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Forward Cities Inc at a glanceMostly funded, not a grantmaker: see who funds it →

· Public charity

Forward Cities Inc

To equip community leaders, catalyze narrative change, and measure progress over time, leveraging first-hand ecosystem building experiences across the nation.

$174k
Granted FY2024still arriving
6
Grants FY2024still arriving
1
States reached
$19k
Largest
01What it fundsRead
02The needRead
03Its granteesRead
04Its fieldRead
01What it funds
0192% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2022 to 2024.

Community Improvement$203kEducation$79kArts & Culture$19kEmployment$12kOther$0
02FY2024 · 6 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

How this is measured
The 6 grants below total $75,895, the rows itemized in this filing. The $174,284 headline is the total grant expense on the return; the other $98,389 is giving the schedule does not break out (grants under the $5,000 itemization floor, grants to individuals, grants on other schedules). Every figure below describes the itemized rows only.

By grant size · FY2024

  • Under $10k1 grant · $6k
  • $10k–50k5 grants · $70k
$12,500
Median grant
1
States reached
$584k
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
INFINITY BRIDGES$19,000
DURHAM TECHNICAL COMMUNITY COLLEGE$16,500
NORTH CAROLINA CENTRAL UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF BUSINESS$12,500
ECHO$11,500
PROVIDENT1898$10,250
KNOX ST STUDIOSAB COMMUNITY$6,145
02The need
03

Does the money reach high-need areas?

Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.

show:

Dollar for dollar, its grants (FY22–24) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 12%. 11% of its dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Its grants skew toward lower-need ZIPs.

area typical 12%INFINITY BRIDGES: $30k → 8%DURHAM TECHNICAL COMMUNITY COLLEGE: $50k → 11%COHADO: $37k → 19%INFINITY BRIDGES: $19k → 8%DURHAM TECHNICAL COMMUNITY COLLEGE: $17k → 11%ECHO: $30k → 11%PROVIDENT1898: $25k → 11%ECHO: $12k → 11%PROVIDENT1898: $10k → 11%KNOX ST STUDIOSAB COMMUNITY: $25k → 11%KNOX ST STUDIOSAB COMMUNITY: $6k → 11%NORTH CAROLINA CENTRAL UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF BUSINESS: $50k → 11%NORTH CAROLINA CENTRAL UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF BUSINESS: $13k → 11%0%20%40%50%more need →
grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount
How this is measured
Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty line in the grantee’s ZIP, averaged from the tracts in that ZIP.
How this is measured
US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are delivered. Need from public data (U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA), shown as context about the area, never attributed to the funder’s giving.
03Its grantees
repeat funding

Who it funds again

Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.

89%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.
$286k · 6 repeat orgs$37k to everyone else

6 repeat relationships: 6 still active in FY2024, 0 since wound down.

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

6
1

Total granted

$286k
$37k

Still filing today

33%
0%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2024, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 went to new ones.

50%100%’22’24
RenewedFirst-time

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

’22’24
EmploymentCommunity ImprovementOther
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.

Backed again, and grew

  • DT
    DURHAM TECHNICAL COMMUNITY COLLEGE
    3× · 2022–2024 · $67k
  • NC
    NORTH CAROLINA CENTRAL UNIVERSITY
    3× · 2022–2024 · $63k
  • IB
    INFINITY BRIDGES
    3× · 2022–2024 · $49k

Funded once

  • C
    COHADO
    one grant, 2022 · $37k
How this is measured

Repeat means funded in two or more distinct years. Growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.

04Its field
04the grantee network

2 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2020–2025.

Each grant beside the grantee’s revenue from every source, year by year.

How this is measured

Counted here: distinct organizations funded across 2020 to 2025, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 2 of the 7 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile.

Each grantee is resolved to its own IRS returns. Association, dated; never a causal claim.

1
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
2
Early backer (in before they grew)
2/2
Grantees still filing
2/2
Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

DURHAM TECHNICAL COMMUNITY COLLEGE: $66,500 · OtherDURHAM TECHNICAL COMMUNITY COLLEGENORTH CAROLINA CENTRAL UNIVERSITY: $62,500 · OtherNORTH CAROLINA CENTRAL UNIVERSITYINFINITY BRIDGES: $49,000 · OtherINFINITY BRIDGESCOHADO: $36,813 · OtherCOHADOPROVIDENT1898: $35,250 · OtherPROVIDENT1898Echo System: $41,500 · EmploymentEcho SystemAB COMMUNITY INC: $31,145 · Community ImprovementAB COMMUNI…
Other$250,063Employment$41,500Community Improvement$31,145

Each grantee by its size and the funder’s share of it; top left is load-bearing

25%50%75%100%grantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetEcho System: $41,500 over 3y, 12% of budgetAB COMMUNITY INC: $31,145 over 3y, 42% of budget
Grantee by grantee: a decade per organization, before and after funding

A decade per grantee: revenue shaded, grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.

  • Who funds Echo System ↗
  • Who funds AB COMMUNITY INC ↗

How much its grantees rely on government

Each dot is one organization Forward Cities Inc funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Forward Cities Inc. Bigger dots raise more.

2024
’20’21’22’23’24
no gov · 00%3%13%28%50%funder's share of their income ↑0%1%3%4%5%share of the org’s income from government →
    no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
    0get no government money at all
    0rely on government for over half their income
    ⤢ axis zoomed · 0–5%
    typical government reliance, FY20–24
    How this is measured
    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 a grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first, a floor rather than 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 to 24 months.

    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 7 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 e-file return for fiscal year 2024, released 2024. Filings run roughly 12 to 24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

    Source object · view filing

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    More from the funding graph

    The unnamed billions
    grants reported with no recipient in the public record
    The regranting layer
    51% of grant dollars land in the regranting layer
    The DAF merry-go-round
    $9.7B circulates between donor-advised funds
    The endowment market
    who holds foundation money, and what just moved
    The camps
    funders cluster by geography, not ideology
    By state
    where grant money is based, and what stays home