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North Carolina · Private foundation

Ellen & Munroe Best Family Foundation

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.

$37k
Granted FY2025(still arriving)
24
Grants FY2025
27
Organizations funded FY2024
11%
First-time grantees FY2024
Read the full brief
Median grant, FY2025
$500
Largest grant, FY2025
$11,619
Organizations funded a year
27 to 35
FY2018 to FY2024
States reached, FY2025
2
Total assets, FY2025
$2.0M
Applications
Preselected organizations only
Per its most recent filing; check its own site

How open it is to new grantees

In FY2024, 11% of the organizations Ellen & Munroe Best Family Foundation funded were first-time grantees, receiving 15% of its grant dollars.

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2024, 85% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $8k went to new ones.

50%100%’19’20’21’22’23’24
RenewedFirst-time

Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant

’19’20’21’22’23’24
EducationYouth DevelopmentFood & NutritionInternationalHealthPhilanthropyOther
How this is measured
First-time means a grantee’s first year in the filing window; renewed means funded in an earlier year too. The renewed share climbs naturally as a portfolio matures, so the signal is a year that bucks it (a wave of new grantees). The earliest year is left-censored: relationships that predate the data read as new. Theme is the grantee’s IRS cause.
The numbers by year
Fiscal yearOrganizations fundedTo those organizationsFirst-time grantees
FY2025still arriving24$37k29%
FY202427$51k11%
FY202329$63k14%
FY202229$112k14%
FY202135$113k40%
FY202028$62k50%
FY201928$128k36%
FY201827$79kn/a
89% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2018 to 2024.

Education$197kReligion$191kHuman Services$46kYouth Development$40kHealth$32kArts & Culture$18kPhilanthropy$17kHousing & Shelter$8kOther$0

Top grantees

Largest recipients by total granted, FY2018 to FY2025, and the share of each one’s budget the grants supplied at peak.

GranteeTotal grantedYearsShare of their budget
Wayne Country Day School Inc$56,95061%
Elon University$42,00050%
University of Mount Olive Inc$12,50040%
The Jane Family Foundation$10,000247%
Campbell University$8,00080%
Friends of Oakdale Cemetery Inc$8,00017%
Wake Forest University$6,00060%
Wayne County Recovery Corporation$5,0001n/a
Arts Council of Wayne County Inc$5,00080%
Young Life$5,00020%
Show all 24 grantees

What it could do for these grantees

Plus 59 recipients with no EIN on record ($466k), not named here.

Where it is load-bearing

Ellen & Munroe Best Family Foundation supplied at least a quarter of the budget for 1 of its grantees at some point. The chart plots its 22 largest grantees; load-bearing ones sit top left.

25%50%75%100%$100k$1.0M$10M$100Mgrantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetWayne Country Day School Inc: $56,950 over 6y, 0.6% of budgetElon University: $42,000 over 5y, 0.0% of budgetUniversity of Mount Olive Inc: $12,500 over 4y, 0.0% of budgetThe Jane Family Foundation: $10,000 over 2y, 47% of budgetCampbell University: $8,000 over 8y, 0.0% of budgetFriends of Oakdale Cemetery Inc: $8,000 over 1y, 6.9% of budgetWake Forest University: $6,000 over 6y, 0.0% of budgetArts Council of Wayne County Inc: $5,000 over 8y, 0.2% of budgetYoung Life: $5,000 over 2y, 0.0% of budgetThe Paramount Theatre Foundation the Paramount Theatre Foundation: $3,200 over 8y, 1.0% of budgetCommunity Soup Kitchen of Goldsboro Inc: $2,800 over 7y, 0.3% of budgetCore Sound Waterfowl Museum: $2,400 over 6y, 0.1% of budgetMeredith College: $2,250 over 8y, 0.0% of budgetMedical Missions Inc Attn Todd Garrett: $1,500 over 1y, 0.6% of budgetWayne Memorial Hospital Foundation: $1,500 over 1y, 0.4% of budgetSafechild: $1,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetBoys & Girls Clubs of Wayne Co Inc: $1,000 over 1y, 0.1% of budgetHenderson County & Thermal Belt Habitat for Humanity: $1,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetPatetown Volunteer Fire Dept Inc: $650 over 3y, 0.1% of budgetWayne County Historical Association Inc: $600 over 1y, 0.3% of budgetWayne Charitable Partnership Inc Wayne Charitable Partnership Inc: $500 over 1y, 0.2% of budgetUnited Way of Wayne County Inc: $500 over 1y, 0.0% of budget

