· Private foundation
Special Needs Foundation of Des Moines County
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 $10k26 grants · $68k
- $10k–50k1 grant · $13k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| SOUTHEASTERN COMMUNITY COLLEGE | $13,030 |
| UNIVERSITY OF IOWA | $9,650 |
| CENTRAL COLLEGE | $4,180 |
| DRAKE UNIVERSITY | $4,180 |
| ST AMBROSE UNIVERSITY | $4,180 |
| MT MERCY UNIVERSITY | $4,180 |
| LORAS COLLEGE | $2,090 |
| UNIVERSITY OF NORTHERN IOWA | $2,090 |
| UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI-ST LOUIS | $2,090 |
| WARTBURG COLLEGE | $2,090 |
| WESTERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY | $2,090 |
| BROWN UNIVERSITY | $2,090 |
| JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY | $2,090 |
| TRUMAN STATE UNIVERSITY | $2,090 |
| UNIVERSITY OF DUBUQUE | $2,090 |
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 14%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 79% 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.
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 +9% since the first grant, against -4% for the ones you funded once.
39 repeat relationships — 21 still active in FY2025, 18 since wound down; 5 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, 85% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $12k went to new ones.
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
- SAST AMBROSE UNIVERSITY7× · 2019–2025 · $19k · revenue +104%
DRAKE UNIVERSITY5× · 2021–2025 · $16k · revenue +4%- IHINDIAN HILLS COMMUNITY COLLEGE5× · 2018–2025 · $14k · revenue +59%
Funded once
Cornell Universitygraduatedone grant, 2023 · $4k · revenue +27%- SISOUTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY ALUMNI ASSOCIATIONone grant, 2022 · $2k · revenue -267%
- SLST LOUIS COMMUNITY COLLEGEone grant, 2022 · $2k
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.
Inspired by lutheran scholarly tradition and the liberal arts, augustana provides an education of enduring worth that challenges the intellect, fosters integrity and integrates faith with learning and service in a diverse world.
The mission of the university is to educate leaders for a global society who are strong in character and judgment, confident in their identity and vocation, and committed to service and justice.
The university's goal in the coming decade is to advance learning through the integration of teaching, research and service to others. the core of this goal is to prepare graduates to engage with the world and lead lives of meaning. to do…
Enriched by the lasallian catholic heritage, saint mary's university of minnesota awakens, nurtures, and empowers learners to ethical lives of service and leadership.
Union college is a seventh-day adventist community of higher education, inspired by jesus christ, and dedicated to empowering students to learn, serve, and lead.
As an institution of higher education committed to the reformed christian perspective, dordt university equips students, alumni, and the broader community to work effectively toward christ-centered renewal in all aspects of contemporary…
John brown university (jbu) provides christ-centered education that prepares students to honor god and serve others by developing their intellectual, spiritual, and professional lives. (continued on schedule o)jbu serves traditional…
Saint xavier university, a catholic institution inspired by the heritage of the sisters of mercy, educates persons to search for truth, think critically, communicate effectively and serve wisely and compassionately in support of human…
Augsburg university educates students to be informed citizens, thoughtful stewards, critical thinkers, and responsible leaders.the augsburg experience is supported by an engaged community that is committed to intentional diversity in its…
Doane university creates distinctive educational experiences, immersed in the liberal arts, to prepare our students for careers and lives grounded in inquiry, ethics, and a commitment to lead and serve in the global community.
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…
Walsh university is an independent, coeducational catholic, liberal arts and sciences institution dedicated to educating its students to become leaders in service to others through a values-based education with an international perspective…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Upper Iowa University 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.
Your grantees are a median of 80 years old; the field is 38. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 13% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% 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.
28 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. 28 of the 54 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 ST AMBROSE UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds DRAKE UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds INDIAN HILLS COMMUNITY COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds LORAS COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds Clarke University of Dubuque Iowa ↗
- Who funds Creighton University ↗
- Who funds CENTRAL COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds GRAND VIEW UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds LUTHER COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds INDIANA WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds Iowa Wesleyan University ↗
- Who funds JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds QUINNIPIAC UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds WARTBURG COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds CORNELL COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds QUINCY UNIVERSITY CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds WILLIAM WOODS UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds Cornell University ↗
- Who funds LIBERTY UNIVERSITY INC ↗
- Who funds ALLEN COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds MOUND FARM HOLDINGS 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: Pella Rolscreen Foundation · Fahrney Education Fdtn Trust · Roy J Carver Charitable Trust · Mount Saint Clare Education Charitable Trust · J Ralph And Gladys Meier Scholarship Trust · Bestenlehner D and F Educational Tr · Iowa College Foundation · W E Ruebush Foundation · Ottumwa Regional Legacy Foundation Inc · Alliant Energy Foundation Inc · Meyerhoff Charitable Trust · Willard E and Ella P Thompson Educational Fund
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 Special Needs Foundation of Des Moines County 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.
- Johns Hopkins University — 11% of income from government
- Quinnipiac University — 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.