· Public charity
Blue Ridge Energy Members Foundation
Provide assistance for electric and heating utility bills and financial support for nonprofit community organizations that meet educational, healthcare, economic, and community development needs.
What you funded, over time
Every grant clustered by its grantee’s IRS cause code (NTEE), by year — across FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
The 18 grants below total $185,000 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $200,000 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $15,000 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 · FY2024
- Under $10k9 grants · $70k
- $10k–50k9 grants · $115k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| ASHE MEMORIAL HOSPITAL FOUNDATION | $22,500 |
| WESTERN YOUTH NETWORK | $15,000 |
| CALDWELL MEM HOSPITAL FOUNDATION | $12,500 |
| TOWN OF HUDSON | $12,500 |
| AMOREM | $12,500 |
| ALLEGHANY COUNTY RESCUE SQUAD | $10,000 |
| POND MOUNTAIN FIRE AND RESCUE | $10,000 |
| SHELTER HOME OF CADWELL COUNTY | $10,000 |
| THE MITFORD MUSEUM | $10,000 |
| BLUE RIDGE DEVELOPMENTAL DAY | $8,500 |
| ASHE COUNTY RESCUE SQUAD | $8,500 |
| THE WIG BANK OF CALDWELL COUNTY | $8,000 |
| OASIS INC | $7,500 |
| SHOES FOR KIDS | $7,500 |
| MOUNTAIN TRUE | $7,500 |
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 (FY17–24, $205k) land where the poverty rate runs at 18%, against an area that typically sits at 13%. 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.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +49% since the first grant, against +47% for the ones you funded once.
17 repeat relationships — 12 still active in FY2024, 5 since wound down; 6 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (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 FY2024, 73% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $51k 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
- AMASHE MEMORIAL HOSPITAL INC5× · 2017–2024 · $85k · revenue +51%
- CMCALDWELL MEMORIAL HOSPITAL INC2× · 2017–2018 · $50k · revenue +69%
- TWThe Western Youth Network Inc2× · 2021–2024 · $40k · revenue +206%
Funded once
Alleghany County Memorial Hospital Incgraduatedone grant, 2019 · $80k · revenue +56%- POPARTNERSHIP OF ASHEgraduatedone grant, 2017 · $30k · revenue +59%
- PCPINEY CREEK VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPT INCgraduatedone grant, 2018 · $20k · revenue +54%
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.
To provide fire protection to the ashford north cove cmmunity of mcdowell country north carolina
The organization is a local volunteer fire department providing fire and rescue services to residents in their district.
Provide food, shelter, rehabilitation and christian ministry to the poor and homeless
Ashe County Recovery and Restoration was established in October 2024 in response to the devastation in Ashe County, nc that occured as a result of Hurricane Helene.
To provide specialty emergency services in a professional manner to the citizens and guests of alamance county, surrounding counties and the state of north carolina.
To provide fire protection to the crooked creek community of mcdowell county north carolina
Volunteer fire protection/1st responders
Emergency and resecue services to randalph county, north carolina.
Elk River Helping Hands Foundation is a non-profit organization dedicated to assisting in the aftermath of catastrophic events with needs of the people of the High Country of North Carolina, including but not limited to Avery and Watauga…
Volunteer Avery County finds resources to aid families and individuals that do not qualify for public assistance and fall through the cracks.
WNC Health Network, Inc supports people and organizations to improve community health and wellbeing across Western North Carolina.
Public transportation services to the general public including the elderly and disabled population
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Alleghany Wellness Center Inc and the most unlike its peers is Life Village Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
For each theme you fund, this compares how the sector’s money is shifting with how your own giving is shifting.
Sector change and giving change are each shown relative to their own range, growing (right) or shrinking (left); both normalized, so inflation isn’t mistaken for growth.
Your grantees are a median of 36 years old; the field is 16. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 22% startups (under 5 years old) — 5% of your grantees by number, and just 5% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 4% lost their exemption, against 11% 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.
43 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. 43 of the 49 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 ASHE MEMORIAL HOSPITAL INC ↗
- Who funds Alleghany County Memorial Hospital Inc ↗
- Who funds THE FOUNDATION OF CALDWELL COMMUNITY COLLEGE AND TECHNICAL INSTITUTE INC ↗
- Who funds CALDWELL MEMORIAL HOSPITAL INC ↗
- Who funds CALDWELL HOSPICE AND PALLIATIVE CARE INC DBA AMOREM ↗
- Who funds The Western Youth Network Inc ↗
- Who funds POND MOUNTAIN VOLUNTEER FIRE & RESCUE INC ↗
- Who funds PARTNERSHIP OF ASHE ↗
- Who funds SHOES FOR KIDS ↗
- Who funds BLUE RIDGE CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds RIVERVIEW COMMUNITY CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds Caldwell County Yokefellow Inc ↗
- Who funds PINEY CREEK VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPT INC ↗
- Who funds ALLEGHANY COUNTY RESCUE SQUAD INC ↗
- Who funds BLUE RIDGE DEVELOPMENTAL DAY ↗
- Who funds ASHE COUNTY RESCUE SQUAD ↗
- Who funds ALLEGHANY WELLNESS CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds GREATER LANSING AREA DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE INC ↗
- Who funds New River Conservancy ↗
- Who funds ALLEGHANY PARTNERSHIP FOR CHILDREN ↗
- Who funds THE HUNGER AND HEALTH COALITION INC ↗
- Who funds HIGH COUNTRY CAREGIVER FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds ASHE SERVICES FOR AGING INC ↗
- Who funds WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA SCULPTURE CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds KINGS CREEK VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPT ↗
- Who funds CALDWELL HALFWAY HOUSE INC ↗
- Who funds LAUREL SPRINGS VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPARTMENT INC ↗
- Who funds SECOND HARVEST FOOD BANK OF NORTHWEST NC INC ↗
- Who funds BLUE RIDGE PARKWAY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds WATAUGA COUNTY IMMIGRANT JUSTICE COALITION ↗
- Who funds PATTERSON SCHOOL FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds THE LENOIR SOUP KITCHEN INC ↗
- Who funds ALLEGHANY COUNTY GROUP HOMES INC ↗
- Who funds THE WIG BANK OF CALDWELL COUNTYINC ↗
- Who funds MountainTrue ↗
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: North Carolina Community Foundation · The Cannon Foundation Inc · Bernhardt Furniture Foundation · Stevens Family Foundation Inc · Womens Fund of the Blue Ridge Inc · Broyhill Family Foundation Inc · Foundation for the Carolinas · The Community Foundation of Western North Carolina Inc · The Little Farm Foundation · The Alfred B and Josette L Glover Foundation · High Country United Way · The Wilson Family Foundation
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 Blue Ridge Energy Members Foundation 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.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to Blue Ridge Energy Members Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Blue Ridge Energy Members 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.