· Private foundation
Marion Jerome Foundation Inc
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
97% of Marion Jerome Foundation Inc’s FY2025 grant dollars went to Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2025 names 3 organizations directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it. Everything below is therefore FY2024, the last year Marion Jerome Foundation Inc named its own grantees at scale: 9 organizations, $152k. 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 · FY2024
- Under $10k14 grants · $59k
- $10k–50k6 grants · $93k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| DECORAH DOLLARS FOR SCHOLARS | $32,500 |
| BARRON AREA EDUCATION FOUNDATION INC | $20,000 |
| IOWA 4-H FOUNDATON | $10,211 |
| VESTERHEIM | $10,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF IOWA HOLDEN CANCER CENTER | $10,000 |
| DECORAH COMMUNITY FOOD PANTRY | $10,000 |
| DECORAH PUBLIC LIBRARY | $6,000 |
| TOYS GO ROUND TOY LENDING LIBRARY | $6,000 |
| WINNESHIEK MEDICAL CENTER FOUNDATION | $5,000 |
| HELPING SERVICES FOR YOUTH | $5,000 |
| WINNESHIEK COUNTY CELEBRATION OF LIFE | $5,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $5,000 |
| DECORAH COMMUNITY FREE CLINIC | $5,000 |
| SPECTRUM INDUSTRIES | $5,000 |
| SOUTH WINNESHIEK DOLLARS FOR SCHOLARS | $4,000 |
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 (FY20–24, $51k) land where the poverty rate runs at 10%, against an area that typically sits at 12%. 0% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants skew toward lower-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 +40% since the first grant, against +31% for the ones you funded once.
30 repeat relationships — 19 still active in FY2024, 11 since wound down; 4 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (too recent to call). Read against FY2024, 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, 66% 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
- BABARRON AREA EDUCATION FOUNDATION INC9× · 2017–2025 · $144k · revenue +163%
- I4IOWA 4-H FOUNDATION9× · 2017–2025 · $92k · revenue +105%
- DCDECORAH COMM SCHOOL DIST FOUNDATION3× · 2017–2019 · $77k · revenue +335%
Funded once
- GOGUARDIANS OF NORTHEAST IOWA INCgraduatedone grant, 2023 · $3k · revenue +31%
- FUFIRST UNITED METHODIST CHURCHone grant, 2017 · $2k
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.
Facilitate economic opportunity, business success, community engagement, prosperity, and quality of life for rural western iowa
Support educational opportunities of students and faculty of the shenandoah community school district
The foundation is organized to further the growth and development of private colleges and universities of higher education in iowa.
Faciltate a team of industry professionals to bring initiatives, education and awareness to skilled trades in iowa
Empowerment of girls through music
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Iowa 4-H Foundation and the most unlike its peers is Arthaus Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
15 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. 15 of the 37 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 FIDELITY INVESTMENTS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND ↗
- Who funds BARRON AREA EDUCATION FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds IOWA 4-H FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds DECORAH COMM SCHOOL DIST FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds STATE UNIVERSITY OF IOWA FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds DECORAH COMMUNITY FOOD PANTRY ↗
- Who funds Spectrum Industries ↗
- Who funds WINNESHIEK MEDICAL CENTER FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds WINNESHIEK COUNTY CELEBRATION OF LIFE INC ↗
- Who funds University of South Florida Foundation Inc ↗
- Who funds THUNDER RODE INC ↗
- Who funds ARTHAUS INC ↗
- Who funds DECORAH MUSIC BOOSTERS ↗
- Who funds GUARDIANS OF NORTHEAST IOWA INC ↗
- Who funds DECORAH ATHLETIC BOOSTER CLUB ↗
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: Alliant Energy Foundation Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · 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 Marion Jerome Foundation Inc 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.