Iowa · Nonprofit
Lutheran Family Service
Lutheran Family Service (Iowa) receives grants from 15 organizations whose IRS filings report $842,039 to it, the largest being COMMUNITY FDN OF GREATER DES MOINES F/K/A GREATER DES MOINES COMMUNITY FDN ($260,000). 10 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 84% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- Revenue FY2025
- $1.9M
- Funders on record
- 15
- Grants received
- $842k
- Net assets
- $-188238
What Lutheran Family Service does
Mission
Lutheran Family Service is organized as a not-for-profit, religious organization for the purpose of providing family and individual counseling and adoption services.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Programs
Christ-centered counseling is provided to individuals, couples and families by licensed and professionally trained family therapists. A sliding fee scale based on income is available for those without insurance. Gifts from individuals, congregations and organizations make this possible.
$1,638,427 spent$788,671 earned by the program73% of program spendingPregnancy counseling is provided to young women, young men and their families experiencing an unplanned pregnancy. No fees are charged to the birth family for this service.
$96,353 spent4% of program spendingAdoption services are provided to couples wishing to expand their families through international, domestic or embryo adoption. Fees are assessed to couples based on a sliding scale assessed according to their income.
$377,860 spent$266,534 earned by the program17% of program spendingCongregational Services brings life-changing information and resources to members of LCMS partner congregations
$117,973 spent5% of program spending
The 4 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $2,230,613.
The organization over time
Each line starts at 100 in 2017, so what you read is the shape rather than the size: 150 means half as much again as 2017, 50 means half. The number beside each label in the key is where it ended. The shaded band is where the middle 50% of its peers' revenue would sit, given their growth.
Balance sheet
Total assets and total liabilities at each year end, in dollars. The largest one-year move in total assets was 2021 to 2022, from $385k to $1.6M (+328%).
How it's funded, over time
Each bar is one year's revenue split into where it came from, and every bar is the same height — these are shares, not amounts, so a year that raised twice as much looks the same size. Hover a bar for the split.
Government-grant reliance: 2020 13%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
43% of Lutheran Family Service’s revenue is contributions — about as donation-reliant as the typical peer (81% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 5 of the last 9 reported years ran a deficit.
reserve
Leadership and staff
The officers, directors, trustees and key employees listed on each return. Joined and no longer listed compare each filing with the year before, matching people by surname and first initial; a year after a gap, or a roster under three people, has no comparison.
Chief executive
Rev Max Phillips
Executive Director
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 4 funders to 10 funders, grant income rose $47k → $409k.
10 of 15 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 84% of grant dollars received. That money is really individual donors directing a sponsor; the institutions to cultivate are the non-DAF funders.
From the IRS filings of Lutheran Family Service’s funders (the co-funder graph). Association, not causation. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.
How concentrated its funding is
Lutheran Family Service has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 31% of grant income, and it takes 3 funders to reach half.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 3 funders to its left
97% of the income these shares are computed over arrives through pass-through sponsors or from payers whose filings do not say what kind of payment it is. Concentration is still measured over all of it, because the money is real; what it does not support is a claim about how many institutions have chosen to fund Lutheran Family Service.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 42% · 2018 64% · 2019 53% · 2020 40% · 2021 29% · 2022 37% · 2023 37% — diversifying over time.
“Effective funders” = inverse Herfindahl index (1 / Σ shareᵢ²) — the number of equal-sized funders that would give the same concentration. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.
How long its funders stay
50% of Lutheran Family Service's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 67% give in more than one year at all.
Share of funders still giving k years after their first recorded grant, pooled across every acquisition cohort. A funder counts as retained in a year only if it made a grant that year. Measured to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving — a funder cannot be counted as lapsed in a year most filers have not reached.
Where its funders are
84% of Lutheran Family Service's grant income arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors, whose addresses record where the money is held rather than where the donor is. Of the $133k that is directly attributable, 96% of it comes from funders outside Iowa, across 4 states.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $709k arriving through sponsors registered in 9 states is excluded from the map and the split above: a sponsor holds money on a donor’s behalf, so its registered address would place those dollars somewhere no donor need ever have been. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.
Against its field
Lutheran Family Service's revenue grew 40% between 2017 and 2025.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 6,891 human services nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2025
Organizations like Lutheran Family Service
Organizations whose mission and program text most resemble this one, by semantic similarity over every organization in the US filings — the closest peers, and often the clearest route to shared or prospective funders.
In Iowa
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
85% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
100%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for Lutheran Family Service: IRS status (Business Master File, Publication 78, auto-revocation), the OFAC sanctions lists, the Internal Revenue Bulletin, and California registration, with the Rev. Proc. 2018-32 §8.01 reliance elements stated element by element. Generated from the current files at the moment you download it.
Screens are triage, not determinations; a source that cannot be read reports not screened, never clear. Screen this nonprofit · How the screen works · on the API as GET /api/screening/{ein}?format=pdf
Questions and answers
- Who funds Lutheran Family Service?
- Lutheran Family Service (Iowa) receives grants from 15 organizations whose IRS filings report $842,039 to it, the largest being COMMUNITY FDN OF GREATER DES MOINES F/K/A GREATER DES MOINES COMMUNITY FDN ($260,000). 10 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 84% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- How many funders does Lutheran Family Service have?
- IRS filings report 15 organizations giving $842,039 in grants to Lutheran Family Service, 10 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of Lutheran Family Service?
- COMMUNITY FDN OF GREATER DES MOINES F/K/A GREATER DES MOINES COMMUNITY FDN is the largest funder on record, with $260,000 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like Lutheran Family Service find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Iowa. The funding by cause and by state pages list the largest funders for a given area and how to approach them.
Play a game about who funds Lutheran Family Service →
These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2025 (financials across 2017–2025), and the filings of 15 funders that report grants to it. “On record” means captured in the filings we have parsed — a funder that does not e-file, or whose grant detail is not itemized, will not appear. Filings run roughly 12–24 months behind. Trends on this page end at FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving; later years are shown and marked, and move no figure. Data on this page was exported October 14, 2026. What this page cannot tell you · view filing