· Private foundation
The Gerdin Charitable 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 $10k2 grants · $4k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $50k
- $250k+6 grants · $6.8M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| LUTHER COLLEGE | $3,000,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF IOWA CENTER FOR ADVANCEMENT | $1,250,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF IOWA CENTER FOR ADVANCEMENT | $1,250,000 |
| FRED HUTCHINSON CANCER CENTER | $550,000 |
| IOWA STATE UNIVERSITY | $500,000 |
| UNITYPOINT HEALTH ST LUKE'S FOUNDATION | $250,000 |
| IOWA STATE UNIVERSITY | $50,000 |
| ALZHEIMER'S ASSOCIATION IOWA CHAPTER | $2,500 |
| COMMUNITY FOUNDATION OF JOHNSON COUNTY | $1,000 |
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 14%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 71% 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.
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.
9 repeat relationships — 2 still active in FY2025, 7 since wound down; 4 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, 52% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $3.3M 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
- LCLUTHER COLLEGE3× · 2023–2025 · $8.0M · revenue +7%
IOWA STATE UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION3× · 2019–2021 · $7.0M · revenue +22%- TCTHE CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL OF PHILADELPHIA FOUNDATION2× · 2019–2020 · $4.7M · revenue +148%
Funded once
- UOUNIVERSITY OF NORTHERN IOWA FOUNDATIONone grant, 2023 · $1.0M · revenue -37%
- AARENACOgraduatedone grant, 2018 · $1.0M · revenue ×99
- FHFRED HUTCHINSON CANCER RESEARCH CENTERone grant, 2018 · $500k · revenue -18%
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 university of iowa research foundation's (uirf) mission is to: advance, develop, increase and extend the progress of science and useful arts through encouraging and assisting investigation, research and education at the state…
Our mission is to strengthen the university of iowa through alumni engagement. we do this through our communications, alumni programs, and events.
The university of iowa facilities corporation acquires and holds property for the benefit and use of the university of iowa.
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.
To deliver preeminent medical care and service to our patients and communities through outstanding and innovative medical leadership and practice, while participating in and supporting excellence in education and research. We achieve this…
Indiana university health foundation leverages the power of philanthropy to support the iu health goal of making indiana one of the healthiest states in the nation.
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…
Lead the transformation of healthcare through quality, innovation & education, and make Indiana one of the nation's healthiest states.
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…
Uniting and strengthening the voice for public health in 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…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is State University of Iowa Foundation and the most unlike its peers is Arenaco. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
16 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. 16 of the 20 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 LUTHER COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds IOWA STATE UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL OF PHILADELPHIA FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds MAKE-A-WISH FOUNDATION OF IOWA INC ↗
- Who funds STATE UNIVERSITY OF IOWA FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY OF NORTHERN IOWA FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds ARENACO ↗
- Who funds FRED HUTCHINSON CANCER RESEARCH CENTER ↗
- Who funds ST LUKE'S HEALTH FOUNDATION OF SIOUX CITY IOWA ↗
- Who funds IOWA DONOR NETWORK ↗
- Who funds IOWA MOTOR CARRIERS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds HOWARD YOUNG FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds CEDAR SUMMERSTOCK THEATRE ↗
- Who funds ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE & RELATED DISORDERS ASSOCIATION INC ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY FOUNDATION OF JOHNSON COUNTY ↗
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: Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Amazonsmile 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 The Gerdin Charitable 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.