· Private foundation
The C Robert Brenton and Babette C Bre
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 clustered by its grantee’s IRS cause code (NTEE), by year — across FY2018–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k1 grant · $3k
- $10k–50k1 grant · $10k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| DES MOINES METRO OPERA | $10,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $3,000 |
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.
Your human-services grants (FY19–23, $3k) land where the poverty rate runs at 10%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 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.
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 +39% since the first grant, against +21% for the ones you funded once.
16 repeat relationships — 1 still active in FY2025, 15 since wound down; 1 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, 77% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $3k 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
- LHLIVING HISTORY FARMS FOUNDATION3× · 2019–2024 · $110k · revenue +18%
- INIOWA NATURAL HERITAGE FOUNDATION3× · 2021–2023 · $55k · revenue +154%
- EAEdmundson Art Foundation Inc5× · 2018–2024 · $50k · revenue +20%
Funded once
- SPST PAUL'S EPISCOPAL CATHEDRALone grant, 2024 · $102k
- EDEPISCOPAL DIOCESE OF IOWAone grant, 2019 · $6k
- SMSPURGEON MANOR INCone grant, 2018 · $5k · revenue +21%
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 promote the common business interests of member companies without profit and without the inuring of income to the benefit of any member company or individual. to present the executive, legislative, judicial and regulatory bodies…
To facilitate the lifetime connection of alumni, students, and friends with iowa state university and each other.
The mission of denver botanic gardens is to connect people with plants, especially plants from the rocky mountain region and similar regions around the world, providing delight and enlightenment to everyone.
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.
To promote the enjoyment, understanding and appreciation of gardens, sculpture, the natural environment and the arts. the most significant activity is to allow guests to experience horticulture and the arts.
To cultivate and develop an expansive collection of trees, gardens, and plants for all to explore, enjoy and study; and to provide through education and stewardship, a greener, healthier, more beautiful environment.
To enrich life by perpetuating tropical plants, ecosystems and cultural heritage through discovery, scientific research, conservation, and education.
To excite, engage and educate through the arts.
The university of iowa facilities corporation acquires and holds property for the benefit and use of the university of iowa.
The iowa soybean association (isa) is driven to deliver increased soybean demand through market development and new uses, farmer-focused research and results, timely information and know-how, and policy initiatives enabling farmers and the…
Our mission is to advance the practice of medicine through advocacy, education, and engagement with physicians throughout iowa to ensure the highest quality of care for the patients they serve.
Our mission is to strengthen the university of iowa through alumni engagement. we do this through our communications, alumni programs, and events.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Living History Farms Foundation and the most unlike its peers is Van Buren County Historical Society. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
15 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. 15 of the 29 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 IOWA STATE UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds LIVING HISTORY FARMS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds IOWA NATURAL HERITAGE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Edmundson Art Foundation Inc ↗
- Who funds DES MOINES METRO OPERA INC ↗
- Who funds BRENTON ARBORETUM INC ↗
- Who funds FOOD BANK OF IOWA ↗
- Who funds THE GOW SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds SPURGEON MANOR INC ↗
- Who funds Van Buren County Historical Society ↗
- Who funds American National Red Cross & Its Constituent Chapters and Branches ↗
- Who funds WESLEYLIFE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds GREATER DES MOINES BOTANICAL GARDEN ↗
- Who funds THE TAFT SCHOOL CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds THE GARDEN CLUB OF AMERICA ↗
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: Brenton Foundation · Meredith Corporation Foundation · The Levitt Foundation · Gartner Family Foundation % Michael G Gartner · Mary K and Daniel M Kelly Family Foundation C/O Dan Kelly · Weathertop Foundation F/K/A Thomas Nelson Urban Jr · Fred Maytag Family Foundation · EMC Insurance Foundation · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift 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 The C Robert Brenton and Babette C Bre 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.