· Private foundation
Ken & Deborah Wilson Foundation Inc
Its FY2023 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 FY2020–2023.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| DANIEL BOONE COUNCIL BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA | $1,170 |
| SMOKY MOUNTAIN AQUATIC CLUB | $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.
Your human-services grants (FY20–22, $2k) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 100% of those 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 +46% since the first grant, against +41% for the ones you funded once.
17 repeat relationships — 1 still active in FY2023, 16 since wound down; 1 grantees were first funded in FY2023 (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 FY2023, 54% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $1k 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
- BRBLUE RIDGE PARKWAY FOUNDATION3× · 2020–2022 · $13k · revenue +57%
- BSBOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA 414 DANIEL BOONE COUNCIL3× · 2020–2023 · $6k · revenue +210%
- HWHAYWOOD WATERWAYS ASSOCIATION INC2× · 2020–2021 · $3k · revenue +124%
Funded once
- FOFRIENDS OF THE SMOKIES TRAILS FOREVERone grant, 2020 · $2k
- HHHaywood Health Foundation Incgraduatedone grant, 2022 · $1k · revenue +623%
- RLREACH - LAURA'S HOUSEone grant, 2020 · $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.
To restore and protect clean water and healthy ecosystems for rivers in tennessee by employing scientific expertise and collaborative relationships to develop, promote, and support broad community stewardship and action.
WNC Health Network, Inc supports people and organizations to improve community health and wellbeing across Western North Carolina.
The primary mission of the humane society is to end animal cruelty, neglect and overpopulation in south carolina.
Preserving, interpreting, and developing the heritage resources of the North Carolina mountains.
Humane Society of Charlotte mission is to champion the wellbeing of companion animals and strengthen their bond with the people who know, love, and need them.
The rocky mountain conservancy promotes stewardship of rocky mountain national park and similar lands through education and philanthropy.
Nashville public radio's mission is to be the most trusted & independent nashville voice, connecting our communities through non-partisan journalism, compelling storytelling, civil conversation and music discovery.
The north carolina conservation network supports, trains, and coordinates diverse groups and directly advocates to achieve equitable and sustainable solutions for our environment.
The Children's Home Society of North Carolina's mission is to promote the right of every child to a permanent, safe, and loving family.
The mission of safe haven for cats is to use no-kill principles and education to save cats' lives through rescue, adoption, spay/neuter services and community programs.
To advance the general welfare of the people of eastern north carolina through programs providing housing and childcare assistance as well as poverty elimination strategies to disadvantaged populations.
To support and carry out the functions and purposes of wrmc hospital operating corporation (dba atrium health wake forest baptist wilkes medical center) to enhance the delivery of quality health care within the organization's region.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Mountain Projects Inc and the most unlike its peers is CATMAN2 Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
For each theme you fund, this compares how the sector’s money is shifting with how your own giving is shifting.
Sector change and giving change are each shown relative to their own range, growing (right) or shrinking (left); both normalized, so inflation isn’t mistaken for growth.
Your grantees are a median of 42 years old; the field is 12. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 26% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 15% of the field you don’t fund.
Age = years since IRS exemption (a founding proxy). “Closed” = auto-revocation for 3 years of non-filing — a floor on closure, not proof, and bigger established orgs lapse least. Association, not causation.
29 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. 29 of the 59 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 BLUE RIDGE PARKWAY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA 414 DANIEL BOONE COUNCIL ↗
- Who funds HAYWOOD WATERWAYS ASSOCIATION INC ↗
- Who funds HAYWOOD COUNTY ARTS COUNCIL INC ↗
- Who funds WESTERN CAROLINA RESCUE MINISTRIES INC ↗
- Who funds WESTERN N CAROLINA PUBLIC RADIO ↗
- Who funds Haywood Health Foundation Inc ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF THE HAYWOOD COUNTY LIBRARY ↗
- Who funds Haywood Christian Ministry Inc ↗
- Who funds HAYWOOD COUNTY SCHOOLS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds WILDERNESS TRAIL INC ↗
- Who funds THE NATURE CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds CATMAN2 INC ↗
- Who funds ADVENTURE CYCLING ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds REACH OF HAYWOOD COUNTY INC ↗
- Who funds Haywood Pathways Center Inc ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF GREAT SMOKY MOUNTAINS NATIONAL PARK ↗
- Who funds EACH INITIATIVE INC ↗
- Who funds Haywood Community College Found ↗
- Who funds Friends of South Dakota Public Broadcasting ↗
- Who funds THE CARTER CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds UNITED STATES FUND FOR UNICEF ↗
- Who funds OPEN DOOR MINISTRIES OF HIGH POINT 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: The Community Foundation of Western North Carolina Inc · North Carolina Community Foundation · The John C Harmon Family Foundation · Foundation for the Carolinas · Dogwood Health Trust · East Tennessee Foundation · Duke Energy Foundation · Colquitt Foundation · Gradison Foundation · Pisgah Health Foundation · United Way of Haywood County Inc · Haywood Health Foundation Inc
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 Ken & Deborah Wilson 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.