How much does Max and Helen Guernsey Charitable Foundation give?

Max and Helen Guernsey Charitable Foundation reported 125 grants totaling $2,186,400 in its FY2025 IRS filing. It funded between 69 and 107 organizations a year over FY2020 to FY2024.

What does Max and Helen Guernsey Charitable Foundation fund?

By grant dollars over FY2020 to FY2025, its largest causes are Human Services (20%), Youth Development (14%), Education (10%).

Who are Max and Helen Guernsey Charitable Foundation's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2020 to FY2025: Boys and Girls Clubs of the Cedar Valley ($300k), Successlink Inc ($260k), Grout Museum Inc ($200k).

Does Max and Helen Guernsey Charitable Foundation fund new organizations?

In FY2024, 30% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Does Max and Helen Guernsey Charitable Foundation accept unsolicited applications?

Its most recent filing reports that it accepts unsolicited grant applications.

Which funders back the same organizations as Max and Helen Guernsey Charitable Foundation?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Otto Schoitz Foundation, Lsb Foundation, Black Hawk County Gaming Association.

Where is Max and Helen Guernsey Charitable Foundation based?

Max and Helen Guernsey Charitable Foundation is based in IA.

Max and Helen Guernsey Charitable Foundation

Max and Helen Guernsey Charitable Foundation at a glance

· Private foundation

Max and Helen Guernsey Charitable Foundation

Its FY2025 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.

$2.2M

Granted FY2025still arriving

125

Grants FY2025still arriving

States reached

$35k

Largest

01What it funds

0198% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2020 to 2025.

Human Services$2.2MYouth Development$1.5MEducation$1.1MArts & Culture$1.1MCommunity Improvement$635kHousing & Shelter$599kHealth$576kRecreation & Sports$560kOther$0

02FY2025 · 125 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2025

Under $10k38 grants · $173k
$10k–50k87 grants · $2.0M

$16,000

Median grant

States reached

$50M

Total assets

Largest grants
Recipient	Amount
Individual grant recipient	$35,000
SUCCESSLINK INC	$35,000
CEDAR VALLEY PRESCHOOL & CHILDCARE CENTER	$35,000
TRANSFORMATIONS BY CEDAR VALLEY ANGELS	$35,000
UNI FOUNDATION	$33,000
IOWA HEARTLAND HABITIAT FOR HUMANITY	$30,000
DUNKERTON HISTORICAL SOCIETY	$30,000
SIMULATION IN MOTION IOWA	$30,000
MARCHING AGAINST THE DARKNESS	$30,000
Individual grant recipient	$30,000
WATERLOO COMMUNITY PLAYHOUSE	$30,000
CITY OF WATERLOO	$30,000
NORTHEAST IOWA FOOD BANK	$30,000
GROUT MUSEUM INC	$30,000
ST LUCAS FIREFIGHTERS ASSOCIATION INC	$30,000

02The need

Does the money reach high-need areas?

Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.

show:

Its human-services grants (FY20–25, $1.2M) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 69% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount

How this is measured

Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty line in the grantee’s ZIP, averaged from the tracts in that ZIP.

How this is measured

US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are delivered. Need from public data (U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA), shown as context about the area, never attributed to the funder’s giving.

03Its grantees

repeat funding

Who it funds again

Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.

81%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$8.6M · 119 repeat orgs$2.1M to everyone else

119 repeat relationships: 78 still active in FY2025, 41 since wound down; 33 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

119

Total granted

$8.6M

$1.5M

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+19%

+22%

Still filing today

59%

27%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 73% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $563k went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant

Human ServicesEducationArts & CultureYouth DevelopmentHealthAnimalsOther

How this is measured

First-time means a grantee’s first year in the filing window; renewed means funded in an earlier year too. The renewed share climbs naturally as a portfolio matures, so the signal is a year that bucks it (a wave of new grantees). 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

BA
BOYS AND GIRLS CLUBS OF THE CEDAR VALLEY
6× · 2020–2025 · $300k · revenue +20%
SI
SUCCESSLINK INC
6× · 2020–2025 · $260k · revenue +119%
GM
GROUT MUSEUM INC
6× · 2020–2025 · $200k · revenue +43%

Funded once

CC
CHRISTIAN COMM DEV DBA HOUSE OF HOPE
one grant, 2024 · $61k
CF
COMMUNITY FDN OF NE IA - B H COUNTY COVID-19 FUND
one grant, 2020 · $50k
UO
UNIVERSITY OF NORTHERN IOWA FOUNDATION
one grant, 2022 · $35k · revenue -13%

How this is measured

Repeat means funded in two or more distinct years. Growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.

