· Private foundation
The John R and Zelda Z Grubb Charitable 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
By grantee IRS cause code (NTEE).
A cause breakdown isn’t shown here: 89% of THE JOHN R AND ZELDA Z GRUBB CHARITABLE FOUNDATION’s grantee dollars fall outside its nine largest cause areas, whether because the recipient carries no IRS cause code or because its cause sits in the long tail. A chart would be mostly one residual band and misrepresent the portfolio.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k5 grants · $23k
- $10k–50k4 grants · $80k
- $50k–250k3 grants · $216k
- $250k+1 grant · $250k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| VARIETY CLUB | $250,250 |
| IOWA HEALTH CARE ASSOCIATION FOUNDATION | $84,000 |
| EASTER SEALS IOWA | $75,000 |
| URBANDALE PARKS AND RECREATION | $57,071 |
| FIRST UNITED METHODIST CHURCH | $40,000 |
| ANIMAL RESCUE LEAGUE OF CENTRAL IOWA | $15,000 |
| FESTIVAL OF TREES AND LIGHTS | $15,000 |
| TORI'S ANGELS FOUNDATION | $10,000 |
| CHILDREN AND FAMILIES OF IOWA | $5,000 |
| HOPE MINISTRIES | $5,000 |
| NORTH HIGH SCHOOL | $5,000 |
| WESTMINSTER PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH | $5,000 |
| ASU FOUNDATION | $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 (FY17–24, $67k) land where the poverty rate runs at 9%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 73% 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 +33% since the first grant, against +12% for the ones you funded once.
36 repeat relationships — 10 still active in FY2024, 26 since wound down; 3 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, 87% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $72k 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
- HSHOYT SHERMAN PLACE FOUNDATION7× · 2017–2023 · $56k · revenue +195%
- SOSTRANDS OF STRENGTH INC7× · 2017–2023 · $52k · revenue +108%
- FBFOOD BANK OF IOWA6× · 2017–2023 · $38k · revenue +228%
Funded once
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2018 · $50k
- SLST LUKE'S HEALTH CARE FOUNDATIONgraduatedone grant, 2017 · $50k · revenue +113%
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2017 · $47k
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.
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.
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…
To provide high-quality and compassionate care to community members approaching the end of life.
The independent insurance agents of iowa will be an unrelenting advocate of the business, professional and political interests of its members; doing so by working in the public's interest and with the highest ethical standards.
Building iowa's values by recognizing and responding to significantchanges in iowa - those that fundamentally affect families and communities.
The iowa scholarship fund solicits gifts to provide financial support exclusively for scholarships (tuition, room, board, and fees) to students who participate in intercollegiate athletics at the university of iowa.
To deliver programs and to conduct research for the benefit of students, educators, emerging leaders and employers that expand their knowledge and enhance their individual responsibility and leadership skills.
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…
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.
ICCJ assists children in custody disputes through child focused education and legal services. ICCJ provides education and legal services on a reduced fee or at no charge based on the ability to pay.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Orchard Place and the most unlike its peers is The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. 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 37 years old; the field is 21. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 21% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% 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.
36 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. 36 of the 71 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 HEALTH CARE ASSOCIATION FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds HOYT SHERMAN PLACE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds STRANDS OF STRENGTH INC ↗
- Who funds ST LUKE'S HEALTH CARE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds CHILDREN AND FAMILIES OF IOWA ↗
- Who funds FOOD BANK OF IOWA ↗
- Who funds HOPE MINISTRIES ↗
- Who funds BARRETT BOESEN FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION FOR A NEW AMERICAN UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds SCIENCE CENTER OF IOWA ↗
- Who funds ORCHARD PLACE ↗
- Who funds TORI'S ANGELS FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds BOYS & GIRLS CLUBS OF CENTRAL IOWA ↗
- Who funds PUPPY JAKE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds American Heart Association Inc ↗
- Who funds Ankeny Community Foundation ↗
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 Merchants Bonding Company Foundation · John Ruan Foundation Trust · Alliant Energy Foundation Inc · Bookey Family Foundation · Pella Rolscreen Foundation · The West Bancorporation Foundation Inc · EMC Insurance Foundation · Variety - the Children's Charity of Iowa · Iowa Realty Foundation · The Seidler 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 John R and Zelda Z Grubb 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.
- 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.