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Western Iowa Journalism Foundation at a glanceMostly funded, not a grantmaker: see who funds it →

· Public charity

Western Iowa Journalism Foundation

Supporting community journalism that ensures long-term access to accurate local news and investigative reporting throughout western Iowa.

$321k
Granted FY2025still arriving
4
Grants FY2025still arriving
1
States reached
$213k
Largest
01What it fundsRead
02The needRead
03Its granteesRead
04Its fieldRead
05Through PlinthRead
01What it funds
01100% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2021 to 2025.

Arts & Culture$1.3M
02FY2025 · 4 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2025

  • $10k–50k2 grants · $54k
  • $50k–250k2 grants · $263k
$50,000
Median grant
1
States reached
$592k
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
Storm Lake Times Pilot$212,500
La Prensa Iowa$50,000
Central Iowa Publishing$39,000
Denison Free Press$15,000
02The need
03

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 (FY21–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 92% of its dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

area typical 9%Iowa Information Media Group: $45k → 8%Carroll Times Herald: $27k → 9%Central Iowa Publishing: $39k → 10%Storm Lake Times Pilot: $213k → 10%Kock Publishing: $18k → 12%Iowa Public Radio: $13k → 15%Iowa Information Media Group: $12k → 8%CARROLL TIMES HERALD: $15k → 9%Central Iowa Publishing: $24k → 10%Storm Lake Times Pilot: $190k → 10%La Prensa Iowa: $74k → 12%Iowa Public Radio: $13k → 15%Carroll Times Herald: $6k → 9%Storm Lake Times Pilot: $185k → 10%La Prensa Iowa: $50k → 12%Storm Lake Times: $150k → 10%La Prensa LLC: $40k → 12%THE STORM LAKE TIMES COMPANY: $31k → 10%La Prensa: $36k → 12%Denison Free Press: $25k → 12%Denison Free Press: $25k → 12%Denison Free Press: $15k → 12%LA PRENSA L L C: $11k → 12%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.
04

Where the work is directed

The same grants placed two ways: where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose sends the money.

About 100% of Western Iowa Journalism Foundation’s grant dollars are earmarked for a different county than the recipient’s own address. By recipient address, 100% of the giving stays in IA; by stated purpose, 4%.

Western Iowa Journalism Foundationlessmore of its giving
Placed by recipient address
How this is measured
Recipient view: each grant at its grantee’s ZIP, mapped to a county. Directed view: each grant at the county its stated purpose names, falling back to the recipient’s county when the purpose names no place; US grants only. A county shows only if it carries the top 95% of that view’s dollars. Purposes are read from the funder’s own 990 grant descriptions.
03Its grantees
repeat funding

Who it funds again

Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.

92%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.
$1.2M · 6 repeat orgs$100k to everyone else

6 repeat relationships: 4 still active in FY2025, 2 since wound down.

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

6
4

Total granted

$1.2M
$100k

Still filing today

17%
0%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 went to new ones.

50%100%’21’22’23’24’25
RenewedFirst-time
How this is measured
First-time means a grantee’s first year in the filing window; renewed means funded in an earlier year too. The renewed share climbs naturally as a portfolio matures, so the signal is a year that bucks it (a wave of new grantees). 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

  • SL
    Storm Lake Times Pilot
    5× · 2021–2025 · $768k
  • LP
    La Prensa Iowa
    5× · 2021–2025 · $211k
  • CI
    Central Iowa Publishing
    2× · 2024–2025 · $63k

Funded once

  • II
    Iowa Information Media Group
    one grant, 2024 · $45k
  • IG
    Individual grant recipient
    one grant, 2023 · $25k
  • IG
    Individual grant recipient
    one grant, 2024 · $18k
How this is measured

Repeat means funded in two or more distinct years. Growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.

04Its field
05the grantee network

1 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2021–2025.

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

How this is measured

Counted here: distinct organizations funded across 2021 to 2025, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 1 of the 10 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.

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

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Storm Lake Times Pilot: $768,000 · OtherStorm Lake Times PilotLa Prensa Iowa: $210,500 · OtherLa Prensa IowaCentral Iowa Publishing: $63,000 · OtherHERALD PUBLISHING CO: $48,000 · OtherIowa Information Media Group: $45,000 · Other+4 more: $95,115 · Other+4 moreIOWA PUBLIC RADIO INC: $25,000 · Arts & Culture
Other$1,229,615Arts & Culture$25,000

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

25%50%75%100%grantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetIOWA PUBLIC RADIO INC: $25,000 over 2y, 0.1% 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 IOWA PUBLIC RADIO INC ↗

How much its grantees rely on government

Each dot is one organization Western Iowa Journalism Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Western Iowa Journalism Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2025
’21’22’23’24’25
no gov · 00%0%1%3%5%funder's share of their income ↑0%1%3%4%5%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 · 0–5%
    typical government reliance, FY21–25
    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.
    05Through Plinth

    Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

    How do I get to Western Iowa Journalism Foundation?

    Find your warmest path to Western Iowa Journalism 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.

    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 10 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 e-file return for fiscal year 2025, released 2025. Filings run roughly 12 to 24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

    Source object · view filing

    Play a game based on Western Iowa Journalism’s filings →

    More from the funding graph

    The unnamed billions
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    The regranting layer
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    $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