· Private foundation
Kates Foundation Inc
Its FY2023 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.
Read this first · the figures below need context
87% of Kates Foundation Inc’s FY2023 grant dollars went to Bank Of America Charitable Gift Fd, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2023 names 9 organizations directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it. Everything below is therefore FY2022, the last year Kates Foundation Inc named its own grantees at scale: 8 organizations, $121k. It is dated, not current.
Organizations named directly on the return
Amber years are those where most dollars went to a sponsor.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2020–2023.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2022
- Under $10k5 grants · $16k
- $10k–50k5 grants · $105k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| HOMEWARD BOUND | $40,000 |
| PLANNED PARENTHOOD | $25,000 |
| VECINOS | $20,000 |
| MANNA FOODBANK | $10,000 |
| HELPMATE INC | $10,000 |
| ASHVILLE JEWISH COMMUNITY CENTER | $6,000 |
| LITERACY TOGETHER | $2,500 |
| OPEN DOORS ASHEVILLE | $2,500 |
| MUDDY SNEAKERS INC | $2,500 |
| PISGAH LEGAL SERVICES | $2,390 |
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 (FY20–23) land where the poverty rate runs at 15%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 91% 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.
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 +137% since the first grant, against +23% for the ones you funded once.
10 repeat relationships — 9 still active in FY2022, 1 since wound down; 4 grantees were first funded in FY2022 (too recent to call). Read against FY2022, the last year this funder named its own grantees directly; its giving has since run through a sponsor, which reports no donor behind each grant.
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 FY2023, 91% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $16k 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
- HBHOMEWARD BOUND OF WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA INC4× · 2020–2023 · $87k · revenue +72%
VECINOS INC4× · 2020–2023 · $78k · revenue ×12
MANNA FOOD BANK INC4× · 2020–2023 · $47k · revenue +153%
Funded once
- OVOur Voice Incone grant, 2021 · $5k · revenue -16%
- RAROWLETT ACADEMYone grant, 2020 · $5k
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2020 · $3k
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 fight hunger and poverty in northeastern north carolina.
Dedicated to ending the cycle of domestic and sexual violence in wake county, nc. interact is a private, nonprofit agency that saves lives, rebuilds lives, and secures safer futures for victims, survivors, and their families. the agency…
Feeding Charlotte rescues surplus, freshly prepared meals to reduce food waste and feed the hungry. We believe no food should be wasted while people go hungry in our community. To make this possible, we pickup unused, excess freshly…
To boldly engage the world's greatest crises in partnership with the church.
Nourish people. build solutions. empower communities. no one goes hungry.
To organize and mobilize community resources to improve lives of Henderson County residents.
The maryland food bank is a nonprofit hunger-relief organization dedicated to feeding people, strengthening communities, and ending hunger for more marylanders.
To advance an economically just region where prosperity is shared across race and ethnicity.
To feed people by soliciting and distributing food and other products through partner agencies and educating the community about the nature of and solutions to problems of hunger.
Together we connect, share, and celebrate nutritious food, education and community.
To engage, equip, and encourage our refugee neighbors so that all may thrive.
Seeking to put Gods love into action, Habitat for Humanity brings people together to build homes, communities and hope to realize our vision of a world where everyone has a decent place to live. Habitat for Humanity of North Carolina…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Helpmate Inc and the most unlike its peers is Kl Training Solutions. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
15 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. 15 of the 20 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 BANK OF AMERICA CHARITABLE GIFT FD ↗
- Who funds HOMEWARD BOUND OF WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA INC ↗
- Who funds VECINOS INC ↗
- Who funds MANNA FOOD BANK INC ↗
- Who funds HELPMATE INC ↗
- Who funds PISGAH LEGAL SERVICES ↗
- Who funds WORLD CENTRAL KITCHEN INC ↗
- Who funds Open Doors of Asheville Inc ↗
- Who funds Literacy Together ↗
- Who funds HELPING AT RISK KIDS INC ↗
- Who funds THE JEWISH FEDERATION OF SARASOTA-MANATEE INC ↗
- Who funds Our Voice Inc ↗
- Who funds KL TRAINING SOLUTIONS ↗
- Who funds Muddy Sneakers Inc ↗
- Who funds Feeding America ↗
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: Dogwood Health Trust · The Community Foundation of Western North Carolina Inc · United Way of Asheville and Buncombe County Inc · Wnc Bridge Foundation · The Frances & William H Beattie Fdn · North Carolina Community Foundation · Fanny Landwirth Foundation Inc · The Leon Levine Foundation · Baxter International Foundation · Foundation for the Carolinas · Raymond James Charitable Endowment Fund · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program
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 Kates Foundation Inc 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.