· Private foundation
Challenge Fund
Its FY2025 filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and did not take unsolicited requests; check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT CAPEL HILL FOUNDATION HILL | $40,000 |
| RHODE ISLAND COMMUNITY FOOD BANK ASSOCIATION | $27,000 |
| REPRODUCTIVE FREEDOM FOR ALL FOUNDATION | $25,000 |
| THE HAVEN | $21,250 |
| AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION FOUNDATION | $21,250 |
| UKRAINE CRISIS RELIEF FUND | $20,000 |
| SAVE THE CHILDREN FEDERATION INC | $20,000 |
| EQUAL JUSTICE INITIATIVE | $20,000 |
| PROVIDENCE ATHENAEUM | $15,000 |
| RHODE ISLAND SCHOOL OF DESIGN | $15,000 |
| EVERYCAT HEALTH FOUNDATION INC | $10,625 |
| INDEPENDENT ANIMAL RESCUE INC | $10,625 |
| HOPE RENOVATIONS | $10,000 |
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 (FY17–24, $54k) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 35% 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.
Which US states your grants reach
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.
27 repeat relationships — 5 still active in FY2025, 22 since wound down; 8 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, 38% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $160k 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
- FOFoodbank of Santa Barbara County Inc6× · 2017–2024 · $116k · revenue +76%
EARTHJUSTICE4× · 2017–2024 · $87k · revenue +82%
FOOD BANK OF CENTRAL & EASTERN NC INC6× · 2017–2022 · $75k · revenue +86%
Funded once
- LFLYNDA FAIRLY CARPINTERIA ARTS CENTERone grant, 2018 · $35k
- ECEDC CHARITABLE TRUSTone grant, 2024 · $25k
CONSERVATION INTERNATIONAL FOUNDATIONone grant, 2022 · $25k · revenue +6%
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.
Friends of the earth strives for a more healthy and just world by defendng the environment and human health while advancing social and economic justice by conducting research and education, transforming the economy so it protects the…
To strenghten people's ability to guarantee their individual and collective right to a healthy environment, via the development, implementation, and effective enforcement of national and international law.
To investigate, research, write, publish, present conferences and teach with respect to global, regional, transboundary, and comparative environmental issues and to make the findings from such activities available to the general public; to…
To drive transformational adaptation to protect communities across the country from higher seas, stronger storms, and more frequent flooding.
Actionaid is an international network building a just, equitable, and sustainable world in solidarity with communities on the frontlines of poverty and injustice. actionaid usa is the u.s. branch of actionaid international, which works in…
Wri is committed to creating change that improves people's lives and ensures the natural world can thrive. (see schedule o)wri's bold vision requires a formula for success we call "count it. change it. scale it.":- count it: our work is…
To establish and promote programs to protect the global climate, forests, wildlife and the natural environment, through research, advocacy, and investigation.
Water.org's goal is to bring safe water and sanitation to the world through access to small, affordable loans.
The north carolina conservation network supports, trains, and coordinates diverse groups and directly advocates to achieve equitable and sustainable solutions for our environment.
A nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization dedicated to enhancing international peace and security in the 21st century, thereby retaining its focus on nuclear weapons but expanding to include other present emerging security threats.
Connect conservationists and supporters, deploy resources to the field, provide conservationists with tools and support they need to succeed.
The aclu of north carolina dares to create a more perfect union - beyond one person, party, or side. our mission is to realize this promise of the united states and north carolina constitutions for all and expand the reach of their…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Atlanta Union Mission Corporation and the most unlike its peers is Hillsborough Community Media. 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 39 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) — 1% of your grantees by number, and just 1% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 3% lost their exemption, against 13% 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.
77 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. 77 of the 86 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 RAINFOREST TRUST ↗
- Who funds Foodbank of Santa Barbara County Inc ↗
- Who funds EARTHJUSTICE ↗
- Who funds EQUAL JUSTICE INITIATIVE ↗
- Who funds FOOD BANK OF CENTRAL & EASTERN NC INC ↗
- Who funds DIRECT RELIEF ↗
- Who funds HOPE RENOVATIONS SPENCER ↗
- Who funds ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENSE CENTER ↗
- Who funds WILLIAM J BRENNAN CENTER FOR JUSTICE INC ↗
- Who funds THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT CHAPEL HILL FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds International Rescue Committee INC ↗
- Who funds CANCER FOUNDATION OF SANTA BARBARA ↗
- Who funds CLUB NOVA COMMUNITY INC ↗
- Who funds REPRODUCTIVE FREEDOM FOR ALL FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds THE HAVEN AT FIRST AND MARKET INC ↗
- Who funds MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES USA INC ↗
- Who funds RHODE ISLAND COMMUNITY FOOD BANK ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds CONSERVATION INTERNATIONAL FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Save The Children Federation Inc ↗
- Who funds CARPINTERIA ARTS CENTER ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY ENVIRONMENTAL COUNCIL ↗
- Who funds THE HAVEN ↗
- Who funds PLANNED PARENTHOOD FEDERATION OF AMERICA INC ↗
- Who funds American Bird Conservancy ↗
- Who funds ROBIN HOOD FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds PROVIDENCE ATHENAEUM ↗
- Who funds THE HAVEN INC ↗
- Who funds RHODE ISLAND SCHOOL OF DESIGN ↗
- Who funds PARTNERS IN HEALTH A NONPROFIT CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds SAFE HAVEN FOR CATS ↗
- Who funds FAMILIES MOVING FORWARD ↗
- Who funds THE WOMEN'S CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds EVERYCAT HEALTH FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds Independent Animal Rescue Inc ↗
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: Grace Jones Richardson Testamentary Trust C/O Piedmont Trust Co · Triangle Community Foundation Inc · United Way of the Greater Triangle Inc · North Carolina Community Foundation · Duke Energy Foundation · Charlottesville Area Community Foundation · Caplin Foundation · Z Smith Reynolds Foundation Inc · Foundation for the Carolinas · Strowd Roses Inc · The Genan Foundation · Fm Kirby Foundation 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 Challenge Fund 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.
- Save the Children Federation Inc — 30% of income from government
- Thread Inc — 12% of income from government
- Partners in Health a Nonprofit Corporation — 0% of income from government
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.