· Private foundation
The West Bancorporation Foundation Inc
Its FY2025 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2020–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k105 grants · $267k
- $10k–50k6 grants · $65k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| DES MOINES AREA RELIGIOUS COUNCIL | $15,000 |
| JEREMIAH PROGRAM | $10,000 |
| THE EDDIE DAVIS COMMUNITY CENTER INC | $10,000 |
| BOYS & GIRLS CLUB OF CENTRAL MINNESOTA | $10,000 |
| ANAWIM HOUSING | $10,000 |
| ELLIPSIS | $10,000 |
| GREATER MANKATO AREA UNITED WAY | $8,348 |
| REBUILDING TOGETHER GREATER DES MOINES | $7,500 |
| UNITED WAY OF JOHNSON & WASHINGTON COUNTIES | $7,500 |
| DOWLING CATHOLIC HIGH SCHOOL | $7,000 |
| HOPE MINISTRIES | $7,000 |
| FELLOWSHIP OF CHRISTIAN ATHLETES | $5,000 |
| GREATER DES MOINES COMMUNITY FOUNDATION | $5,000 |
| BEST BUDDIES IOWA | $5,000 |
| BY DEGREES FOUNDATION | $5,000 |
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 (FY20–25, $259k) land where the poverty rate runs at 10%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 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.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +27% since the first grant, against +4% for the ones you funded once.
122 repeat relationships — 83 still active in FY2025, 39 since wound down; 24 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, 85% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $50k 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
- DMDES MOINES AREA RELIGIOUS COUNCIL6× · 2020–2025 · $73k · revenue +66%
- HMHOPE MINISTRIES6× · 2020–2025 · $48k · revenue +7%
- RTREBUILDING TOGETHER GREATER DES MOI6× · 2020–2025 · $40k · revenue +29%
Funded once
- CCCORALVILLE COMMUNITY FOOD PANTRYgraduatedone grant, 2021 · $27k · revenue +88%
- UHUNITYPOINT HEALTH JOHN STODDARD CANCER CENTERone grant, 2022 · $10k
DRAKE UNIVERSITYone grant, 2020 · $10k · revenue +15%
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.
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.
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…
The foundation for the iowa city community school district connects the community with our schools to ensure every student has extraordinary learning experiences. together we empower teachers and district staff and inspire students to…
Mica helps families experencing poverty meet their needs, build on their strengths, and achieve their goals.
To provide shelter and services to families experiencing homelessness
Unite the caring power of communities to invest in effective solutions to improve people's lives.
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…
Our mission is to inspire the iowa city area to be greater by: 1) elevating business, 2) investing in strategic initiatives, and 3) advocating for the economic resiliency of the greater community.
The university of iowa facilities corporation acquires and holds property for the benefit and use of the university of iowa.
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…
To provide advocacy and services for disadvantaged persons and bring about institutional change for the benefit of the people we serve and the community at large. (see schedule o).to achieve this mission, scicap operates programs to…
Provide a lean, straightforward, and transparent conduit vehicle to those who wish to contribute resources for the betterment of the greater waterloo, iowa community and its citizens.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Camp Fire Heart of Iowa and the most unlike its peers is Guardian Scholars 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 31 years old; the field is 55. You back the younger end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 9% startups (under 5 years old) — 4% of your grantees by number, and just 1% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.7% lost their exemption, against 5% 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.
140 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. 140 of the 220 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 DES MOINES AREA RELIGIOUS COUNCIL ↗
- Who funds HOPE MINISTRIES ↗
- Who funds REBUILDING TOGETHER GREATER DES MOI ↗
- Who funds POLK COUNTY HOUSING TRUST FUND ↗
- Who funds GREAT OUTDOORS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds UNITED WAY OF JOHNSON & WASHINGTON COUNT ↗
- Who funds Eddie Davis Community Center Inc ↗
- Who funds GREATER MANKATO AREA UNITED WAY INC ↗
- Who funds EVERYBODY WINS - IOWA ↗
- Who funds BOYS & GIRLS CLUBS OF CENTRAL MINNESOTA ↗
- Who funds FAMILIES FORWARD ↗
- Who funds WESLEY COMMUNITY SERVICES INC ↗
- Who funds CORALVILLE COMMUNITY FOOD PANTRY ↗
- Who funds MIND AND SPIRIT COUNSELING CENTER ↗
- Who funds STRANDS OF STRENGTH INC ↗
- Who funds CHILDREN AND FAMILIES OF IOWA ↗
- Who funds BY DEGREES FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds VARIETY - THE CHILDREN'S CHARITY OF IOWA ↗
- Who funds DES MOINES SYMPHONY ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds ELLIPSIS INC ↗
- Who funds Best Buddies International Inc ↗
- Who funds UNITED WAY OF SOUTHEAST MINNESOTA ↗
- Who funds Future Net Incorporated ↗
- Who funds ANAWIM HOUSING INC ↗
- Who funds GREATER DES MOINES BOTANICAL GARDEN ↗
- Who funds DES MOINES PERFORMING ARTS ↗
- Who funds THE BRIDGE A VISION FOR SHARED DOWNTOWN MINISTRY ↗
- Who funds BOYS & GIRLS CLUBS OF CENTRAL IOWA ↗
- Who funds BIG BROTHERS BIG SISTERS OF CENTRAL IOWA ↗
- Who funds CAMP HERTKO HOLLOW INC ↗
- Who funds IOWA GOLF ASSOCIATION FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds FOOD BANK OF IOWA ↗
- Who funds WEST DES MOINES HISTORICAL SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds IOWA VALLEY HABITAT FOR HUMANITY INC ↗
- Who funds YOUNG WOMEN'S RESOURCE CENTER ↗
- Who funds Prevent Blindness Iowa ↗
- Who funds GREATER DES MOINES HABITAT FOR HUMANITY INC ↗
- Who funds JOPPA ↗
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: Prairie Meadows Race Track and Casino Inc · Community Fdn of Greater Des Moines F/K/A Greater Des Moines Community Fdn · EMC Insurance Foundation · The Merchants Bonding Company Foundation · GreenState Credit Union · United Way of Central Iowa · Lsb Foundation · Variety - the Children's Charity of Iowa · Meredith Corporation Foundation · Ita Group Foundation · William C Knapp Charitable Fdn · Golf Charitable Foundation of Greater Des Moines
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 West Bancorporation Foundation Inc 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.
- Best Buddies International Inc — 4% 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.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to The West Bancorporation Foundation Inc?
Find your warmest path to The West Bancorporation Foundation Inc 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.