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· Private foundation

L Jack & Ella Shaw Spiers 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.

$95k
Granted FY2024still arriving
8
Grants FY2024still arriving
1
States reached
$50k
Largest
01What it funds
01100% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2024.

Health$306kEducation$217kPhilanthropy$30kHuman Services$28kCommunity Improvement$5kCivil Rights$3kReligion$3k
02FY2024 · 8 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2024

  • Under $10k6 grants · $20k
  • $10k–50k1 grant · $25k
  • $50k–250k1 grant · $50k
$5,000
Median grant
1
States reached
$653k
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
JOHN PREYER FUND - UNC CHAPEL HILL$50,000
JANES FUND$25,000
Individual grant recipient$5,000
FOSCOE COMMUNITY CENTER$5,000
CROSSNER SCHOOL IN AVERY$2,500
IN REACH$2,500
PARKINSONS$2,500
THE WINFIELD FAMILY CAROLINA COVENANT ENDOWMENT$2,500
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:

Its human-services grants (FY24–24, $3k) land where the poverty rate runs at 10%, against an area that typically sits at 7%. 100% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

area typical 7%IN REACH: $3k → 10%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.

45%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.
$268k · 4 repeat orgs$322k to everyone else

Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +91% since the first grant, against -6% for those funded once.

4 repeat relationships: 1 still active in FY2024, 3 since wound down; 7 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

4
12

Total granted

$268k
$252k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+91%
-6%

Still filing today

75%
33%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2024, 26% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $70k went to new ones.

50%100%’17’18’19’20’21’22’23’24
RenewedFirst-time

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

’17’18’19’20’21’22’23’24
EducationHealthPhilanthropyHuman ServicesYouth DevelopmentOther
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

  • JF
    JANES FUND
    2× · 2023–2024 · $30k · revenue +92%
  • WY
    WILLIAMS YMCA OF AVERY COUNTY
    2× · 2020–2022 · $25k · revenue +91%
  • THE FOUNDATION FIGHTING BLINDNESS INC
    2× · 2018–2021 · $13k · revenue +47%

Funded once

  • UA
    UNC ART AND SCIENCES FOUNDATION
    one grant, 2023 · $100k
  • MF
    MEDICAL FOUNDATION OF NORTH CAROLINA INC- TARC RESEARCH PROGRAM SUPPORT F
    one grant, 2017 · $50k
  • UO
    UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA
    one grant, 2018 · $25k
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

8 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.

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

How this is measured

Counted here: distinct organizations funded across 2017 to 2025, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 8 of the 23 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.

0
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
2
Early backer (in before they grew)
8/8
Grantees still filing
4/8
Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

THE PUBLIC HEALTH FOUNDATION: $200,000 · OtherTHE PUBLIC HEALTH FOUNDATIONUNC ART AND SCIENCES FOUNDATION: $100,000 · OtherUNC ART AND SCIENCES FOUNDATIONJOHN PREYER FUND - UNC CHAPEL HILL: $50,000 · OtherJOHN PREYER FUND - UNC CHAPEL HILLMEDICAL FOUNDATION OF NORTH CAROLINA INC- TARC RESEARCH PROGRAM SUPPORT F: $50,000 · OtherMEDICAL FOUNDATION OF NORTH CAROLINA INC- TARC RESEARCH PROGRAM SUPPORT FUNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA: $25,000 · Other+11 more: $54,203 · Other+11 moreCHARLOTTE COUNTRY DAY SCHOOL: $25,000 · EducationMyers Park High School Foundation Inc: $10,000 · EducationJANES FUND: $30,000 · PhilanthropyWILLIAMS YMCA OF AVERY COUNTY: $25,000 · Youth DevelopmentTHE FOUNDATION FIGHTING BLINDNESS INC: $13,000 · HealthHopeWay Foundation: $5,000 · HealthInReach: $2,500 · Human Services
Other$479,203Education$35,000Philanthropy$30,000Youth Development$25,000Health$18,000Human Services$2,500

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

25%50%75%100%$1.0M$10Mgrantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetJANES FUND: $30,000 over 2y, 1.0% of budgetWILLIAMS YMCA OF AVERY COUNTY: $25,000 over 2y, 0.9% of budgetCHARLOTTE COUNTRY DAY SCHOOL: $25,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetTHE FOUNDATION FIGHTING BLINDNESS INC: $13,000 over 2y, 0.0% of budgetMyers Park High School Foundation Inc: $10,000 over 1y, 2.2% of budgetHopeWay Foundation: $5,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetORANGE COUNTY LITERACY COUNCIL INC: $5,000 over 1y, 1.1% of budgetInReach: $2,500 over 1y, 0.0% 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 JANES FUND ↗
  • Who funds WILLIAMS YMCA OF AVERY COUNTY ↗
  • Who funds CHARLOTTE COUNTRY DAY SCHOOL ↗
  • Who funds THE FOUNDATION FIGHTING BLINDNESS INC ↗
  • Who funds Myers Park High School Foundation Inc ↗
  • Who funds HopeWay Foundation ↗
  • Who funds ORANGE COUNTY LITERACY COUNCIL INC ↗
  • Who funds InReach ↗

Co-funders

Grantmakers whose grantees overlap with this funder’s far more than size alone predicts. Closer means stronger alignment; arcs show where they also fund each other. Here they form a tightly interlocked group: most of these funders back each other's grantees too.

Duke Energy FoundationNC14.5× affinity5 shared granteesties to 7 of 7Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Duke Energy Foundation · Dowd Foundation Inc · Foundation for the Carolinas · National Philanthropic Trust · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Amazonsmile Foundation

How this is measured
Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. Overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.

How much its grantees rely on government

Each dot is one organization L Jack & Ella Shaw Spiers Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from L Jack & Ella Shaw Spiers Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2024
’20’21’22’23’24’25
no gov · 10%0%1%3%5%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
    1get no government money at all
    2report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)
    0rely on government for over half their income
    ⤢ axis zoomed · 0–5%
    typical government reliance, FY20–25
    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 23 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-PF 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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