· Public charity
Arts Council of Wilmington and New Hanover County
To establish the cape fear region as an arts destination, to promote arts- driven economic development, to significantly contribute to quality of life in the region, to provide a stream of funding to support the sustainability of artists and arts organizations, to facilitate communication and collaboration within the arts community, and…
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2021–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
The 16 grants below total $142,000 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $308,205 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $166,205 is giving the schedule does not break out: grants under the $5,000 itemisation floor, grants to individuals, and grants reported on other schedules. Every figure below describes the itemised rows only.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k6 grants · $42k
- $10k–50k10 grants · $100k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Mouth of Babes | $10,000 |
| Cameron Art Museum | $10,000 |
| Thalian Hall | $10,000 |
| Cucalorus Film Festival | $10,000 |
| Thalian Association | $10,000 |
| Brooklyn Arts Academy | $10,000 |
| Narrative Arts | $10,000 |
| Dreams Center for Arts Education | $10,000 |
| Opera House Theatre Company | $10,000 |
| Wilmington Symphony Orchestra | $10,000 |
| Panache Theatrical Productions | $8,000 |
| Performance Club Theater Company | $8,000 |
| Opera Wilmington | $8,000 |
| Chamber Music Wilmington | $6,000 |
| Wilmington Performing Arts | $6,000 |
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.
Your human-services grants (FY24–25, $17k) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 7%. 100% of those 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.
17 repeat relationships — 13 still active in FY2025, 4 since wound down; 2 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, 90% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $14k went to new ones.
Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant
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
- TTTHE THALIAN ASSOCIATON OF WILMINGTON INC5× · 2021–2025 · $67k · revenue +173%
- TWThe Wilmington Symphony Orchestra Inc5× · 2021–2025 · $63k · revenue +152%
- LWLOUISE WELLS CAMERON ART MUSEUM4× · 2021–2025 · $60k · revenue +55%
Funded once
- TTTurning the Wheel Productions Incgraduatedone grant, 2022 · $17k · revenue +47%
- NCNorth Carolina Azalea Festival at Wilminone grant, 2021 · $15k · revenue +10%
- BDBIG DAWG PRODUCTIONSone grant, 2022 · $10k
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.
Provide cultural and artistic programs for the public of Wilkes County, NC and the surrounding area
Wilmington Symphonic Winds is a regional musical ensemble that provides memorable performances of the highest quality wind music in a wide range of musical styles for the public at large and educational outreach. All attendees receive free…
The primary objective of Durham Ballet Theatre is to offer complimentary community performances in dance, encompassing both ballet and aerial disciplines, to individuals who are underserved due to physical abilities or financial…
The Carolina Theatre welcomes everyone. We enrich the experience of audiences through programming that drives the cultural, educational, and economic vitality of the region.
Vault Theatre creates high-quality theatre programming with, for, and by young artists in North Carolina. We help students explore their creative potential through arts-integration in schools, onstage performances, and innovative theatre…
Promotion of Arts in Wake Forest, NC
To increase access in Pamlico County to professional-level musical performances, enhance understanding and appreciation of music (classical, jazz, folk, ethnic, bluegrass, Americana, and show tunes) and expand and enrich the music…
To educate, promote and create performing arts.
Greensboro opera is a community-based company dedicated to fostering the growth of opera and to presenting professional productions of the highest artistic caliber for the enjoyment, education, and enrichment of the triad region of north…
To bring the finest in internationally acclaimed performing artists to the Charlotte area and to provide educational opportunities to students of all ages.
Dance Project's mission is to cultivate the field of modern dance in North Carolina, nuturing a community of artists, audiences and students by providing opportunities for training, performance, collaboration and employment.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Theatre for All Inc and the most unlike its peers is Brooklyn Arts Music Academy. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
Your grantees are a median of 11 years old; the field is 12. You back the younger end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 27% startups (under 5 years old) — 14% of your grantees by number, and just 5% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 3% lost their exemption, against 16% of the field you don’t fund.
Age = years since IRS exemption (a founding proxy). “Closed” = auto-revocation for 3 years of non-filing — a floor on closure, not proof, and bigger established orgs lapse least. Association, not causation.
22 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. 22 of the 34 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 THE THALIAN ASSOCIATON OF WILMINGTON INC ↗
- Who funds The Wilmington Symphony Orchestra Inc ↗
- Who funds LOUISE WELLS CAMERON ART MUSEUM ↗
- Who funds DREAMS OF WILMINGTON INC ↗
- Who funds CUCALORUS FILM FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds OPERA WILMINGTON NC INC ↗
- Who funds Thalian Hall Center for the Performing Arts Incorporated ↗
- Who funds Theatre For All Inc ↗
- Who funds BROOKLYN ARTS MUSIC ACADEMY ↗
- Who funds NARRATIVE ARTS ↗
- Who funds OPERA HOUSE THEATRE COMPANY INC ↗
- Who funds Turning the Wheel Productions Inc ↗
- Who funds Mouths of Babes Theatre ↗
- Who funds North Carolina Azalea Festival at Wilmin ↗
- Who funds NORTH CAROLINA JAZZ FESTIVAL INC ↗
- Who funds Friends of Public Radio DBA WHQR ↗
- Who funds Chamber Music Wilmington ↗
- Who funds CAPE FEAR COMMUNITY COLLEGE FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds BLACK BOX DANCE THEATER ↗
- Who funds Forward Motion Dance Company Inc ↗
- Who funds Snow Productions Inc ↗
- Who funds WILMINGTON ART ASSOCIATION ↗
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: The Landfall Foundation Inc · Dan Cameron Family Foundation Inc · North Carolina Community Foundation · Daniel a and Sheila M Saklad Foundation · Stein Family Charitable Foundation · New Hanover Community Endowment Inc · Corning Incorporated Foundation · Ibm International Foundation · Ags Charitable Trust Uad May 21 1965 · Jeffrey Schrager & Anne York Family Foundation · The True North Foundation Co Amy Brown North · South Arts Inc
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 Arts Council of Wilmington and New Hanover County 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.