· Public charity
Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement
To empower and unite grassroots people of all races to take control of their communities; involve them in identifying problems and needs; and in taking action to address them; and be a vehicle for social, economic and environmental justice.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2020–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| VISION LEADS FOUNDATION INC | $15,000 |
| LAND STEWARDSHIP PROJECT | $14,250 |
| DAKOTA RURAL ACTION | $14,250 |
| MISSOURI RURAL CRISIS CENTER | $14,250 |
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 (FY20–24) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 90% 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 +25% since the first grant, against 0% for the ones you funded once.
5 repeat relationships — 3 still active in FY2024, 2 since wound down; 1 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, 74% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $15k 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
- LSLAND STEWARDSHIP PROJECT5× · 2020–2024 · $97k · revenue +13%
- MRMissouri Rural Crisis Center5× · 2020–2024 · $97k · revenue +25%
- DRDakota Rural Action5× · 2020–2024 · $65k · revenue +112%
Funded once
- CGCOMMON GOOD IOWAone grant, 2021 · $84k · revenue -23%
- EIEMBARC INCone grant, 2021 · $84k · revenue -20%
- PAPEOPLE'S ACTION INSTITUTEone grant, 2020 · $75k · revenue -34%
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.
To promote social, economic and environmental justice.
The mission of iowa citizens for community improvement action fund is to build economic, racial, and environmental justice and grassroots democracy through community organizing, education, advocacy, and electoral politics in iowa and…
To empower and unite grassroots people of all races to take control of their communities; involve them in identifying problems and needs; and in taking action to address them; and be a vehicle for social, economic and environmental justice.
Farmers' Legal Action Group, Inc., is a nonprofit corporation located in Saint Paul, Minnesota, which operates a law center that provides legal services and support to America's family farmers and their communities to help keep farmers on…
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…
Catalyze collaboration across perspectives, power, and systems for social equity and environmental health.
Isaac is a faith-based community organizing group made up of congregations and organizations that unite in order to accomplish what cannot be done as individuals or single congregations. together, we focus our collectively formed…
Public interest law firm
350 Wisconsin Action mobilizes concerned climate voters to push for bold climate action from government and elected officials. We keep the climate crisis at the center of the political conversation, and push for progressive policies that…
To cultivate strong communities rooted in social and economic justice, environmental stewardship, and opportunity for all.
Linn County Advocate, Inc., provides quality legal representation for indigent clients in criminal and juvenile cases at the state court level in Linn, Johnson, Benton, and Jones Counties in the state of Iowa.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Great Plains Action Society and the most unlike its peers is Linn County Community Action Fund. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
13 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. 13 of the 14 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 LAND STEWARDSHIP PROJECT ↗
- Who funds Missouri Rural Crisis Center ↗
- Who funds COMMON GOOD IOWA ↗
- Who funds EMBARC INC ↗
- Who funds PEOPLE'S ACTION INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds Dakota Rural Action ↗
- Who funds LINN COUNTY COMMUNITY ACTION FUND ↗
- Who funds GREAT PLAINS ACTION SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds QUAD CITIES INTERFAITH ↗
- Who funds IOWA MIGRANT MOVEMENT FOR JUSTICE ↗
- Who funds SIERRA CLUB FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds INDIGENOUS IOWA INC ↗
- Who funds DES MOINES BLACK LIBERATION MOVEMENT FOUNDATION dba DSM BLM Foundation ↗
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: The Chicago Community Trust · National Philanthropic Trust · Amazonsmile 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 Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement 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.