· Public charity
Marjorie M and Lawrence R Bradley Endowment Fund of Polk County Nc
To give grants in Polk County, NC for charitable, educational, medical and community benefit purposes within the meaning of Section 501(c)(3) and 170(c)(2) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 and to support the Polk County Community Foundation.
Read this first · the figures below need context
92% of Marjorie M and Lawrence R Bradley Endowment Fund of Polk County Nc’s FY2022 grant dollars went to Polk County Community Foundation Inc, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2022 names 2 organizations directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it. Everything below is therefore FY2021, the last year Marjorie M and Lawrence R Bradley Endowment Fund of Polk County Nc named its own grantees at scale: 7 organizations, $345k. 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 FY2019–2022.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
The 7 grants below total $345,000 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $363,002 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $18,002 is giving the schedule does not break out: grants under the $5,000 itemisation floor, grants to individuals, and grants reported on other schedules. Every figure below describes the itemised rows only.
By grant size · FY2021
- $10k–50k6 grants · $210k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $135k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| FENCE | $135,000 |
| TRYON LITTLE THEATER INC | $35,000 |
| TRYON PAINTERS AND SCULPTORS | $35,000 |
| TRYON ARTS AND CRAFTS INC | $35,000 |
| UPSTAIRS ARTSPACE | $35,000 |
| LANIER LIBRARY ASSOCIATION | $35,000 |
| TRYON FINE ARTS CENTER INC | $35,000 |
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 (FY19–22) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 100% 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 +68% since the first grant, against +44% for the ones you funded once.
3 repeat relationships — 3 still active in FY2021, 0 since wound down; 5 grantees were first funded in FY2021 (too recent to call). Read against FY2021, 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 FY2022, 9% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $60k 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
- FEFoothills Equestrian Nature Center Inc2× · 2020–2021 · $185k · revenue +68%
- TLTRYON LITTLE THEATER INC3× · 2019–2022 · $56k · revenue +177% · 40% of their budget
- TFTRYON FINE ARTS CENTER INC2× · 2020–2021 · $46k · revenue -27%
Funded once
DUKE UNIVERSITYgraduatedone grant, 2019 · $200k · revenue +44%- UOUNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT CHAPEL HILLone grant, 2019 · $28k
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 provide quality visual art exhibits and educational experiences for the enrichment of the entire community.
Cultivation and celebration of the arts.
To promote, teach, and nourish the creation and appreciation of the visual arts.
To provide experiences in the visual and performing arts
To provide high quality venues and performing arts for the Highlands - Cashiers community.
To promote the arts in caldwell county, nc
To foster an awareness and appreciation of the natural world and to conserve, protect and maintain the area surrounding pearson's falls on colt creek in polk & henderson counties, north carolina
Provide relevant educational and entertaining opportunities within the region that exceed customer expectations, while preserving our community's vibrant cultural history.
To provide the community with varied forms of art, to promote art appreciation, to provide art exhibits, art classes, workshops, and teaching opportunities.
To provide opportunities for growth and appreciation of the visual fine arts through exhibitions and programs in our community.
To provide diverse opportunities in the arts for all people through exhibitions, education and outreach programs.
To connect people with art through innovative, community-oriented art and art education and to contribute to the economic development of the region.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Tryon Arts and Crafts Inc and the most unlike its peers is Foothills Equestrian Nature Center Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
9 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. 9 of the 11 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 Polk County Community Foundation Inc ↗
- Who funds DUKE UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds Foothills Equestrian Nature Center Inc ↗
- Who funds TRYON LITTLE THEATER INC ↗
- Who funds TRYON FINE ARTS CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds TRYON PAINTERS & SCULPTORS INC ↗
- Who funds UPSTAIRS ARTSPACE INC ↗
- Who funds LANIER LIBRARY ASSOCIATION INC ↗
- Who funds TRYON ARTS AND CRAFTS 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: Polk County Community Foundation Inc · The Dobbs Family Charitable Foundation Trust Agreement · Amazonsmile 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 Marjorie M and Lawrence R Bradley Endowment Fund of Polk County Nc 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.
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Each link is a name appearing on two organizations’ public IRS 990 filings, matched on that name and, where the filings support it, on location. A same-state match has geographic support, which is a second matching feature rather than confirmation that the two are one person; a cross-state one is the likeliest to be two people who share a name. Every hop shows its tier, low-confidence and distant paths are held back rather than guessed, and it is worth confirming the person before you use the introduction.