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Walter C Dissen Charitable Trust at a glance

· Private foundation

Walter C Dissen Charitable Trust

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.

$1.3M
Granted FY2024still arriving
15
Grants FY2024still arriving
7
States reached
$484k
Largest
01What it fundsRead
02The needRead
03Its fieldRead
01What it funds
01FY2024 · 15 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2024

  • Under $10k6 grants · $31k
  • $10k–50k4 grants · $86k
  • $50k–250k3 grants · $288k
  • $250k+2 grants · $884k
$12,301
Median grant
7
States reached
$25M
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
LUTHER CLASSICAL COLLEGE$484,000
CONCORDIA THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY$400,000
CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY CHICAGO$125,000
CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY WISCONSIN$100,000
LUTHERAN CONCERNS ASSOCIATION$62,710
ASSOCIATION OF CONFESSING EVANGELICAL LUTHERAN CONGREGATIONS$31,250
CONCORDIA HISTORICAL INSTITUTE$31,250
OUR SAVIOR LUTHERAN CHURCH$12,301
TRINITY LUTHERAN CHURCH$11,000
IMMANUEL LUTHERAN CHURCH$8,948
ST ANDREWS LUTHERAN CHURCH AND CAMPUS CENTER$7,198
SOUTH ASIA LUTHERAN MISSION$7,000
TRINITY LUTHERAN CHURCH$5,598
UNIVERSITY LUTHERAN CHURCH$1,750
CONCORDIA SEMINARY$50
02The need
02

Does the money reach high-need areas?

Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.

show:

Dollar for dollar, its grants (FY24–24) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 85% of its dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

area typical 10%LUTHERAN CONCERNS ASSOCIATION: $63k → 10%SOUTH ASIA LUTHERAN MISSION: $7k → 11%TRINITY LUTHERAN CHURCH: $11k → 9%CONCORDIA HISTORICAL INSTITUTE: $31k → 11%CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY WISCONSIN: $100k → 6%CONCORDIA THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY: $400k → 12%CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY CHICAGO: $125k → 14%UNIVERSITY LUTHERAN CHURCH: $2k → 19%TRINITY LUTHERAN CHURCH: $6k → 9%IMMANUEL LUTHERAN CHURCH: $9k → 10%OUR SAVIOR LUTHERAN CHURCH: $12k → 10%LUTHER CLASSICAL COLLEGE: $484k → 11%ST ANDREWS LUTHERAN CHURCH AND CAMPUS CENTER: $7k → 17%CONCORDIA SEMINARY: $50 → 11%0%20%40%50%more need →
grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount
How this is measured
Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty line in the grantee’s ZIP, averaged from the tracts in that ZIP.
How this is measured
US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are delivered. Need from public data (U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA), shown as context about the area, never attributed to the funder’s giving.
03Its field
03the grantee network

5 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.

Each grant beside the grantee’s revenue from every source, year by year.

How this is measured

Counted here: distinct organizations funded across 2017 to 2025, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 5 of the 15 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile.

Each grantee is resolved to its own IRS returns. Association, dated; never a causal claim.

1
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
0
Early backer (in before they grew)
5/5
Grantees still filing
1/5
Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

LUTHER CLASSICAL COLLEGE: $484,000 · EducationLUTHER CLASSICAL COLLEGECONCORDIA UNIVERSITY CHICAGO: $125,000 · EducationCONCORDIA UNIVERSITY CHICAGOCONCORDIA UNIVERSITY INC: $100,000 · EducationCONCORDIA UNIVERSITY INCCONCORDIA THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY: $400,000 · OtherCONCORDIA THEOLOGICAL SEMINARYCONCORDIA HISTORICAL INSTITUTE: $31,250 · OtherCONCORDIA HISTORICAL INSTITUTEASSOCIATION OF CONFESSING EVANGELICAL LUTHERAN CONGREGATIONS: $31,250 · OtherASSOCIATION OF CONFESSING EVANGELICAL LUTHER…+7 more: $46,845 · Other+7 moreLutheran Concerns Association: $62,710 · ReligionSOUTH ASIA LUTHERAN MISSION: $7,000 · Religion
Education$709,000Other$509,345Religion$69,710

