· Private foundation
The Growmark Foundation
Its FY2024 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 FY2020–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k168 grants · $282k
- $10k–50k15 grants · $252k
- $50k–250k5 grants · $322k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| HEARTLAND COMMUNITY COLLEGE | $108,650 |
| UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS FOUNDATION | $57,500 |
| AGRICULTURE FUTURE OF AMERICA | $55,000 |
| MIDWEST FOOD BANK | $50,400 |
| UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS FOUNDATION | $50,000 |
| WISCONSIN FARM BUREAU FOUNDATION | $35,000 |
| IOWA AGRICULTURE LITERACY FOUNDATIO | $29,500 |
| Global Farmer Network | $25,000 |
| Illinois Ag Leadership Foundation | $21,500 |
| Progressive Agriculture Foundation | $20,000 |
| ILLINOIS FOUNDATION FFA | $16,920 |
| Necas | $13,000 |
| Illinois 4H Foundation | $13,000 |
| IOWA STATE UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION | $12,773 |
| University Of Illinois | $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 (FY21–24, $292k) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 99% 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.
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 +34% since the first grant, against +10% for the ones you funded once.
160 repeat relationships — 82 still active in FY2024, 78 since wound down; 94 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (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 FY2024, 81% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $162k 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
- MFMIDWEST FOOD BANK NFP5× · 2020–2024 · $268k · revenue +38%
University of Illinois Foundation3× · 2020–2024 · $216k · revenue +74%
IOWA STATE UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION5× · 2020–2024 · $142k · revenue +49%
Funded once
- AFAGRICULTURE FUTURE OF AMERICAone grant, 2023 · $110k
- IAILLINOIS AGRICULTURAL ASSOC TREASUone grant, 2023 · $60k
- AFAGRICULTURE FURTURE OF AMERICAone grant, 2020 · $50k
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 university of iowa facilities corporation acquires and holds property for the benefit and use of the university of iowa.
To assist and represent the crop production supply and service industry and promote the sound stewardship and utilization of agricultural inputs.
The missouri western state university foundation is a not-for-profit charitable organization that functions solely to support the mission of missouri western state university, as stated in the university's mission statement. the foundation…
Michigan farm bureau (mfb) is a member directed agricultural organization whose purpose is to represent, protect, and enhance the business, economic, social, and educational interests of our members located throughout the state of michigan.
To develop knowledgeable and effective leaders to become policy and decision makers for the agricultural industry.
Our mission is to strengthen the university of iowa through alumni engagement. we do this through our communications, alumni programs, and events.
To assist in providing agricultural related education to all persons and developing agricultural leaders for the future.
The university of iowa center for advancement's mission is to advance the university of iowa through engagement and philanthropy. we serve our alumni and friends in the state and the region, throughout the country, and around the world. we…
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.
The nmu foundation will establish and foster relationships to generate resources that benefit the strategic goals of northern michigan university.
The national farmers union foundation's (nfuf) mission is to empower people to educate our youth, neighbors, media and policymakers on the social, economic and cooperative contributions of family agriculture.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Iowa Ffa Foundation Inc and the most unlike its peers is Jersey 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.
For each theme you fund, this compares how the sector’s money is shifting with how your own giving is shifting.
Sector change and giving change are each shown relative to their own range, growing (right) or shrinking (left); both normalized, so inflation isn’t mistaken for growth.
Your grantees are a median of 38 years old; the field is 20. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 18% startups (under 5 years old) — 4% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 12% 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.
206 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. 206 of the 495 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
Showing your 200 largest grantees by grant value.
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 MIDWEST FOOD BANK NFP ↗
- Who funds IAA Foundation ↗
- Who funds University of Illinois Foundation ↗
- Who funds IOWA STATE UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds AGRICULTURE FUTURE OF AMERICA ↗
- Who funds ILLINOIS COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds TREES FOREVER INC ↗
- Who funds AGRIBUSINESS ASSOCIATION OF IOWA ↗
- Who funds Wisconsin Farm Bureau Foundation Inc ↗
- Who funds IOWA FFA FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds PROGRESSIVE AGRICULTURE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE GLOBAL FARMER NETWORK ↗
- Who funds THE WISCONSIN FFA FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds SALEM CHILDREN'S HOME INC ↗
- Who funds THE BABY FOLD ↗
- Who funds THE GLOBAL FARMER NETWORK FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds LIVING HISTORY FARMS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds FOUNDATION FOR AGRONOMIC RESEARCH INC ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL AGRI-MARKETING ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds IOWA 4-H FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds IOWA AGRICULTURE LITERACY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds UNITED WAY OF ASHLAND 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: Illinois Prairie Community Foundation Inc · Parker Kemp Foundation · Commerce Bancshares Foundation · Snyder Family Foundation Nfp · Land O'Lakes Foundation · Pella Rolscreen Foundation · Reardon Family Foundation · Alliant Energy Foundation Inc · Chs Foundation · Jx Gives Back Family Foundation Inc · United Way of McLean County · Otto Baum Company Inc 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 Growmark 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.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to The Growmark Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Growmark Foundation through trustees and officers whose names appear on both boards. Search for your organization and Plinth traces the shortest route it can evidence.
Each link is a name appearing on two organizations’ public IRS 990 filings, matched on that name and, where the filings support it, on location. A same-state match has geographic support, which is a second matching feature rather than confirmation that the two are one person; a cross-state one is the likeliest to be two people who share a name. Every hop shows its tier, low-confidence and distant paths are held back rather than guessed, and it is worth confirming the person before you use the introduction.