· Private foundation
Meredith Corporation Foundation
Its FY2025 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2021–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k4 grants · $14k
- $10k–50k13 grants · $202k
- $50k–250k3 grants · $285k
- $250k+2 grants · $715k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| DRAKE UNIVERSITY | $400,000 |
| GREATER DES MOINES BOTANICAL GARDEN | $315,000 |
| GRAYS LAKE PLAYGROUND & SPRAYGROUND FUND | $125,000 |
| SCIENCE CENTER OF IOWA | $110,000 |
| CHILDSERVE FOUNDATION | $50,000 |
| COMMUNITY FOUNDATION OF GREATER DES MOINES | $40,000 |
| REBUILDING TOGETHER | $25,000 |
| GREATER DES MOINES HABITAT FOR HUMANITY | $25,000 |
| DES MOINES ARTS FESTIVAL | $15,000 |
| BOYS & GIRLS CLUB OF CENTRAL IOWA | $15,000 |
| PROJECT IOWA YOUTH WORKS | $12,000 |
| DES MOINES PERFORMING ARTS | $10,000 |
| DES MOINES SYMPHONY | $10,000 |
| DES MOINES METRO OPERA | $10,000 |
| BLANK PARK ZOO | $10,000 |
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 (FY21–25, $400k) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 98% 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.
Which US states your grants reach
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 +23% since the first grant, against +14% for the ones you funded once.
216 repeat relationships — 15 still active in FY2025, 201 since wound down; 6 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, 84% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $183k 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
DRAKE UNIVERSITY5× · 2021–2025 · $1.5M · revenue +4%- GDGREATER DES MOINES BOTANICAL GARDEN4× · 2021–2025 · $341k · revenue +294%
- HSHOYT SHERMAN PLACE FOUNDATION4× · 2021–2025 · $208k · revenue +125%
Funded once
- CFCOMMUNITY FOUNDATION GREATER DES MOone grant, 2021 · $155k
- BGBOYS GIRLS CLUBone grant, 2021 · $103k
EQUAL JUSTICE INITIATIVEone grant, 2021 · $102k · revenue -40%
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.
The University of New Haven is a student-centered comprehensive university with an emphasis on excellence in liberal arts and professional education. Our mission is to prepare our students to lead purposeful and fulfilling lives in a…
The primary mission of furman as a liberal arts institution is to provide a distinctive education in fine arts, humanities, social sciences, mathematics and the sciences, as well as selected professional disciplines.
Provide an independent forum for those who dare to read, think, speak, and write to advance the professional, literary, and scientific understanding of sea power and other issues critical to global security.
The npr foundation ("foundation") is organized and operated exclusively for the benefit of its sole supported organization, national public radio, inc. ("npr inc."). the foundation supports npr inc. through various activities such as…
The fsmb serves as the voice for state medical boards, supporting them through education, assessment, research and advocacy while providing services and initiatives that promote patient safety, quality health care and regulatory best…
Inspired by the gift of donation from our communities, allosource responsibly provides innovative cellular and tissue allografts to advance patient healing.
The purpose of the water research foundation (wrf) is a definitive research organization to advance the science of all things water to better meet the evolving needs of its subscribers and the water sector. to engage exclusively in…
The common application is a not-for-profit membership organization of over 1,100 colleges and universities across the globe committed to access, equity, and integrity in the college admission process. every year, over 1.5 million students…
Rooted in the liberal arts & sciences & lutheran expression of the christian faith, & is committed to offering a challenging education that develops qualities of mind, spirit, & body necessary for a rewarding life of leadership & service…
The bac is committed to provide excellence in design education grounded in practice and accessible to diverse communities.
Midwest dairy works with others to give consumers an excellent dairy experience increasing sales, fostering innovation, and inspiring consumer confidence of dairy products and practices.
At the internet society foundation, we focus on funding initiatives that strengthen the internet in function and reach so that it can effectively serve all people. our work advances the vision of the internet society (isoc): the internet…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Childserve Foundation Inc and the most unlike its peers is Boys Girls Club. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
For each theme you fund, this compares how the sector’s money is shifting with how your own giving is shifting.
