· Private foundation
R & L Vermeer 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.
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 · FY2025
- Under $10k4 grants · $7k
- $10k–50k2 grants · $35k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $50k
- $250k+1 grant · $300k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| PELLA CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS | $300,000 |
| FAITH CHRISTIAN REFORMED CHURCH 705 MAIN | $50,100 |
| WESLEY LIFE | $25,000 |
| RESONATE GLOBAL MISSION | $10,000 |
| PELLA COMMUNITY FOUNDATION | $5,000 |
| THE NAVIGATORS | $1,600 |
| NATIONAL POLICE ASSOCIATION | $500 |
| ST JOSEPH'S INDIAN SCHOOL | $300 |
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 (FY17–23, $22k) land where the poverty rate runs at 9%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 23% 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.
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 +50% since the first grant, against +21% for the ones you funded once.
37 repeat relationships — 4 still active in FY2025, 33 since wound down; 3 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, 22% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $301k 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
- WWESLEYLIFE6× · 2017–2025 · $303k · revenue +57%
- ICInterVarsity Christian FellowshipUSA6× · 2017–2024 · $154k · revenue +9%
- NCNORTHWESTERN COLLEGE3× · 2020–2023 · $77k · revenue +45%
Funded once
- WCWEST CHURCHone grant, 2017 · $20k
- OBONE BODY ONE HOPEgraduatedone grant, 2017 · $15k · revenue +152%
- TWTHE WELL COVENANT-DES MOINES IAone grant, 2017 · $15k
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.
Central christian college of the bible (central) exists to develop servant-leaders for the church. as a traditional undergraduate bible college of the restoration movement, central equips faithful men and women for leadership ministry.
North central university is a christian university with a commitment to academic excellence.
Central christian college of kansas is a four-year, non-profit liberal arts college with the primary mission of offering a christ-centered education for character.
The mission of criswell college is to provide ministerial and professional higher education for men and women preparing to serve as christian leaders throughout society, while maintaining an institutional commitment to biblical inerrancy.
To instruct students in a private school setting, providing educational programs for grade prek through grade 12. teaching is based on the principles of god's word and incorporated into the daily classroom through devotions and chapel.
Mid-america christian university prepares students through a wesleyan perspective to create, collaborate, and innovate to solve local and global problems for the glory of god through jesus christ and the good of society.
Indiana wesleyan university is a christ-centered academic community committed to changing the world by developing students in character, scholarship, and leadership.
Holy cross christian academy is committed to providing quality, innovative, christ-centered education. our dedicated, professional christian educators strive to engage our students in a comprehensive educational environment that is…
Welch college is a christian higher education institution that educates leaders to serve christ, his church, and his world through biblical thought and life
As a christian university, we provide education and research opportunities preparing global leaders to partner with local communities.
Engages, equips and empowers learners to explore their vocations, fulfill their potential and serve the world.
The mission of pella regional health center is to provide healthcare and healing services with christian compassion.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Des Moines Christian Schools and the most unlike its peers is Samaritan's Purse. 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 34 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) — 2% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% 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.
37 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. 37 of the 79 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 WESLEYLIFE ↗
- Who funds InterVarsity Christian FellowshipUSA ↗
- Who funds NORTHWESTERN COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds BLESSMAN INTERNATIONAL INC ↗
- Who funds PELLA HISTORICAL SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds PARTNERS WORLDWIDE ↗
- Who funds CALVIN THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY ↗
- Who funds CEO FORUM INC ↗
- Who funds CALVIN UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds DORDT UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds PELLA CHRISTIAN GRADE SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds THE SOCIETY OF PELLA CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS ↗
- Who funds MOBILITY WORLDWIDE ↗
- Who funds DES MOINES CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS ↗
- Who funds MDRC ↗
- Who funds PELLA COMMUNITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds WILDWOOD HILLS INC ↗
- Who funds DES MOINES PERFORMING ARTS ↗
- Who funds ONE BODY ONE HOPE ↗
- Who funds PELLA OPERA HOUSE COMMISSION ↗
- Who funds CARY CHRISTIAN CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds CROSSROADS OF PELLA ↗
- Who funds JOSHUA CHRISTIAN ACADEMY INC ↗
- Who funds ASCENDING LEADERS ↗
- Who funds SAMARITAN'S PURSE ↗
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: Vermeer Charitable Foundation · Pella Rolscreen Foundation · Barnabas Foundation · Community Fdn of Greater Des Moines F/K/A Greater Des Moines Community Fdn · Mark & Kay Decook Charitable Founda · Boat Foundation Inc · Peter H and E Lucille Gaass Kuyper Foundation · Vanden Bosch Foundation · Pella Community Foundation · Meredith Corporation Foundation · Amg Charitable Gift Foundation · Sam & Lisa Van Maanen Charitable 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 R & L Vermeer 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.