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Wolfe Cataract Foundation at a glance

· Private foundation

Wolfe Cataract Foundation

Its FY2024 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.

$73k
Granted FY2024still arriving
10
Grants FY2024still arriving
1
States reached
$49k
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, FY2017 to 2024.

Health$194kEducation$162kArts & Culture$1kHuman Services$1k
02FY2024 · 10 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2024

  • Under $10k9 grants · $24k
  • $10k–50k1 grant · $49k
$3,500
Median grant
1
States reached
$494k
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
STATE UNIVERSITY OF IOWA FOUNDATION$48,800
Individual grant recipient$4,563
METRO ANESTHESIA & PAIN MANAGEMENT$3,937
MERCYONE CEDAR FALLS MEDICAL CENTER$3,578
PREVENT BLINDNESS IOWA$3,500
Individual grant recipient$2,919
MERCY ONE$2,345
Individual grant recipient$1,750
MAKE-A-WISH$1,000
DEBRA HEALTH$314
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 (FY17–24) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 12%. 59% of its dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

area typical 12%VISIONS TO LEARN: $15k → 14%METRO ANESTHESIA & PAIN MANAGEMENT: $6k → 5%MERCRY MEDICAL CENTER: $9k → 9%TAYLOR TRANSIT LLC: $572 → 10%UNITYPOINT HEALTH: $9k → 10%MARSHALLTOWN COMMUNITY SCHOOL DISTRICT FOUNDATION: $2k → 11%MERCY ONE: $3k → 12%QUICK CAB: $445 → 13%THE OCULAR OCTOPUS: $2k → 15%EXPEDIACOM COMFORT INN AND SUITES: $116 → 17%EYECARE ASSOCIATES: $250 → 17%DUTCH OPHTALMIC USA: $389 → 9%METRO ANESTHESIA & PAIN MANAGEMENT: $5k → 5%CLINIC INVESTMENTS: $5k → 9%UNITYPOINT HEALTH: $3k → 10%STATE UNIVERSITY OF IOWA FOUNDATION: $49k → 15%MERCYONE CEDAR FALLS MEDICAL CENTER: $4k → 17%UNITY POINT: $4k → 5%CLINIC INVESTMENTS: $222 → 9%IOWA PATHOLOGY ASSOCIATES: $240 → 10%STATE UNIVERSITY OF IOWA FOUNDATION: $49k → 15%METRO ANESTHESIA & PAIN MANAGEMENT: $4k → 5%MERCY MEDICAL CENTERHIAWATHA: $16k → 9%IOWA PATHOLOGY ASSOCIATES: $155 → 10%STATE UNIVERSITY OF IOWA FOUNDATION: $31k → 15%METRO ANESTHESIA & PAIN MANAGEMENT: $3k → 5%MERCY SURGERY CENTER: $8k → 9%IOWA PHYSICIANS CLINIC MEDICAL FOUNDATION: $67 → 10%STATE UNIVERSITY OF IOWA FOUNDATION: $20k → 15%METRO ANESTHESIA & PAIN MANAGEMENT: $3k → 5%LINN COUNTY ANETHESIOLOGIST: $8k → 9%IOWA RADIO READING INFORMATION SERVICE: $1k → 10%STATE UNIVERSITY OF IOWA FOUNDATION: $12k → 15%LINN COUNTY ANETHESIOLOGIST: $3k → 9%LIFE JOURNEYS LLC: $175 → 10%LINN COUNTY ANESTHESIOLOGISTS PC: $1k → 9%MAKE-A-WISH: $1k → 10%WOLFE CLINIC: $242 → 9%CENTRAL IOWA COMPOUNDING: $610 → 10%PREVENT BLINDNESS IOWA: $16k → 10%PREVENT BLINDNESS IOWA: $4k → 10%PREVENT BLINDNESS IOWA: $4k → 10%PREVENT BLINDNESS IOWA: $4k → 10%PREVENT BLINDNESS IOWA: $4k → 10%MERCY ONE: $2k → 10%VIRTUE OCCUPATIONAL THERAPY LLC: $200 → 10%MERCY ONE: $2k → 10%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 grantees
repeat funding

Who it funds again

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

71%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.
$253k · 10 repeat orgs$105k to everyone else

Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +30% since the first grant, against +4% for those funded once.

