· Private foundation
Willard E and Ella P Thompson Educational Fund
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 $10k16 grants · $74k
- $10k–50k7 grants · $144k
- $50k–250k2 grants · $142k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| IOWA LAKES COMMUNITY COLLEGE | $78,116 |
| IOWA STATE UNIVERSITY | $64,316 |
| UNIVERSITY OF NORTHERN IOWA | $33,904 |
| UNIVERSITY OF IOWA | $28,468 |
| DES MOINES AREA COMMUNITY COLLEGE | $24,660 |
| IOWA CENTRAL COMMUNITY COLLEGE | $24,144 |
| PALMER COLLEGE OF CHIROPRACTIC | $11,516 |
| COE COLLEGE | $10,936 |
| IOWA WESTERN COMMUNITY COLLEGE | $10,098 |
| NORTH IOWA AREA COMMUNITY COLLEGE | $7,896 |
| GRAND VIEW UNIVERSITY | $6,988 |
| NORTHWEST IOWA COMMUNITY COLLEGE | $6,666 |
| LUTHER COLLEGE | $5,758 |
| BRIAR CLIFF UNIVERSITY | $5,758 |
| BUENA VISTA UNIVERSITY | $5,758 |
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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY20–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 93% of your 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 +11% since the first grant, against +8% for the ones you funded once.
19 repeat relationships — 16 still active in FY2025, 3 since wound down; 9 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, 86% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $49k went to new ones.
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
- LCLUTHER COLLEGE3× · 2023–2025 · $30k · revenue +7%
- PCPALMER COLLEGE FOUNDATION2× · 2024–2025 · $23k · revenue +14%
- NCNORTHWESTERN COLLEGE2× · 2024–2025 · $8k · revenue +11%
Funded once
- UIUPPER IOWA UNIVERSITYone grant, 2023 · $6k · revenue -9%
- MUMORNINGSIDE UNIVERSITYone grant, 2024 · $6k · revenue +8%
- BVBUENA VISTAone grant, 2024 · $5k
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.
Cornell college offers an innovative and rigorous learning community where faculty and staff collaborate with students to develop the intellectual curiosity, creativity and moral courage necessary for a lifetime of learning and engaged…
The mission of the university is to educate leaders for a global society who are strong in character and judgment, confident in their identity and vocation, and committed to service and justice.
Inspired by lutheran scholarly tradition and the liberal arts, augustana provides an education of enduring worth that challenges the intellect, fosters integrity and integrates faith with learning and service in a diverse world.
Through innovative learning opportunities, individual student attention, and an unwavering commitment to inclusive educational access, simpson college cultivates a diverse community of learners to lead lives of meaning and purpose.
Union college is a seventh-day adventist community of higher education, inspired by jesus christ, and dedicated to empowering students to learn, serve, and lead.
As an institution of higher education committed to the reformed christian perspective, dordt university equips students, alumni, and the broader community to work effectively toward christ-centered renewal in all aspects of contemporary…
Augsburg university educates students to be informed citizens, thoughtful stewards, critical thinkers, and responsible leaders.the augsburg experience is supported by an engaged community that is committed to intentional diversity in its…
See schedule o.we are inspired by the ideals of our founder who, in 1896, emphasized respect for all people and ideas, who honored knowledge with practice, progress and the common good. our historical commitment to experiential learning…
The university's goal in the coming decade is to advance learning through the integration of teaching, research and service to others. the core of this goal is to prepare graduates to engage with the world and lead lives of meaning. to do…
To educate students in the liberal arts through free inquiry and the open exchange of ideas.when grinnell college framed its charter in the iowa territory of the united states in 1846, it set forth a mission to educate its students "for…
We are a Catholic, co-educational, liberal arts university founded in 1843 by the Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Dubuque, Iowa. Clarke educates students at the post-secondary level in the liberal arts and sciences, the…
As a diverse community of learners, we cultivate integrity, curiosity, connection and resilience.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Upper Iowa University and the most unlike its peers is Coe College. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
11 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. 11 of the 33 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 LUTHER COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds PALMER COLLEGE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds COE COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds NORTHWESTERN COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds GRAND VIEW UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds UPPER IOWA UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds BRIAR CLIFF UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds DRAKE UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds Buena Vista University ↗
- Who funds MORNINGSIDE UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds ALLEN COLLEGE ↗
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: Bestenlehner D and F Educational Tr · Fahrney Education Fdtn Trust · W E Ruebush Foundation · Dean J King Family Foundation · Roy J Carver Charitable Trust · Pella Rolscreen Foundation · Mahana-Cong Church Scholar Found · Bernice E Peterson Scholarship Trust · Joseph J Sinek Scholarship Trust · Louis J Elbert Trust · Paul & Mary Collins Trust · W D & Shirley Schafer-Ray Educational Trust
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 Willard E and Ella P Thompson Educational Fund 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.