· Private foundation
The Denny and Candy Elwell 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 $10k41 grants · $119k
- $10k–50k27 grants · $382k
- $50k–250k4 grants · $225k
Anchored by a single position — about 95% of reported assets are held in Anglogold Stock.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| PRAIRIE RIDGE CHURCH | $75,000 |
| IOWA HEALTH FOUNDATION | $50,000 |
| DES MOINES CHILDREN MUSEUM | $50,000 |
| MAYO CLINIC | $50,000 |
| ANIMAL RESCUE LEAGUE OF IOWA INC | $35,000 |
| ALZHEIMERS ASSOCATION | $26,500 |
| ON WITH LIFE | $25,000 |
| BLANK CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL | $25,000 |
| THE EASTER SEAL SOCIETY FOUNDATION | $25,000 |
| LITTLE WHITE SCHOOLHOUSE FOUNDATION | $15,300 |
| DENTAL CONNECTIONS | $15,000 |
| GARDEN GATE RANCH | $15,000 |
| CHILDSERVE FOUNDATION INC | $15,000 |
| THE WORLD FOOD PRIZE FOUNDATION | $12,500 |
| NORTH POLK CUMMUNITY SCHOOL FOUNDATION | $12,000 |
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 (FY17–25, $113k) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 16% 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 +23% since the first grant, against 0% for the ones you funded once.
50 repeat relationships — 42 still active in FY2025, 8 since wound down; 29 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, 71% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $193k 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
- ARANIMAL RESCUE LEAGUE OF IOWA INC9× · 2017–2025 · $76k · revenue +90%
- IHIOWA HEALTH FOUNDATION3× · 2017–2025 · $70k · revenue +38%
- DMDES MOINES CHILDRENS MUSEUM4× · 2022–2025 · $65k · revenue +621%
Funded once
DRAKE UNIVERSITYone grant, 2022 · $10k · revenue +1%- KCKingdom Cares Internationalone grant, 2017 · $10k · revenue +28%
- ZAZAFAR AND MIR FOUNDATION INCone grant, 2024 · $10k · revenue 0%
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.
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…
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.
Building iowa's values by recognizing and responding to significantchanges in iowa - those that fundamentally affect families and communities.
To provide high-quality and compassionate care to community members approaching the end of life.
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…
Connecting families affected by childhood cancer by providing opportunities that encourage relationships and strengthen community.
The university of iowa facilities corporation acquires and holds property for the benefit and use of the university of iowa.
To improve the health of the people and communities we serve.
Iowa sister states is dedicated to connecting iowans with the world community. our mission is to develop and implement international partnerships and programs that promote the cultural, economic, and other interests of iowa and its friends…
The foundation is organized to further the growth and development of private colleges and universities of higher education in iowa.
To improve the health of the people and communities we serve.
Unite the caring power of communities to invest in effective solutions to improve people's lives.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Iowa Health Foundation and the most unlike its peers is World Food Prize Foundation. 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 33 years old; the field is 20. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 22% startups (under 5 years old) — 7% of your grantees by number, and just 13% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 1% 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.
59 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. 59 of the 109 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 MAYO CLINIC ↗
- Who funds ANIMAL RESCUE LEAGUE OF IOWA INC ↗
- Who funds IOWA HEALTH FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds DES MOINES CHILDRENS MUSEUM ↗
- Who funds Ankeny Community Foundation ↗
- Who funds World Food Prize Foundation ↗
- Who funds FOOD BANK OF IOWA ↗
- Who funds BLANK PARK ZOO FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds YOUNG WOMEN'S RESOURCE CENTER ↗
- Who funds GARDEN GATE RANCH INC ↗
- Who funds SCIENCE CENTER OF IOWA ↗
- Who funds BALLET DES MOINES ↗
- Who funds DES MOINES PERFORMING ARTS ↗
- Who funds SAMARITAN'S PURSE ↗
- Who funds ON WITH LIFE INC ↗
- Who funds THE EASTER SEAL SOCIETY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds The Ankeny Klothing Exchange ↗
- Who funds WOUNDED WARRIOR PROJECT INC ↗
- Who funds New Horizons Adult Day Center ↗
- Who funds ST JUDE CHILDREN'S RESEARCH HOSPITAL INC ↗
- Who funds DENTAL CONNECTIONS INC ↗
- Who funds CHILDSERVE FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds SMILE TRAIN INC ↗
- Who funds FURRY FRIENDS REFUGE ↗
- Who funds Ankeny Area Historical Society ↗
- Who funds THE SHRINERS' HOSPITAL FOR CHILDREN ↗
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 · Prairie Meadows Race Track and Casino Inc · The West Bancorporation Foundation Inc · The Merchants Bonding Company Foundation · Meredith Corporation Foundation · EMC Insurance Foundation · Pella Rolscreen Foundation · Deb & Bob Pulver Foundation · Wt and Edna M Dahl Trust · Bookey Family Foundation · Bravo Greater Des Moines Inc · John Ruan Foundation Trust
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 Denny and Candy Elwell 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.
- The Shriners' Hospital for Children — 6% of income from government
- Best Buddies International Inc — 4% of income from government
- Wounded Warrior Project Inc — 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.