· Private foundation
Michael and Laura Brader-Araje 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.
What you funded, over time
By grantee IRS cause code (NTEE).
A cause breakdown isn’t shown here: 57% of MICHAEL AND LAURA BRADER-ARAJE FOUNDATION’s grantee dollars fall outside its nine largest cause areas, whether because the recipient carries no IRS cause code or because its cause sits in the long tail. A chart would be mostly one residual band and misrepresent the portfolio.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k3 grants · $15k
- $10k–50k7 grants · $125k
- $50k–250k2 grants · $110k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| CHAPEL HILL-CARRBORO CHILDREN'S MUSEUM DBA KIDZU CHILDREN'S MUSEUM | $60,000 |
| UNC HEALTH FOUNDATION | $50,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $30,000 |
| LILLIAN'S LIST FOUNDATION | $20,000 |
| PLANNED PARENTHOOD - SOUTH ATLANTIC | $20,000 |
| MOREHEAD PLANETARIUM & SCIENCE CENTER | $17,500 |
| TRIANGLE ULTIMATE | $15,000 |
| DUKE UNIVERSITY | $12,000 |
| LAFAYETTE COLLEGE | $10,000 |
| ELON UNIVERSITY | $7,500 |
| JUST TRYAN IT | $5,000 |
| DTH MEDIA CORP | $2,000 |
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 (FY17–24) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 75% 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 +28% since the first grant, against +10% for the ones you funded once.
24 repeat relationships — 11 still active in FY2024, 13 since wound down; 1 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (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 FY2024, 95% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $12k 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
- LCLAFAYETTE COLLEGE7× · 2017–2024 · $133k · revenue +28%
WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY4× · 2020–2023 · $130k · revenue +16%- CFCAROLINA FRIENDS SCHOOL5× · 2017–2023 · $125k · revenue +30%
Funded once
- FOFriends of Chapel Hill Parks and Recreation Departmentone grant, 2017 · $25k · revenue -98%
MS FOUNDATION FOR WOMEN INCgraduatedone grant, 2019 · $25k · revenue +112%- TUTHE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT CHAPEL HILL PUBLIC HEALTH FOUNDATION INCone grant, 2019 · $20k · revenue +10%
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.
Founded in 1902, barton college is a four-year, private, liberal arts college located in wilson, n.c. the barton experience focuses on academic excellence within a wide range of professional and liberal arts programs leading to…
The primary mission of furman as a liberal arts institution is to provide a distinctive education in fine arts, humanities, social sciences, mathematics and the sciences, as well as selected professional disciplines.
The foundation of unc charlotte receives contributions to promote and develop the academic and educational purpose of unc charlotte by providing support for operations, educational programs, and scholarships for the university and its…
The mission of the north carolina global health alliance is to advance north carolina as an international center for research, training, education, advocacy and business dedicated to improving the health of the world's communities. we…
Provide financial support for all types of education and research within the college of sciences at north carolina state university.
Our mission is to empower and equip first-generation college students in durham public schools, their families, and educators to become the leaders that will transform our city.
Columbia college provides educational opportunities that develop students' capacity for critical thought and expression, life-long learning, acceptance of personal responsibilty, and commitment to service and social justice.
The university's goal in the coming decade is to advance learning through the integration of teaching, research and service to others. the core of this goal is to prepare graduates to engage with the world and lead lives of meaning. to do…
The montessori school of raleigh (msr) and carolina preparatory academy (carolina prep) are the triangle's modern embodiment and mindful practice of the time-proven montessori philosophy and the world-renowned international baccalaureate…
Greensboro College provides a liberal arts education grounded in the traditions of the United Methodist Church and fosters the intellectual, social, and spiritual development of all students while supporting their individual needs.
The north carolina biotechnology center aids the biotechnology-related efforts of researchers, businesses, state and federal governments, and other agencies primarily through awards of grants and loans related to specific programs and…
Supports, by financial assistance and otherwise, the various colleges within the university, the libraries, and other university-connected functions.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The Educational Foundation Inc and the most unlike its peers is Carolina Swims Foundation. 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 45 years old; the field is 12. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 24% 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 13% 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.
28 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. 28 of the 44 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 LAFAYETTE COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds CAROLINA FRIENDS SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds THE EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds UNC HEALTH FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds INTER-FAITH COUNCIL FOR SOCIAL SERVICE INC ↗
- Who funds Lillian's List Foundation ↗
- Who funds PLANNED PARENTHOOD SOUTH ATLANTIC INC ↗
- Who funds KIDZNOTES INC ↗
- Who funds THE NORTH CAROLINA CHILDREN'S MUSEUM ↗
- Who funds TRIANGLE FLYING DISC ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds TRIANGLE VOLLEYBALL CLUB INC ↗
- Who funds Friends of Chapel Hill Parks and Recreation Department ↗
- Who funds MS FOUNDATION FOR WOMEN INC ↗
- Who funds JUST TRYAN IT INC ↗
- Who funds THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT CHAPEL HILL PUBLIC HEALTH FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds DTH MEDIA CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds Elon University ↗
- Who funds DUKE UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds CLUB NOVA COMMUNITY INC ↗
- Who funds ORANGE COUNTY RAPE CRISIS CENTER ↗
- Who funds FRANKLIN STREET ARTS COLLECTIVE D/B/A FRANK GALLERY ↗
- Who funds FOOD BANK OF CENTRAL & EASTERN NC INC ↗
- Who funds TRIANGLE BIKEWORKS INC ↗
- Who funds CAROLINA SWIMS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds OLD BALDY FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds MONTESSORI COMMUNITY SCHOOL 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: Triangle Community Foundation Inc · Strowd Roses Inc · Duke Energy Foundation · Bertsch Family Charitable Foundation Inc · The Mary Duke Biddle Foundation Missionpost Pmb #101 · United Way of the Greater Triangle Inc · Z Smith Reynolds Foundation Inc · Ge Aerospace Foundation · Raymond James Charitable Endowment Fund · The Pfizer Foundation Inc · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · National Philanthropic Trust
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 Michael and Laura Brader-Araje Foundation 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.