· Private foundation
Ellen & Munroe Best Family Foundation
Its FY2024 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 FY2018–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k26 grants · $39k
- $10k–50k1 grant · $12k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| 1ST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH | $11,500 |
| EAST CAROLINA UNIVERSITY | $8,250 |
| THE JANE FAMILY FOUNDATION | $5,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $4,000 |
| BOYS SCOUTS OF TUSCORORA | $2,500 |
| PRINCETON BAPITIST CHURCH | $2,200 |
| WAYNE COMMUNITY COLLEGE FOUNDATION | $2,070 |
| WAYNE COUNTRY DAY SCHOOL | $2,000 |
| MEDICAL MISSIONS INC | $1,500 |
| WAYNE LITERACY CONNECTION OF WAYNE | $1,500 |
| WAYNE COUNTY BOYS GIRLS CLUB | $1,000 |
| UNC HUMANITIES OF WAYNE COUNTY | $1,000 |
| ROOT ELEMENTARY SCHOOL FOUNDATION | $1,000 |
| THE LACY FOUNDATION | $1,000 |
| THE FLYNN HOME | $1,000 |
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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY18–24) land where the poverty rate runs at 17%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 96% of your 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.
Where the work is directed
The same grants, placed two ways — where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose earmarks the money.
About 100% of Ellen & Munroe Best Family Foundation’s grant dollars are earmarked, by their stated purpose, for a different county than the recipient’s own address — money that lands at a nonprofit in one place but is meant to do its work in another. Read by recipient address, 99% of the giving stays in NC; read by stated purpose it is 0% — less of the work is directed home than the recipients' locations suggest.
Recipient view: each grant at its grantee’s ZIP, mapped to a county. Directed view: each grant at the county its stated purpose names, falling back to the recipient’s county when the purpose names no place; US grants only. A county shows only if it carries the top 95% of that view’s dollars. Purposes are read from the foundation’s own 990 grant descriptions.
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 +16% since the first grant, against -11% for the ones you funded once.
42 repeat relationships — 24 still active in FY2024, 18 since wound down; 3 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, 85% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $8k 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
- WCWAYNE COUNTRY DAY SCHOOL INC6× · 2019–2024 · $57k · revenue +6%
Elon University5× · 2018–2022 · $42k · revenue +42%- UOUNIVERSITY OF MOUNT OLIVE INC4× · 2020–2023 · $13k · revenue +16%
Funded once
- FPFIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCHone grant, 2022 · $35k
- WCWAYNE COMMUNITY COLLEGEone grant, 2019 · $20k
- FOFRIENDS OF OAKDALE CEMETERY INCone grant, 2019 · $8k · revenue -15%
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 and share local history
Patients first - as we make decisions in our organization, we must always ensure our patients and their wellbeing are the forefront. quality health care - when we provide quality health care, we ensure we are doing the right thing, at the…
We provide community support and promote the educational development of wcc through several initiatives. these include establishing an endowment fund, offering financial aid, recognizing outstanding staff, and sponsoring seminars and…
Waynesburg university educates students to make connections between faith, learning and serving so they might faithfully transofrm their communiities and the world. see continuation on schedule o.as a christian comprehensive university, we…
Preservation of artifacts and education
To preserve, share, and support the full unique history and culture of wake forest - college, town, and university; and in cooperation with wake forest university to create a living laboratory of academic inquiry into civic, community, and…
The purpose of wofford college is to function as a liberal arts institution of superior quality. its chief concern is the development of an intellectual, spiritual, and aesthetic atmosphere in which serious and inquiring minds of students…
The foundation invests in the community by growing its endowment, encouraging philanthropy & innovation, supporting charitable activities, and assessing & addressing community needs.
The mission of wilmington college is to educate, inspire and prepare each student for a life of service and success. to fulfill that mission, wilmington college provides a high-quality undergraduate and graduate educational environment…
Enhance economic development
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Wayne Memorial Hospital Foundation and the most unlike its peers is The Paramount Theatre Foundation the Paramount Theatre Foundation. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
21 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. 21 of the 76 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 WAYNE COUNTRY DAY SCHOOL INC ↗
- Who funds Elon University ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY OF MOUNT OLIVE INC ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF OAKDALE CEMETERY INC ↗
- Who funds CAMPBELL UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds YOUNG LIFE ↗
- Who funds THE JANE FAMILY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds ARTS COUNCIL OF WAYNE COUNTY INC ↗
- Who funds THE PARAMOUNT THEATRE FOUNDATION THE PARAMOUNT THEATRE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY SOUP KITCHEN OF GOLDSBORO 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: 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
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 Ellen & Munroe Best Family 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.