↗
- Who funds Iowa Legal Aid Foundation ↗
- Who funds PLANNED PARENTHOOD ARIZONA INC ↗
- Who funds LEGAL AID SOCIETY OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA ↗
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 · The West Bancorporation Foundation Inc · Bookey Family Foundation · EMC Insurance Foundation · William C Knapp Charitable Fdn · The Merchants Bonding Company Foundation · Meredith Corporation Foundation · Gartner Family Foundation % Michael G Gartner · Mary K and Daniel M Kelly Family Foundation C/O Dan Kelly · Fred Maytag Family Foundation · Kyle J & Sharon Krause Family 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 Helen J and Thomas Nelson Urban Sr Charitable Foundation III 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.
- Root Capital Inc — 9% of income from government
- Choate Rosemary Hall Foundation Incorporated — 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.