· Public charity
Carolinas Golf Foundation
The CAROLINAS GOLF FOUNDATION was formed by the carolinas golf association in 1977 to provide scholarships and funding for a variety of carolinas-based golf initiatives.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2020–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
The 10 grants below total $87,000 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $184,400 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $97,400 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 $10k6 grants · $40k
- $10k–50k4 grants · $47k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| SWINGPALS INC | $15,000 |
| FIRST TEE OF THE SANDHILLS | $12,000 |
| FIRST TEE OF COASTAL CAROLINA | $10,000 |
| FIRST TEE OF CENTRAL CAROLINA | $10,000 |
| FIRST TEE OF THE UPSTATE | $7,500 |
| UPSTATE-CAROLINA ADAPTIVE GOLF | $7,500 |
| SCJGA | $7,500 |
| WSCGA VICKI HILLEN JUNIOR GOLF FOUNDATION | $6,000 |
| FIRST TEE OF GREATER WILMINGTON | $6,000 |
| FIRST TEE OF CHARLOTTE | $5,500 |
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 (FY24–24, $8k) land where the poverty rate runs at 10%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 0% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants skew toward lower-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 +72% since the first grant, against +31% for the ones you funded once.
15 repeat relationships — 8 still active in FY2024, 7 since wound down; 2 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, 84% 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
- SYSandhills Youth Development Inc6× · 2019–2024 · $52k · revenue +115%
SWINGPALS INC4× · 2021–2024 · $42k · revenue +155%- SCSOUTH CAROLINA JUNIOR GOLF ASSOCIATION7× · 2018–2024 · $38k · revenue +36%
Funded once
- PRPGA REACH CAROLINAS FOUNDATIONgraduatedone grant, 2023 · $5k · revenue +31%
CAROLINAS GOLF ASSOCIATIONgraduatedone grant, 2020 · $5k · revenue +61%- APA PERFECT SWING FOUNDATION INCone grant, 2023 · $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.
To preserve, promote, and serve the game of golf
Promote the enjoyment and involvement in the game of golf within the carolinas and to contribute to its growth by providing services to golf professionals and the golf industry within the carolinas.
Establish necessary funding to create opportunities for youth through education and recreation as well as maintaining and expanding junior golf programs
The carolinas golf foundation was formed by the carolinas golf association in 1977 to provide scholarships and funding for a variety of carolinas-based golf initiatives.
Promotion of game/rules of golf throughout the state of georgia
The corporation was formed to promote clemson university's golf program through fundraising activities for the benefit of the clemson university foundation, including the design, construction and maintenance of a first-class golf practice…
To promote the enjoyment & involvement in the game of golf and to contribute to the growth of the golf professional and the golf industry. the georgia section will accomplish this mission by enhancing the skills of the golf professionals…
The Bluegrass Golf Foundation, Inc. ("Foundation") promotes and advances the game of golf as an amateur sport through tournaments and special events. Education about options and expectations for intercollegiate competition is provided…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Golf Fore Fun Inc and the most unlike its peers is Daniel Island Club Employee Fund. 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 20 years old; the field is 12. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 27% 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 17% 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 28 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 Sandhills Youth Development Inc ↗
- Who funds SWINGPALS INC ↗
- Who funds SOUTH CAROLINA JUNIOR GOLF ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds GOLF FORE FUN INC ↗
- Who funds Upstate Youth Development Foundation dba First Tee - Upstate South Carolina ↗
- Who funds Youth Golf Foundation of the Carolinas ↗
- Who funds THE CAROL S PETREA YOUTH GOLF FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds Womens South Carolina Golf Association ↗
- Who funds TRIANGLE GOLF FOUNDATION INC DBA THE FIRST TEE OF THE TRIANGLE ↗
- Who funds Greater Wilmington Youth Initiative Inc ↗
- Who funds Aiken Junior Golf Foundation DBA FIRST TEE OF AIKEN SC ↗
- Who funds THE NORTH CAROLINA AGRICULTURAL FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds UPSTATE CAROLINA ADAPTIVE GOLF ↗
- Who funds WSCGA Vicki Hillen JGF ↗
- Who funds PGA REACH CAROLINAS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds CAROLINAS GOLF ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds CAROLINAS GOLF COURSE SUPERINTENDENTS AS ↗
- Who funds Kiawah Island Community Association Inc ↗
- Who funds DANIEL ISLAND CLUB EMPLOYEE FUND ↗
- Who funds PROJECT GOLF ↗
- Who funds CLEMSON UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION ↗
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: World Golf Foundation Inc · Pga Tour First Tee Foundation Inc · Dick's Sporting Goods Foundation · Pga Tour Inc · Heritage Classic Foundation · Duke Energy Foundation · American Endowment Foundation · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Amazonsmile 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 Carolinas Golf 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.