How much did SOUTH CAROLINA FIRST STEPS TO grant in FY2023?

SOUTH CAROLINA FIRST STEPS TO reported 48 grants totaling $42,817,924 in its FY2023 IRS filing.

Where is SOUTH CAROLINA FIRST STEPS TO based?

SOUTH CAROLINA FIRST STEPS TO is based in SC.

SOUTH CAROLINA FIRST STEPS TO

Foundation Dossiers Also receives grants — funding profile →

· Public charity

SOUTH CAROLINA FIRST STEPS TO

Per south carolina code section 59-152-10: "there is established the SOUTH CAROLINA FIRST STEPS TO school readiness, a comprehensive, results-oriented initiative for improving early childhood development by providing, through local partnerships, public and private funds, and support for high-quality early childhood development and…

$43M

Granted FY2023

Grants

Communities

$24M

Largest

01What you fund

What you funded, over time

By grantee IRS cause code (NTEE).

A cause breakdown isn’t shown here: 58% of SOUTH CAROLINA FIRST STEPS TO’s grantee dollars go to organizations outside the IRS cause taxonomy (common for large international and research funders), so a chart would be mostly “unclassified” and misrepresent the portfolio.

02FY2023 · 48 grants

Where the money goes

Your grants by size, and where they go.

By grant size · FY2023

$50k–250k17 grants · $3.6M
$250k+31 grants · $39M

$303,664

Median grant

States reached

$37M

Total assets

Largest grants

PRIVATE 4K CHILD CARE CENTERS$23,730,357
RICHLAND COUNTY FIRST STEPS PARTNER$1,166,425
GREENVILLE COUNTY FIRST STEPS PARTN$1,112,872
LEXINGTON COUNTY FIRST STEPS PARTNE$1,051,697
CHARLESTON COUNTY FIRST STEPS PARTN$1,041,983
YORK COUNTY FIRST STEPS PARTNERSHIP$987,715
SPARTANBURG COUNTY FIRST STEPS PART$863,231
BERKELEY COUNTY FIRST STEPS PARTNER$797,711
HORRY COUNTY FIRST STEPS PARTNERSHI$700,276
BEAUFORT COUNTY FIRST STEPS PARTNER$573,198
CHESTERFIELD COUNTY FIRST STEPS PAR$465,281
FLORENCE COUNTY FIRST STEPS PARTNER$433,570
ANDERSON COUNTY FIRST STEPS PARTNER$430,596
DILLON COUNTY FIRST STEPS PARTNERSH$419,324
PICKENS COUNTY FIRST STEPS PARTNERS$403,500

02The need

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.

show:

Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY18–23) land where the poverty rate runs at 17% — the area typically sits at 14%. 70% of your dollars reach neighborhoods with above-average need. Most of your grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount

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; 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, United Way ALICE — shown as context about the area, never attributed to your giving.

03Your edge

repeat funding

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.

100%of every dollar goes to organizations you’ve funded before.

$203M · 48 repeat orgs$0 to everyone else

48 repeat relationships — 48 still active in FY2023, 0 since wound down.

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$203M

Still filing today

96%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2023, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

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

GC
GREENVILLE COUNTY FIRST STEPS PARTN
6× · 2018–2023 · $6.3M · revenue +42% · 74% of their budget
RC
RICHLAND COUNTY FIRST STEPS PARTNER
6× · 2018–2023 · $5.7M · revenue +80% · 42% of their budget
LC
LEXINGTON COUNTY FIRST STEPS PARTNE
6× · 2018–2023 · $4.5M · revenue +69% · 97% of their budget

Funded once

Repeat = funded in two or more distinct years; growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.

04Your field

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.

South Carolina First Steps to

Per south carolina code section 59-152-10: "there is established the south carolina first steps to school readiness, a comprehensive, results-oriented initiative for improving early childhood development by providing, through local…

Education

The First Step

—

Start Early

Start Early advances quality early learning for families with children, before birth through their earliest years, to help close the opportunity gap.

—

South Carolina Future Minds Inc

South Carolina Future Minds. Inc. (The "Organization") is a voluntary association of individuals operating collectively to serve, support and strengthen South Carolina public education. The organization promotes excellence in South…

—

Guilford County Partnership for Children Inc

The Guilford County Partnership for Children is a local non-profit strategically directing Smart Start and NC Pre-K funding to ensure equitable access to high quality childcare, professional development for early childhood educators and…

Education

Scotland County Partnership for

To prepare children for success by providing resources to families and the community

Education

Chowan Perquimans Smart Start Partnership

The Mission of the Chowan/Perquimans Smart Start Partnership is to bring people and organizations together to enhance early childhood development and school readiness through advocacy, parent, and child care provider support programs.

Education

Strategic Education Research

To generate innovative, scalable solutions to our schools' most pressing problems through sustained collaborations among educators, researchers, and designers.