Sector change and giving change are each shown relative to their own range, growing (right) or shrinking (left); both normalized, so inflation isn’t mistaken for growth.
Your grantees are a median of 38 years old; the field is 38. You back the younger end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 13% startups (under 5 years old) — 1% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.4% lost their exemption, against 6% of the field you don’t fund.
Age = years since IRS exemption (a founding proxy). “Closed” = auto-revocation for 3 years of non-filing — a floor on closure, not proof, and bigger established orgs lapse least. Association, not causation.
623 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. 623 of the 945 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
Showing your 200 largest grantees by grant value.
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 DRAKE UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds GREATER DES MOINES BOTANICAL GARDEN ↗
- Who funds SCIENCE CENTER OF IOWA ↗
- Who funds HOYT SHERMAN PLACE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds UNITED WAY OF CENTRAL IOWA ↗
- Who funds CHILDSERVE FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds EQUAL JUSTICE INITIATIVE ↗
- Who funds THE INNOCENCE PROJECT INC ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL URBAN LEAGUE INC ↗
- Who funds MAINFRAME STUDIOS ↗
- Who funds WESLEYLIFE ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY FDN OF GREATER DES MOINES F/K/A GREATER DES MOINES COMMUNITY FDN ↗
- Who funds FOOD BANK OF IOWA ↗
- Who funds DES MOINES ARTS FESTIVAL INC ↗
- Who funds DES MOINES COMMUNITY PLAYHOUSE ↗
- Who funds DES MOINES SYMPHONY ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds DES MOINES METRO OPERA INC ↗
- Who funds BLANK PARK ZOO FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds DES MOINES PERFORMING ARTS ↗
- Who funds DES MOINES FILM SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds GREATER DES MOINES HABITAT FOR HUMANITY INC ↗
- Who funds CYSTIC FIBROSIS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds IOWA STATE FAIR FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds BOYS & GIRLS CLUBS OF CENTRAL IOWA ↗
- Who funds DES MOINES PUBLIC LIBRARY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Edmundson Art Foundation Inc ↗
- Who funds GREATER DES MOINES MUSIC COALITION ↗
- Who funds TREES FOREVER INC ↗
- Who funds TEACH RWANDA ↗
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: Prairie Meadows Race Track and Casino Inc · The Merchants Bonding Company Foundation · EMC Insurance Foundation · Ita Group Foundation · Community Fdn of Greater Des Moines F/K/A Greater Des Moines Community Fdn · The West Bancorporation Foundation Inc · Bookey Family Foundation · Golf Charitable Foundation of Greater Des Moines · Gartner Family Foundation % Michael G Gartner · Wt and Edna M Dahl Trust · United Way of Central Iowa · Kyle J & Sharon Krause Family 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 Meredith Corporation 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.
- Mercy Corps — 47% of income from government
- Local Motion Inc — 19% of income from government
- Connecticut Science Center Inc — 14% of income from government
- Vermont Foodbank — 13% of income from government
- Richmond Land Trust Inc — 10% of income from government
- Best Buddies International Inc — 4% of income from government
- Shelburne Farms — 3% of income from government
- Wesleyan University — 1% of income from government
- Golda Och Academy — 0% of income from government
- Pan-Massachusetts Challenge Inc — 0% of income from government
- Food for the Poor Inc — 0% of income from government
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.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to Meredith Corporation Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Meredith Corporation Foundation through trustees and officers whose names appear on both boards. Search for your organization and Plinth traces the shortest route it can evidence.
Each link is a name appearing on two organizations’ public IRS 990 filings, matched on that name and, where the filings support it, on location. A same-state match has geographic support, which is a second matching feature rather than confirmation that the two are one person; a cross-state one is the likeliest to be two people who share a name. Every hop shows its tier, low-confidence and distant paths are held back rather than guessed, and it is worth confirming the person before you use the introduction.