· Private foundation
Encouragement Foundation Trust
Its FY2019 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 FY2017–2019.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2019
- Under $10k16 grants · $44k
- $10k–50k1 grant · $13k
- $50k–250k2 grants · $200k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| METANOIA | $140,000 |
| AMERICAN COLLEGE OF THE BUILDING ARTS | $60,000 |
| COASTAL COMMUNITY FOUNDATION FUND | $12,500 |
| CHARLESTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA | $5,000 |
| EAST COOPER MEALS ON WHEELS | $5,000 |
| LOWCOUNTRY FOOD BANK | $4,000 |
| BRIDGE TO RWANDA | $4,000 |
| CHARLESTON LIBRARY SOCIETY | $3,464 |
| RONALD MCDONALD HOUSE CHARITIES OF CHARLESTON | $3,000 |
| EAST COOPER HABITAT FOR HUMANITY | $3,000 |
| MIDDLETON PLACE FOUNDATION | $3,000 |
| SOUTH CAROLINA AQUARIUM | $3,000 |
| THE CARTER CENTER | $2,000 |
| B A RUDOLPH FOUNDATION | $2,000 |
| MAYO FOUNDATION | $2,000 |
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 (FY17–19) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 12%. 99% 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.
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.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +65% since the first grant, against +42% for the ones you funded once.
17 repeat relationships — 16 still active in FY2019, 1 since wound down; 2 grantees were first funded in FY2019 (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 FY2019, 98% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $4k 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
- MMETANOIA3× · 2017–2019 · $265k · revenue +73%
- ACAMERICAN COLLEGE OF THE BUILDING ARTS3× · 2017–2019 · $215k · revenue +133%
- ECEAST COOPER MEALS ON WHEELS INC3× · 2017–2019 · $10k · revenue +42%
Funded once
- IAINTERNATIONAL AFRICAN AMERICAN MUSEUMone grant, 2018 · $100k · revenue -25%
WASHINGTON STATE UNIVERSITY FOUNDATIONgraduatedone grant, 2017 · $2k · revenue +42%- SBSHREVEPORT BOSSIER COMMUNITY RENEWALone grant, 2018 · $1k
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.
The schs mission is to expand, preserve, and make accessible our invaluable collection, and to encourage interest and pride in the rich history of our state.
To educate Charleston area residents and visitors about the natural and cultural history of the South Carolina Lowcountry through collections, exhibitions, preservation, conservation, research and related programming.
The Mission of the College of Charleston Foundation is to promote programs of education, research, student development, and faculty development for the exclusive benefit of the College of Charleston.
The mission of the gibbes museum of art is to enhance lives through art by engaging people of every background and experience with art and artists of enduring quality; collect and preserve the art that touches charleston; and provide…
The north carolina biotechnology center aids the biotechnology-related efforts of researchers, businesses, state and federal governments, and other agencies primarily through awards of grants and loans related to specific programs and…
Founded in 1902, barton college is a four-year, private, liberal arts college located in wilson, n.c. the barton experience focuses on academic excellence within a wide range of professional and liberal arts programs leading to…
The bac is committed to provide excellence in design education grounded in practice and accessible to diverse communities.
We harness the power of plants for humankind and share the joy and beauty of tropical gardening with everyone. fairchild tropical botanic garden is a museum of tropical plants within a world famous, 83-acre designed landscape. it was…
The Community Foundation's mission is strengthening community by connecting people, resources, and needs.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Lowcountry Land Trust Inc and the most unlike its peers is The Ba Rudolph Foundation. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
19 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. 19 of the 24 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 METANOIA ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN COLLEGE OF THE BUILDING ARTS ↗
- Who funds INTERNATIONAL AFRICAN AMERICAN MUSEUM ↗
- Who funds COASTAL COMMUNITY FOUNDATION OF SOUTH CAROLINA INC ↗
- Who funds EAST COOPER MEALS ON WHEELS INC ↗
- Who funds RONALD MCDONALD HOUSE CHARITIES OF CHARLESTON SOUTH CAROLINA INC ↗
- Who funds LOWCOUNTRY FOOD BANK INC ↗
- Who funds East Cooper Habitat for Humanity Inc ↗
- Who funds THE CARTER CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds CHARLESTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA ↗
- Who funds BRIDGE2RWANDA INC ↗
- Who funds Middleton Place Foundation ↗
- Who funds The BA Rudolph Foundation ↗
- Who funds South Carolina Aquarium ↗
- Who funds Charleston Library Society ↗
- Who funds BILL HILLARY & CHELSEA CLINTON FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds WASHINGTON STATE UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds LOWCOUNTRY LAND TRUST INC ↗
- Who funds The Susan G Komen Breast Cancer Foundation 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: Coastal Community Foundation of South Carolina Inc · The Joanna Foundation · Guffey Family Foundation · Dominion Energy Charitable Foundation · Henry & Sylvia Yaschik Foundation Inc · Trident United Way · Td Charitable Foundation · John M Rivers Jr Foundation · Patrick Family Foundation · Vitreus Foundation · Magnolia Plantation Foundation · David Wallace Smith and Joan Stowell Smith charitable 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 Encouragement Foundation Trust 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.