Science & Tech

Caldwell County Smart Start

Helping caldwell county children arrive at school healthy and prepared for success.

Human Services

Initial Teaching Alphabet

—

Durham's Partnership for Children

To ensure every child in durham enters school ready to suceed, we lead community statergies for children birth to 5 and their families that promote healthy development and learning and enhance access to high quality care.

Education

Surry County Early Childhood Partnership

For the future health and vitality of Surry County, the mission of the Surry County Early Childhood Partnership is to take action on behalf of the people of Surry County to support children 0 to 5 and their families through partnerships…

Education

For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is South Carolina First Steps to and the most unlike its peers is South Carolina First Steps to. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.

Your grantees are a median of 26 years old; the field is 21. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.

The field is 21% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.

Closures · last 5 years

The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 10% of the field you don’t fund.

orgs you fund

0.0%0/46

the rest of the field

10%

2,921/28,743

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.

04the grantee network

46 grantees, every filing reconciled, 2018–2024.

Each one resolved to its own IRS returns and tracked year by year — your grant beside their revenue.

Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)

Early backer (in before they grew)

46/46

Grantees still filing

40/46

Grew since you first funded

Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee

Other$118,306,232Education$84,521,634

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.

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.

Save The Children Federation IncCT23.9× affinity10 shared granteesties to 4 of 4Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Save The Children Federation Inc · Coastal Community Foundation of South · United Way of the Midlands · Children's Trust of South Carolina · Central Carolina Community

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 organisation SOUTH CAROLINA FIRST STEPS TO 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.

2023

’20’21’22’23

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

0get no government money at all

0rely on government for over half their income

⤢ axis zoomed · 0–5%

typical government reliance, FY20–23

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. 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.

05Through Plinth

Through Plinth

Your grantmaking, live and operational

This dossier was generated cold from public filings. In Plinth it’s a working system — every applicant assessed and every grant monitored. Here’s a taste, run on one of your grantees: MARLBORO COUNTY FIRST STEPS PARTNER.

Agentic due diligence · confidence × risk

Financial management

low risk

~12 months of operating runway; revenue held over 6 filed years.

Track record & reputation

low risk

6 years of Form 990 filings, still active.

Legal standing

low risk

US 501(c)(3); EIN 571097823 on file with current IRS Form 990 filings.

Governance

Live in Plinth

Board composition & governance documents — verified live in Plinth from the applicant.

Compliance & sanctions

Live in Plinth

OFAC / UN sanctions screening — run live in Plinth at assessment.

Program capacity

Live in Plinth

Staffing, M&E and activity alignment — assessed live in Plinth from submitted proposals.

Live · Plinth’s real DD engine

Run the actual assessment on MARLBORO COUNTY FIRST STEPS PARTNER, cold from public data.

Generated live from public IRS filings + open web sources by Plinth’s agentic engine. Shown as an illustration of the product, not a formal assessment.

Post-award monitoring · continuous checks

On trackFinancial stability— Roughly 12 months of cash on hand.
On trackSustained operations— Filing through 2023; revenue held over the period.
WatchReliance on your funding— Your grants peaked at 100% of their budget — load-bearing; a dependency Plinth would track.
Awaiting reportEvidence of delivery— Plinth collects the grantee's own monitoring reports post-award.

What you see here is static and public. In Plinth it’s operational — the full six-pillar framework on every applicant (with their own documents + live registry and sanctions checks), monitoring dashboards on every award, custom board reports, and eligibility routing for intake.

Agentic due diligenceMonitoring dashboardsCustom board reportsEligibility routing

Preview generated from this grantee’s public IRS filings and independent reporting. Pillars marked “live in Plinth” require the applicant’s submitted documents. Shown as illustration, not a formal assessment.

Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPro

How do I get to South Carolina First Steps To?

Find your warmest path to South Carolina First Steps To through people who sit on both boards. Search for your organization and Plinth traces the introduction across shared trustees and officers.

Every link is a documented governance overlap in public IRS 990 filings — not a personal network — and each hop carries its own confidence tier. Low-confidence or distant paths are held back rather than guessed.

SOUTH CAROLINA FIRST STEPS TO

What you funded, over time

Where the money goes

Do your dollars go where the need is?

Who you back again

Backed again, and grew

Funded once

46 grantees, every filing reconciled, 2018–2024.

Government reliance of your grantees

Your grantmaking, live and operational

How do I get to South Carolina First Steps To?

More from the funding graph

SOUTH CAROLINA FIRST STEPS TO

What you funded, over time

Where the money goes

Do your dollars go where the need is?

Who you back again

Backed again, and grew

Funded once

46 grantees, every filing reconciled, 2018–2024.

Government reliance of your grantees

Your grantmaking, live and operational

How do I get to South Carolina First Steps To?

More from the funding graph