· Private foundation
Josh and Susie Kimelman Foundation
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
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2018–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| DES MOINES METRO OPERA | $4,500 |
| CONGREGATION BETH EL | $3,600 |
| HAR ZION TEMPLE | $3,100 |
| TEMPLE BETH OR | $3,000 |
| TIFERETH ISRAEL SYNAGOGUE | $3,000 |
| DES MOINES SYMPHONY | $1,500 |
| DES MOINES ART CENTER | $1,300 |
| GREATER DES MOINES PUBLIC ART FOUNDATION | $1,000 |
| DES MOINES PUBLIC LIBRARY | $1,000 |
| JEWISH FEDERATION OF GREATER DES MOINES | $700 |
| IOWA JEWISH HISTORICAL SOCIETY | $500 |
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 (FY18–24) land where the poverty rate runs at 8%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 52% of your dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants spread fairly evenly across need levels.
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.
Where the work is directed
The same grants, placed two ways — where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose earmarks the money.
About 40% of Josh and Susie Kimelman Foundation’s grant dollars are earmarked, by their stated purpose, for a different county than the recipient’s own address — money that lands at a nonprofit in one place but is meant to do its work in another. Read by recipient address, 80% of the giving stays in IA; read by stated purpose it is 57% — less of the work is directed home than the recipients' locations suggest.
Recipient view: each grant at its grantee’s ZIP, mapped to a county. Directed view: each grant at the county its stated purpose names, falling back to the recipient’s county when the purpose names no place; US grants only. A county shows only if it carries the top 95% of that view’s dollars. Purposes are read from the foundation’s own 990 grant descriptions.
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 +52% since the first grant, against -17% for the ones you funded once.
12 repeat relationships — 8 still active in FY2024, 4 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, 95% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $1k 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
- DMDES MOINES METRO OPERA INC7× · 2018–2024 · $40k · revenue +84%
- DMDES MOINES SYMPHONY ASSOCIATION7× · 2018–2024 · $10k · revenue +52%
- EAEdmundson Art Foundation Inc7× · 2018–2024 · $8k · revenue +20%
Funded once
- IRIOWA RADIO READING INFORMATION SERVICE FOR THE BLINDone grant, 2022 · $875 · revenue -48%
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2022 · $500
- CCHRYSALISone grant, 2022 · $500
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 improve member newspapers
Raise funds and advocate provide for the des moines public library system.
Engage the midwest in meaningful entertainment, education, and cultural activities. provide performing arts experiences that educate, inspire and challenge.
The des moines water works park foundation is dedicated to developing and executing the master plan created for water works park. the plan turns the park into a national model incorporating recreation, education and conservation within the…
The foundation was structured to encourage funding of the jewish federation of greater des moines, and is responsible for adding financial stability by broadening the funding base and thereby improving the ability of the des moines jewish…
To promote and develop the visitors and convention industry in the greater des moines area and to encourage the utilization of facilities for visitors and conventions.
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.
To build and support diverse communities of writers and audiences through the transformative power of story. We lead by inclusion and collaboration, celebrating the emotions, discovery and connections inspired by the written word in all…
To excite, engage and educate through the arts.
The foundation is organized to further the growth and development of private colleges and universities of higher education in iowa.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Greater Des Moines Botanical Garden and the most unlike its peers is Animal Rescue League of Iowa Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
10 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. 10 of the 21 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 DES MOINES METRO OPERA INC ↗
- Who funds DES MOINES SYMPHONY ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds Edmundson Art Foundation Inc ↗
- Who funds JEWISH FEDERATION OF GREATER DES MOINES ↗
- Who funds GREATER DES MOINES BOTANICAL GARDEN ↗
- Who funds FOOD BANK OF IOWA ↗
- Who funds GREATER DES MOINES PUBLIC ART FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds IOWA RADIO READING INFORMATION SERVICE FOR THE BLIND ↗
- Who funds ANIMAL RESCUE LEAGUE OF IOWA INC ↗
- Who funds IOWA PUBLIC RADIO 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: The Levitt Foundation · Bookey Family Foundation · Brenton Foundation · Meredith Corporation Foundation · Lauridsen Family Foundation · Gartner Family Foundation % Michael G Gartner · Mary K and Daniel M Kelly Family Foundation C/O Dan Kelly · The Seidler Foundation · Weathertop Foundation F/K/A Thomas Nelson Urban Jr · Fred Maytag Family Foundation · EMC Insurance Foundation · The Merchants Bonding Company 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 Josh and Susie Kimelman 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.