· Private foundation
Jean and Bernas Downing Charitable Trust
Its FY2025 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.
What you funded, over time
Every grant clustered by its grantee’s IRS cause code (NTEE), by year — across FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- $50k–250k2 grants · $100k
- $250k+3 grants · $17M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| CONNER PRAIRIE | $10,500,000 |
| PURDUE RESEARCH FOUNDATION | $5,000,000 |
| CENTRAL INDIANA LAND TRUST | $1,253,615 |
| GLEANERS FOOD BANK OF INDIANA | $50,000 |
| MIDWEST FOOD BANK | $50,000 |
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 (FY20–25, $4.4M) land where the poverty rate runs at 16%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 99% 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.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +38% since the first grant, against +11% for the ones you funded once.
7 repeat relationships — 4 still active in FY2025, 3 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, 70% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $5.0M 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
- MFMIDWEST FOOD BANK NFP6× · 2020–2025 · $4.3M · revenue +38%
- GFGLEANERS FOOD BANK OF INDIANA INC6× · 2020–2025 · $4.3M · revenue +11%
- SCShepherd Community Inc4× · 2021–2024 · $100k · revenue +62%
Funded once
- WCWASHINGTON CO COMMUNITY FOUNDATIONone grant, 2022 · $200k
- MCMIAMI COUNTY COMMUNITY FOUNDATIONone grant, 2022 · $200k
- UCUNION COUNTY FOUNDATION INCgraduatedone grant, 2022 · $100k · revenue +161%
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 mobilize people, ideas, and investments to make this a community where all individuals have equitable opportunity to reach their full potential - no matter place, race or identity.
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 greater indianapolis chamber of commerce foundation's mission is to encourage, aid or promote educational or charitable organizations' endeavors or economic development activities and to operate for the benefit of the charitable,…
Cicp foundation, inc. (the foundation) operates exclusively for the benefit of and carries out the mission of central indiana corporate partnership, inc. (cicp) by engaging in and supporting activities in furtherance of purposes that are…
Indiana university health foundation leverages the power of philanthropy to support the iu health goal of making indiana one of the healthiest states in the nation.
To foster and encourage private philanthropic giving, to enhance the spirit of community, and to improve the quality of life in the wayne county, indiana, area now and for future generations.
An agribusiness network advocate, representing members' interests within all levels of government and keeping members informed of the latest industry trends and news.
Engage actively and continuously in medical research, education and training in the practice of medicine in conjunction with the department of family medicine of the indiana university school of medicine and indiana university…
Educate, Inspire, Connect and Mobilize Community Leaders to serve and strengthen greater Indianapolis.
The Foundation supports the Indiana Philanthropy Alliance, Inc. and its member community foundations through special initiatives that support or expand philanthropy in Indiana.
To provide effective and rewarding ways for donors to fulfill their philanthropic objectives by administering charitable funds that distribute grants and scholarships to benefit the citizens of kane and kendall counties of illinois…
To provide philanthropic support to indiana university of pennsylvania.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Union County Foundation Inc and the most unlike its peers is Gem Ministries Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
16 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. 16 of the 18 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 Conner Prairie Museum Inc ↗
- Who funds CENTRAL INDIANA LAND TRUST INCORPORATED ↗
- Who funds Purdue Research Foundation ↗
- Who funds MIDWEST FOOD BANK NFP ↗
- Who funds GLEANERS FOOD BANK OF INDIANA INC ↗
- Who funds MORGAN STANLEY GLOBAL IMPACT FUNDING TRUST INC ↗
- Who funds ORANGE COUNTY COMMUNITY FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds SCOTT COUNTY COMMUNITY FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds JOHNSON COUNTY COMMUNITY FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds WABASH VALLEY COMMUNITY FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds Shepherd Community Inc ↗
- Who funds UNION COUNTY FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds INDIANA GOLF FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds GEM MINISTRIES INC ↗
- Who funds COLLEGE MENTORS FOR KIDS INC ↗
- Who funds HUMANE SOCIETY FOR BOONE COUNTY INC ↗
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: Lilly Endowment Inc · Duke Energy Foundation · Indiana Philanthropy Alliance Inc · Indiana Philanthropy Alliance Foundation Inc · Independent Colleges of Indiana Inc · Nina Mason Pulliam Charitable Trust · The Indianapolis Foundation Inc · Centerpoint Energy Foundation Inc · Central Indiana Community Foundation Inc · The Pfizer Foundation Inc · American Online Giving Foundation 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 Jean and Bernas Downing Charitable 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.