Each grantee by its size and the funder’s share of it; top left is load-bearing

25%50%75%100%$100k$1.0M$10M$100Mgrantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetLUTHER CLASSICAL COLLEGE: $484,000 over 1y, 14% of budgetCONCORDIA UNIVERSITY CHICAGO: $125,000 over 1y, 0.1% of budgetCONCORDIA UNIVERSITY INC: $100,000 over 1y, 0.1% of budgetLutheran Concerns Association: $62,710 over 1y, 82% of budgetSOUTH ASIA LUTHERAN MISSION: $7,000 over 1y, 8.2% of budget
Grantee by grantee: a decade per organization, before and after funding

A decade per grantee: revenue shaded, grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.

  • Who funds LUTHER CLASSICAL COLLEGE ↗
  • Who funds CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY CHICAGO ↗
  • Who funds CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY INC ↗
  • Who funds Lutheran Concerns Association ↗
  • Who funds SOUTH ASIA LUTHERAN MISSION ↗

Co-funders

Grantmakers whose grantees overlap with this funder’s far more than size alone predicts. Closer means stronger alignment; arcs show where they also fund each other. Here they form a tightly interlocked group: most of these funders back each other's grantees too.

Thrivent Financial fo…Thrivent Charitable I…American Endowment Fo…American Online Givin…Fidelity Investments …Amazonsmile Foundation
Thrivent Financial for LutheransMN16× affinity6 shared granteesties to 5 of 5Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Thrivent Financial for Lutherans · Thrivent Charitable Impact & Investing · American Endowment Foundation · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Amazonsmile Foundation

How this is measured
Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. Overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.

How much its grantees rely on government

Each dot is one organization Walter C Dissen Charitable Trust funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Walter C Dissen Charitable Trust. Bigger dots raise more.

2024
’20’21’22’23’24’25
no gov · 00%6%23%51%90%funder's share of their income ↑0%4%8%11%15%share of the org’s income from government →
    no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
    0get no government money at all
    1report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)
    0rely on government for over half their income
    ⤢ axis zoomed · 0–15%
    typical government reliance, FY20–25
    How this is measured
    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 a grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first, a floor rather than 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 to 24 months.

    On method. Every financial figure here is read from IRS e-file XML, the funder’s own 990/990-PF, and from the multi-year returns of the 15 grantees we resolved, each linked to its source. Grantee outcomes are each organization’s own program-service reporting (Form 990, Part III), read as association with funding, never as caused by it. Low-confidence name matches are suppressed rather than guessed. How we build these →

    How this is measured
    Each figure carries one of six labels. Filed is what the funder reported on its return. Official is another government record about an organization, such as a federal award or a charity register, joined by name where no shared identifier exists. Resolved is an identity we worked out where the filing named a recipient without an EIN, kept only above a measured confidence threshold. Computed is arithmetic over those, like themes, portfolio clusters and co-funder strength. Context is a statistic about a place rather than about an organization, which is what the need overlay is: it describes the area a grantee’s address sits in, not where its work lands. Inferred is drawn by a model from text, like the partnerships read out of public news and organization websites. Each is labeled where it appears.

    Generated from the IRS Form 990-PF e-file return for fiscal year 2024, released 2024. Filings run roughly 12 to 24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

    Source object · view filing

    Play a game based on Walter C Dissen’s filings →

    More from the funding graph

    The unnamed billions
    grants reported with no recipient in the public record
    The regranting layer
    51% of grant dollars land in the regranting layer
    The DAF merry-go-round
    $9.7B circulates between donor-advised funds
    The endowment market
    who holds foundation money, and what just moved
    The camps
    funders cluster by geography, not ideology
    By state
    where grant money is based, and what stays home