10 repeat relationships: 6 still active in FY2024, 4 since wound down; 4 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

10
40

Total granted

$253k
$98k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+30%
+4%

Still filing today

20%
10%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2024, 91% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $7k went to new ones.

50%100%’17’18’19’20’21’22’23’24
RenewedFirst-time

Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant

’17’18’19’20’21’22’23’24
HealthEducationOther
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

  • SU
    STATE UNIVERSITY OF IOWA FOUNDATION
    5× · 2018–2024 · $160k · revenue +30%
  • PB
    Prevent Blindness Iowa
    5× · 2020–2024 · $30k · revenue +3%
  • MA
    METRO ANESTHESIA & PAIN MANAGEMENT
    5× · 2020–2024 · $20k

Funded once

  • MM
    MERCY MEDICAL CENTERHIAWATHA
    one grant, 2023 · $16k
  • VISION TO LEARNgraduated
    one grant, 2017 · $15k · revenue +250%
  • EP
    EL POZO DE VIDA
    one grant, 2021 · $10k
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
04the grantee network

7 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. 7 of the 54 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)
1
Early backer (in before they grew)
6/7
Grantees still filing
5/7
Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Prevent Blindness Iowa: $29,500 · OtherPrevent Blindness IowaMETRO ANESTHESIA & PAIN MANAGEMENT: $20,092 · OtherMETRO ANESTHESIA & PAIN MANAGEMENTMERCY MEDICAL CENTERHIAWATHA: $15,971 · OtherMERCY MEDICAL CENTERHIAWATHAUNITYPOINT HEALTH: $12,018 · OtherUNITYPOINT HEALTHIndividual grant recipient: $11,316 · OtherIndividual grant recipientEL POZO DE VIDA: $10,000 · OtherEL POZO DE VIDAMERCY SURGERY CENTER: $8,418 · OtherMERCY ONE: $7,392 · OtherIndividual grant recipient: $6,000 · Other+40 more: $52,068 · Other+40 moreSTATE UNIVERSITY OF IOWA FOUNDATION: $160,419 · EducationSTATE UNIVERSITY OF IOWA FOUNDATIONVISION TO LEARN: $15,000 · HealthMERCY MEDICAL CENTER: $8,514 · HealthIOWA RADIO READING INFORMATION SERVICE FOR THE BLIND: $1,000 · Health+1 more: $67 · Health
Other$172,775Education$160,419Health$24,581

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 budgetSTATE UNIVERSITY OF IOWA FOUNDATION: $160,419 over 5y, 0.0% of budgetPrevent Blindness Iowa: $29,500 over 5y, 7.2% of budgetMERCY MEDICAL CENTER: $8,514 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetMARSHALLTOWN COMMUNITY SCHOOL DISTRICT FOUNDATION: $1,500 over 1y, 3.3% of budgetIOWA RADIO READING INFORMATION SERVICE FOR THE BLIND: $1,000 over 1y, 0.9% of budgetIOWA PHYSICIANS CLINIC MEDICAL FOUNDATION: $67 over 1y, 0.0% 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 STATE UNIVERSITY OF IOWA FOUNDATION ↗
  • Who funds Prevent Blindness Iowa ↗
  • Who funds VISION TO LEARN ↗
  • Who funds MERCY MEDICAL CENTER ↗
  • Who funds MARSHALLTOWN COMMUNITY SCHOOL DISTRICT FOUNDATION ↗
  • Who funds IOWA RADIO READING INFORMATION SERVICE FOR THE BLIND ↗

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 set of overlaps that mostly run through this funder rather than between each other.

Amazonsmile Foundation
Amazonsmile FoundationWA2.7× affinity4 shared granteesties to 0 of 0Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: 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 Wolfe Cataract Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Wolfe Cataract Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2024
’20’21’22’23’24’25
no gov · 00%1%3%6%10%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
    3report 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, 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.
    05Through Plinth

    Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

    How do I get to Wolfe Cataract Foundation?

    Find your warmest path to Wolfe Cataract 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 54 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 Wolfe Cataract’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