04Its field

Closest unfunded matches

The nonprofits that most resemble its grantees but are not funded by it, scored along the direction from the rest of the field toward the portfolio. A resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.

United Way of North Central Iowa

Seeking to build a stronger, more caring community by forming partnerships with businesses, community experts, education & health & human service agencies to achieve targeted outcomes & sustained changes in community conditions which will…

Philanthropy

West Central Community Action

In partnership with state and federal government, our mission is to administer programs designed to help residents in our 10-county region of southwest iowa achieve self-sufficiency.

Human Services

Webster City Day Care

Child day care center

—

Iowa Center for Children's Justice

ICCJ assists children in custody disputes through child focused education and legal services. ICCJ provides education and legal services on a reduced fee or at no charge based on the ability to pay.

Civil Rights

Food Bank of Iowa

The organization receives, warehouses, and distributes salvageable food items to non-profit tax exempt member agencies to feed the ill, needy, and infants.

Food & Nutrition

Common Good Iowa

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.

—

South Central Iowa Community Action Program Inc

To provide advocacy and services for disadvantaged persons and bring about institutional change for the benefit of the people we serve and the community at large. (see schedule o).to achieve this mission, scicap operates programs to…

Community Improvement

Iowa Chapter of Children's Advocacy Centers

To promote the development, growth and utilization of childrens advocacy centers and multidisciplinary teams to better serve Iowas abused and neglected children and their families.

Crime & Legal

Community Action of Eastern Iowa

Community action of eastern iowa respectfully partners with people to improve their health, finances, and education.

Community Improvement

Community Foundation for Western Iowa

The community foundation for western iowa is dedicated to creating a lasting legacy in our region by engaging our citizens and communities for durable change and fostering a culture of philanthropy. this is where giving grows.

Philanthropy

Western Iowa Development Assoc

Facilitate economic opportunity, business success, community engagement, prosperity, and quality of life for rural western iowa

—

United Way of Clinton County Iowa

To provide leadership in our communities to 1) identify our most pressing human care needs, 2) to work together to direct the time, energy and resources towards addressing those needs to improve our quality of life.

—

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Waypoint Services; the most unlike its peers is Waverly Public Library Founation. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.

04the grantee network

107 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2026.

Each grant beside the grantee’s revenue from every source, year by year.

How this is measured

Counted here: distinct organizations funded across 2017 to 2026, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 107 of the 250 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile.

Each grantee is resolved to its own IRS returns. Association, dated; never a causal claim.

Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)

Early backer (in before they grew)

105/107

Grantees still filing

71/107

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Other$6,428,300Human Services$1,290,700Education$994,000Arts & Culture$707,000Youth Development$687,500Philanthropy$442,500Housing & Shelter$315,000

Showing the 200 largest grantees by grant value.

Each grantee by its size and the funder’s share of it; top left is load-bearing

Grantee by grantee: a decade per organization, before and after funding

A decade per grantee: revenue shaded, grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.

Co-funders

Grantmakers whose grantees overlap with this funder’s far more than size alone predicts. Closer means stronger alignment; arcs show where they also fund each other. Here they form a tightly interlocked group: most of these funders back each other's grantees too.

Otto Schoitz FoundationIA116.8× affinity54 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Otto Schoitz Foundation · Lsb Foundation · Black Hawk County Gaming Association · Cedar Valley United Way · R J McElroy Trust · Van G Miller Family Charitable Foundation · The Gallagher Family Foundation · Dupaco RW Hoefer Foundation · Duroe Family Foundation · GreenState Credit Union · Trustage Foundation Inc · Pauline R Barrett Charitable Foundation

How this is measured

Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. Overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.

How much its grantees rely on government

Each dot is one organization Max and Helen Guernsey Charitable Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Max and Helen Guernsey Charitable Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

0get no government money at all

40report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)

0rely on government for over half their income

typical government reliance, FY20–25

How this is measured

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 a grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first, a floor rather than 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 to 24 months.

Play a game based on Max and Helen Guernsey’s filings →

More from the funding graph

The unnamed billions

grants reported with no recipient in the public record

The regranting layer

51% of grant dollars land in the regranting layer

The DAF merry-go-round

$9.7B circulates between donor-advised funds

The endowment market

who holds foundation money, and what just moved

The camps

funders cluster by geography, not ideology

By state

where grant money is based, and what stays home