· Private foundation
Sirk 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 FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k23 grants · $11k
- $10k–50k1 grant · $20k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| DUBUQUE COMMUNITY Y | $20,000 |
| DUBUQUE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA | $2,500 |
| DUBUQUE MUSEUM OF ART | $2,000 |
| DUBUQUE REGIONAL HUMANE SOCIETY | $1,000 |
| GRAND OPERA HOUSE | $500 |
| UNIVERSITY OF DUBUQUE | $500 |
| HILLCREST FAMILY SERVICES | $500 |
| OPENING DOORS | $500 |
| YOUTH DEVELOPMENT THROUGH GOLF | $500 |
| CARNEGIE STOUT PUBLIC LIBRARY | $500 |
| ST JUDES CHILDREN HOSPITAL | $400 |
| DUBUQUE FOOD PANTRY | $300 |
| WISCONSIN PUBLIC RADIO | $250 |
| LIFELINE PILOTS | $250 |
| DUBUQUE BOYS & GIRLS CLUB | $250 |
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 (FY17–24, $43k) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 100% 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 +62% since the first grant, against +0% for the ones you funded once.
40 repeat relationships — 23 still active in FY2024, 17 since wound down; 1 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (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 FY2024, 99% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $250 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
- DCDUBUQUE COMMUNITY Y7× · 2017–2024 · $35k · revenue +81%
- DSDUBUQUE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA8× · 2017–2024 · $20k · revenue +203%
- DMDUBUQUE MUSEUM OF ART7× · 2017–2024 · $13k · revenue +148%
Funded once
- UIUPLIFT INTERNATIONALEone grant, 2021 · $3k · revenue -33%
- RCROTARY CLUB OF DUBUQUEone grant, 2017 · $3k
- JAJUNIOR ACHIEVEMENT OF THE HEARTLANDone grant, 2020 · $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.
The Dubuque Area Convention & Visitors Bureau (CVB) will lead tourism destination promotion and development to enhance and expand the Dubuque Area experience.
To connect people and resources to advance the health, education, and income of those in need in our community.
Support student achievement by promoting investment in the Dubuque Public Schools.
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.
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…
Founded in 1995 as the philanthropic arm of the iowa credit union league and guided by the credit union philosophy of "people helping people", the iowa credit union foundation (the foundation) works to champion financial well-being for…
The university of iowa facilities corporation acquires and holds property for the benefit and use of the university of iowa.
The union works to advocate and advance a public policy agenda to support and protect the constitution of the united states and the constitution of the state of iowa. it works to maintain throughout the united states the rights of free…
The organization receives, warehouses, and distributes salvageable food items to non-profit tax exempt member agencies to feed the ill, needy, and infants.
The foundation works to defend and promote the constitution of the united states, focusing especially on the first, fourth, fifth, sixth, eighth, and 14th amendments. the foundation also works to defend and promote the constitution of the…
Our mission is to strengthen the university of iowa through alumni engagement. we do this through our communications, alumni programs, and events.
The visiting nurse association exists to promote and improve the health, wellness, and safety of individuals and communities through provision of comprehensive, home, and community based initiatives and services.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Community Foundation of Greater Dubuque and the most unlike its peers is American Heart Association Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
Your grantees are a median of 45 years old; the field is 24. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 17% startups (under 5 years old) — 3% of your grantees by number, and just 1% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 13% 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.
38 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2026.
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 2017–2026, not grant rows in a single year — so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 38 of the 58 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 COMMUNITY FOUNDATION OF GREATER DUBUQUE ↗
- Who funds DUBUQUE COMMUNITY Y ↗
- Who funds DUBUQUE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA ↗
- Who funds DUBUQUE MUSEUM OF ART ↗
- Who funds NORTHEAST IOWA COUNCIL BOY SCOUTS ↗
- Who funds DUBUQUE DREAM CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds DUBUQUE REGIONAL HUMANE SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds Hillcrest Family Services Inc ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY OF DUBUQUE ↗
- Who funds UPLIFT INTERNATIONALE ↗
- Who funds MIRACLE LEAGUE OF DUBUQUE ↗
- Who funds IOWA STATE SHERIFFS' & DEPUTIES' ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds DUBUQUE FOOD PANTRY ↗
- Who funds THE GRAND OPERA HOUSE ↗
- Who funds CARNEGIE-STOUT PUBLIC LIBRARY FOUND ↗
- Who funds DURIDE ↗
- Who funds WISCONSIN PUBLIC RADIO ASSOCIATION INC ↗
- Who funds OPENING DOORS ↗
- Who funds LIFELINE INC ↗
- Who funds Two By Two Character Development ↗
- Who funds Dubuque County Historical Society ↗
- Who funds DUBUQUE ARTS COUNCIL ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds FOUR MOUNDS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds HILLEL THE FOUNDATION FOR JEWISH CAMPUS LIFE ↗
- Who funds JEWISH FAMILY SERVICE OF ST PAUL ↗
- Who funds SPECIAL OLYMPICS IOWA 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: Heartland Charitable Trust · James B & Melita a McDonough Foundation · Dubuque Racing Association Ltd · Community Foundation of Greater Dubuque · Falb Family Charitable Foundation · The Butler Family Foundation · Ay McDonald Charitable Foundation · Alliant Energy Foundation Inc · Spahn & Rose Lumber Co Charitable Fdtn · Flynn Family Foundation · Schoen Family Charitable Trust · Crescent Electric 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 Sirk 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.