Tap a dot to name the grantee.

How this is measured
Share of budget is the funder’s grant in a year over the grantee’s total revenue that year, at its highest across the years we hold; revenue is from all sources. Only grantees confirmed against their own filings, whose grants do not exceed their revenue, are plotted: the largest 22.

Co-funders

Grantmakers whose grantees overlap with this funder’s far more than size alone predicts. Closer means stronger alignment; arcs show where they also fund each other. Here they form a tightly interlocked group: most of these funders back each other's grantees too.

R a Bryan Foundation IncNC26.3× affinity10 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: R a Bryan Foundation Inc · M & J Foundation Inc · Borden Foundation · Mid-Atlantic Foundation · The Borden Fund Inc · North Carolina Community Foundation · Mount Olive Pickle Company Foundation · Southern Bank Foundation · Duke Energy Foundation · E J Pope & Son Foundation · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Amazonsmile Foundation

How this is measured
Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. Overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.

Compare Ellen & Munroe Best Family Foundation with peer funders

About Ellen & Munroe Best Family Foundation

How much does Ellen & Munroe Best Family Foundation give?
Ellen & Munroe Best Family Foundation reported 24 grants totaling $36,719 in its FY2025 IRS filing. It funded between 27 and 35 organizations a year over FY2018 to FY2024.
What does Ellen & Munroe Best Family Foundation fund?
By grant dollars over FY2018 to FY2025, its largest causes are Education (32%), Religion (31%), Human Services (8%).
Who are Ellen & Munroe Best Family Foundation's largest grantees?
By total granted over FY2018 to FY2025: Wayne Country Day School Inc ($57k), Elon University ($42k), University of Mount Olive Inc ($13k).
Does Ellen & Munroe Best Family Foundation fund new organizations?
In FY2024, 11% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.
Does Ellen & Munroe Best Family Foundation accept unsolicited applications?
Its most recent filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and does not take unsolicited requests. Check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.
Which funders back the same organizations as Ellen & Munroe Best Family Foundation?
Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include R a Bryan Foundation Inc, M & J Foundation Inc, Borden Foundation.
Where is Ellen & Munroe Best Family Foundation based?
Ellen & Munroe Best Family Foundation is based in NC.

On method. Every financial figure here is read from IRS e-file XML, the funder’s own 990/990-PF, and from the multi-year returns of the 83 grantees we resolved, each linked to its source. Grantee outcomes are each organization’s own program-service reporting (Form 990, Part III), read as association with funding, never as caused by it. Low-confidence name matches are suppressed rather than guessed. How we build these →

How this is measured
Each figure carries one of six labels. Filed is what the funder reported on its return. Official is another government record about an organization, such as a federal award or a charity register, joined by name where no shared identifier exists. Resolved is an identity we worked out where the filing named a recipient without an EIN, kept only above a measured confidence threshold. Computed is arithmetic over those, like themes, portfolio clusters and co-funder strength. Context is a statistic about a place rather than about an organization, which is what the need overlay is: it describes the area a grantee’s address sits in, not where its work lands. Inferred is drawn by a model from text, like the partnerships read out of public news and organization websites. Each is labeled where it appears.

Generated from the IRS Form 990-PF e-file return for fiscal year 2025, released 2025. Filings run roughly 12 to 24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

Source object · view filing

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