· Public charity
The Nelson Family Foundation
Support the Omaha Community Foundation's Mission
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.
The 13 grants below total $256,800 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $280,350 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $23,550 is giving the schedule does not break out: grants under the $5,000 itemisation floor, grants to individuals, and grants reported on other schedules. Every figure below describes the itemised rows only.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k2 grants · $14k
- $10k–50k10 grants · $193k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $50k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Bellevue University | $50,000 |
| Council Bluffs Schools Fdtn | $43,500 |
| Teammates Mentoring Program N | $25,000 |
| Youth for Christ USA Inc | $25,000 |
| KANEKO | $25,000 |
| Omaha Conservatory of Music | $20,000 |
| Boys & Girls Clubs of Midland | $13,800 |
| Joslyn Art Museum | $11,000 |
| Camp Kesem National | $10,000 |
| Mid-America Council Boy Scou | $10,000 |
| United Way of the Midlands | $10,000 |
| Peter Michael Foundation | $7,500 |
| Omaha Performing Arts Society | $6,000 |
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, $30k) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 100% 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.
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.
4 repeat relationships — 2 still active in FY2024, 2 since wound down; 11 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, 13% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $223k 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
- BGBOYS & GIRLS CLUBS OF THE MIDLANDS3× · 2021–2024 · $109k · revenue +33%
- OCOMAHA CONSERVATORY OF MUSIC2× · 2023–2024 · $66k · revenue +29%
- CHCHRISTIAN HOME ASSN - CHILDREN'S SQUARE USA3× · 2020–2022 · $30k · revenue -4%
Funded once
- SISOUTHWEST IOWA NONPROFIT FOR COLLECTIVE IMPACTgraduatedone grant, 2023 · $100k · revenue +796%
- JEJENNIE EDMUNDSON MEMORIAL HOSPITAL FOUNDATIONgraduatedone grant, 2023 · $45k · revenue +45%
- IWIOWA WESTERN COMMUNITY COLLEGE FOUNDATIONone grant, 2023 · $20k · revenue +24%
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.
Connecting families affected by childhood cancer by providing opportunities that encourage relationships and strengthen community.
To serve the community by cultivating generosity and strengthening nonprofits.
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…
Unite the caring power of communities to invest in effective solutions to improve people's lives.
The nmu foundation will establish and foster relationships to generate resources that benefit the strategic goals of northern michigan university.
Cornerstone christian school educates children to become learners-equipped with godly character and biblical truth.
The university of iowa facilities corporation acquires and holds property for the benefit and use of the university of 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…
Arts Midwest works collaboratively with private and public arts supporters to support, inform, and celebrate arts organizations and creative communities across the Midwest. Our mission is to build unprecedented opportunity across the…
Kansas wesleyan university is a liberal arts college that promotes and integrates academic excellence, spiritual development, personal well-being, and social responsibility.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Jennie Edmundson Memorial Hospital Foundation and the most unlike its peers is Kaneko. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
18 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. 18 of the 19 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 BOYS & GIRLS CLUBS OF THE MIDLANDS ↗
- Who funds SOUTHWEST IOWA NONPROFIT FOR COLLECTIVE IMPACT ↗
- Who funds OMAHA CONSERVATORY OF MUSIC ↗
- Who funds Bellevue University ↗
- Who funds JENNIE EDMUNDSON MEMORIAL HOSPITAL FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds COUNCIL BLUFFS SCHOOLS FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds CHRISTIAN HOME ASSN - CHILDREN'S SQUARE USA ↗
- Who funds OMAHA YOUTH FOR CHRIST ↗
- Who funds TEAMMATES MENTORING PROGRAM ↗
- Who funds KANEKO ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY FOUNDATION FOR WESTERN IOWA ↗
- Who funds IOWA WESTERN COMMUNITY COLLEGE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds JOSLYN ART MUSEUM ↗
- Who funds Camp Kesem National ↗
- Who funds UNITED WAY OF THE MIDLANDS ↗
- Who funds BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA 326 MID-AMERICA COUNCIL ↗
- Who funds PETER MICHAEL FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds OMAHA PERFORMING ARTS SOCIETY ↗
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: Iowa West Foundation · The Lozier Foundation · The Hawks Foundation · Peter Kiewit Foundation · Robert B Daugherty Foundation · The Sherwood Foundation · Union Pacific Foundation · Southwest Iowa Foundation · Suzanne & Walter Scott Foundation · The Charles and Mary Heider Family Foundation · The Giving 3 Foundation · Community Foundation for Western Iowa
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 Nelson Family 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 Nelson Family Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Nelson Family 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.