· Private foundation
Pennebaker 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 FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| NEW LONDON COMMUNITY SCHOOLS | $4,250 |
| NEW LONDON FIRE AND RESCUE | $2,000 |
| NEW LONDON AG FOUNDATION | $1,250 |
| NL JUNIOR BASEBALL ASSOCIATION | $1,000 |
| DOVER HISTORICAL SOCIETY | $1,000 |
| SOUTHEAST IOWA SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA | $1,000 |
| MT PLEASANT MUSIC CHARITIES INC | $1,000 |
| DOLLARS FOR SCHOLARS | $1,000 |
| NL TIGER TRAP SHOOTING | $1,000 |
| HENRY COUNTY CONSERVATION DEPARTMEN | $1,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $1,000 |
| ALCOHOL AND DRUG DEPENDENCY SERVICE | $500 |
| NEW LONDON COMMUNITY CHILD CARE CEN | $500 |
| HENRY COUNTY HELP TO OTHERS | $500 |
| SWEDISH HERITAGE SOCIETY FOUNDATION | $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 (FY17–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 12%. 100% of your 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.
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.
28 repeat relationships — 12 still active in FY2025, 16 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, 78% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $4k 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
- NLNEW LONDON COMMUNITY SCHOOLS7× · 2017–2025 · $27k
- NLNEW LONDON FIRE DEPARTMENT5× · 2017–2021 · $19k
- NLNEW LONDON JUNIOR BASEBALL ASSOCIATION5× · 2017–2021 · $15k · revenue +10%
Funded once
- NLNEW LONDON COMM & SCHOOL FOUNDATIONone grant, 2017 · $5k
- MPMT PLEASANT HISTORIC PRESERVATIONone grant, 2020 · $2k
- NLNEW LONDON COMMUNITY SCHOOLS CLARKone grant, 2023 · $1k
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.
Agriculture Education event with Youth
Preservation of union county iowa hisorical information and artifacts.
To provide a 4-h county fair.
To preserve and celebrate the rich story of northwest iowa's dutch immigrant history and culture.
Operation of the Iowa Aviation Museum
Restoration and display of historical items pertinent to fremont county, iowa
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Young House Family Services Inc and the most unlike its peers is Iowa Wesleyan University. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
9 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. 9 of the 43 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 NEW LONDON JUNIOR BASEBALL ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds YOUNG HOUSE FAMILY SERVICES INC ↗
- Who funds HENRY COUNTY HERITAGE TRUST INC ↗
- Who funds Iowa Wesleyan University ↗
- Who funds MIDWEST OLD SETTLERS & THRESHERS ↗
- Who funds NEW LONDON AG FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds SWEDISH HERITAGE SOCIETY FOUNDATION 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: William M & Donna J Hoaglin Foundation Inc · Community Fdn of Greater Des Moines F/K/A Greater Des Moines Community Fdn · 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 Pennebaker 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 Pennebaker Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Pennebaker 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.