· Private foundation
Merlin & Verna Manatt Family Foundation
Its FY2024 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 FY2017–2023.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2023
- $10k–50k14 grants · $294k
- $50k–250k3 grants · $401k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| GREATER POWESHIEK CO FOUNDATION | $240,500 |
| MICHAEL J MANATT COMMUNITY CENTER | $105,000 |
| BROOKLYN HISTORICAL SOCIETY | $55,000 |
| CITY OF BROOKLYN | $35,000 |
| BGM | $35,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $27,500 |
| CSF BGM DOLLARS FOR SCHOLARS | $25,000 |
| BROOKLYN COMM FOUNDATION | $25,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $25,000 |
| BROOKLYN COMMUNITY FOUNDATION | $21,000 |
| ST FRANCIS MANOR FOUNDATION | $20,000 |
| BROOKLYN FOOD BANK | $20,000 |
| MAYFLOWER | $20,000 |
| US AGAINST ALZHEIMERS | $10,000 |
| AMERICAN KIDNEY FUND | $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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY17–23) land where the poverty rate runs at 9%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 2% of your 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.
6 repeat relationships — 1 still active in FY2023, 5 since wound down; 15 grantees were first funded in FY2023 (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 FY2023, 16% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $568k 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
- MJMICHAEL J MANATT COMMUNITY CENTER2× · 2021–2023 · $110k
- BHBROOKLYN HISTORICAL MUSEUM5× · 2017–2021 · $23k
- BTBGM TAG SMART PANEL2× · 2020–2021 · $12k
Funded once
- CWClaude W & Dolly Ahrens Foundationgraduatedone grant, 2018 · $15k · revenue +88%
- BBBGM BEAR BACKERS-COURTSIDE CHAIRSone grant, 2021 · $6k
- MPMICA-FOOD PANTRYone grant, 2021 · $5k
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 receive contributions and gifts and to disburse funds to assist in supporting jefferson county hospital, jefferson county, iowa.
Collect and distribute funds to charitable organizations
Raise funds for renovation and preservation of the historic Iowa State Fairgrounds by soliciting gifts, donations, bequests and grants to help finance infrastructure projects to guarantee the Fair continues to be Iowa's great celebration,…
The foundation is organized to further the growth and development of private colleges and universities of higher education in iowa.
The Ankeny Community Foundation is committed to be responsible and to provide our community an opportunity to create a legacy.
Promoting, for the benefit and education of the general public, the preservation and interpretation of the history of the state of iowa.
To encourage and assist sanford sheldon in its activities in providing health care, medical, and educational services to the region.
Benefit charitable and educational community projects in the jackson county area.
The iowa women's foundation is committed to improving the lives of iowa's women and girls. we use research to uncover barriers to women's success as well as their greatest needs, and we invest our passion and resources accordingly.
Iowa first fund was organized for the purpose of educating and informing iowa voters about limited government and expanding economic opportunity.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Brooklyn Community Foundation Inc and the most unlike its peers is Brooklyn Housing Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
8 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. 8 of the 33 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 Greater Poweshiek Community Foundation ↗
- Who funds BROOKLYN COMMUNITY FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds ST FRANCIS MANOR FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Claude W & Dolly Ahrens Foundation ↗
- Who funds IOWA HEART FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds USAGAINSTALZHEIMER'S ↗
- Who funds Grinnell-Newburg Boosters ↗
- Who funds BROOKLYN HOUSING 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 set of overlaps that mostly run through you, not between each other.
Open a dossier: 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 Merlin & Verna Manatt Family 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.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to Merlin & Verna Manatt Family Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Merlin & Verna Manatt Family 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.