· Private foundation
The Coons Foundation
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 $10k18 grants · $70k
- $10k–50k8 grants · $132k
- $50k–250k3 grants · $185k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Wesleylife | $80,000 |
| Blank's Children's Hospital | $55,000 |
| Des Moines Metro Opera | $50,000 |
| LeBonheur Children's Hospital | $30,000 |
| Living History Farms Foundation | $27,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $25,000 |
| Mid-South Soaring Foundation | $10,000 |
| Mind & Spirit Counseling Center | $10,000 |
| Mayo Clinic | $10,000 |
| St George's Independent School | $10,000 |
| Iowa Public Television Foundation | $10,000 |
| Chariton High School | $7,000 |
| Des Moines Playhouse | $5,000 |
| Food Bank of Iowa | $5,000 |
| Orpheum Theater | $5,000 |
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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY17–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 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 +46% since the first grant, against -5% for the ones you funded once.
38 repeat relationships — 20 still active in FY2025, 18 since wound down; 8 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, 82% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $68k 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× · 2020–2025 · $511k · revenue +20%
- DMDES MOINES METRO OPERA INC9× · 2017–2025 · $379k · revenue +23%
- JCJOSHUA CHRISTIAN ACADEMY INC4× · 2018–2022 · $155k · revenue +141%
Funded once
- TVTHE VILLAGE GOOD SHEPHERD FDone grant, 2017 · $50k
- LCLUCAS COUNTY HEALTH CENTER FOUNDATIONone grant, 2019 · $32k
- RVRUSSELL VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPTone 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.
The foundation is organized to further the growth and development of private colleges and universities of higher education in iowa.
The foundation for the iowa city community school district connects the community with our schools to ensure every student has extraordinary learning experiences. together we empower teachers and district staff and inspire students to…
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.
Provision of christ centered education with scholastic excellence.
Common good iowa engages iowans to create and advocate for research-based public policy that makes life better and more equitable for all who make iowa home.
To provide high-quality and compassionate care to community members approaching the end of life.
The university of iowa facilities corporation acquires and holds property for the benefit and use of the university of iowa.
To improve lives in our global community by educating diverse groups of highly competent and compassionate health professionals.
The iowa hospital association reimagines health care in iowa for life changing outcomes. as the voice and principal advocate for iowa's hospitals, iha provides strategic leadership, resources, and support to ensure its members can…
Engages, equips and empowers learners to explore their vocations, fulfill their potential and serve the world.
Our mission is to strengthen the university of iowa through alumni engagement. we do this through our communications, alumni programs, and events.
To facilitate the lifetime connection of alumni, students, and friends with iowa state university and each other.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is University of Northern Iowa Foundation and the most unlike its peers is Almost Home Animal Rescue. 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 44 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 — 3% 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.
27 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. 27 of the 63 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 DES MOINES METRO OPERA INC ↗
- Who funds JOSHUA CHRISTIAN ACADEMY INC ↗
- Who funds IOWA PBS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds LIVING HISTORY FARMS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds MAYO CLINIC ↗
- Who funds Lucas County Fair Association ↗
- Who funds DES MOINES PERFORMING ARTS ↗
- Who funds HELPHOPELIVE INC ↗
- Who funds ST GEORGE'S INDEPENDENT SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds DES MOINES SYMPHONY ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds ALMOST HOME ANIMAL RESCUE ↗
- Who funds INTERCHURCH COUNCIL OF LUCAS COUNTY IOWA INC ↗
- Who funds CORAM DEO ACADEMY ↗
- Who funds WILLIAM WOODS UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds MIND AND SPIRIT COUNSELING CENTER ↗
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: Community Fdn of Greater Des Moines F/K/A Greater Des Moines Community Fdn · The Vredenburg Foundation · Meredith Corporation Foundation · Fred Maytag Family Foundation · Bookey Family Foundation · EMC Insurance Foundation · Prairie Meadows Race Track and Casino Inc · Helen J and Thomas Nelson Urban Sr Charitable Foundation III · William C Knapp Charitable Fdn · Mary K and Daniel M Kelly Family Foundation C/O Dan Kelly · The Merchants Bonding Company Foundation · Henry G & Norma Peterson Charitable Tr
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 Coons 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.