· Community foundation
Suffolk Foundation
The mission of the SUFFOLK FOUNDATION is to benefit the people of suffolk and western tidewater by facilitating and developing philanthropy, and by awarding grants and scholarships to meet local community needs.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
The 58 grants below total $1,148,120 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $1,502,146 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $354,026 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 · FY2025
- Under $10k20 grants · $133k
- $10k–50k32 grants · $627k
- $50k–250k6 grants · $388k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| NANSEMOND SUFFOLK ACADEMY | $81,100 |
| SALVATION ARMY | $79,525 |
| WESTERN TIDEWATER FREE CLINIC | $64,500 |
| FORKIDS | $57,215 |
| SUFFOLK CENTER FOR CULTURAL ARTS | $56,000 |
| NORFOLK COLLEGIATE | $50,000 |
| SUFFOLK CHRISTIAN FELLOWSHIP CENTER | $42,025 |
| ROC SOLID FOUNDATION | $41,050 |
| TOWNEBANK FOUNDATION | $34,000 |
| COALITION AGAINST POVERTY IN | $31,500 |
| MACEDONIA BAPTIST CHURCH | $30,000 |
| CHILD EVANGELISM FELLOWSHIP OF SC | $28,750 |
| BERNIE'S BOOK BANK | $28,750 |
| YMCA OF SOUTH HAMPTON ROADS | $28,133 |
| NANSEMOND RIVER PRESERVATION | $25,700 |
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 (FY19–25, $207k) land where the poverty rate runs at 15%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 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.
Which US states your grants reach
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 +26% since the first grant, against 0% for the ones you funded once.
50 repeat relationships — 26 still active in FY2025, 24 since wound down; 31 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (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 FY2025, 51% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $557k 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
- FIFORKIDS INC9× · 2017–2025 · $320k · revenue +48%
- GAGLOBAL ACTION PLATFORM4× · 2020–2023 · $189k · revenue +227%
- SESUFFOLK EDUCATION FOUNDATION6× · 2017–2024 · $180k · revenue +87% · 43% of their budget
Funded once
- NCNC COMMUNITY FOUNDATIONone grant, 2023 · $106k
- TMTHE MOREHEAD-CAIN FOUNDATIONone grant, 2020 · $50k · revenue -48%
- OAODU ATHLETIC FOUNDATIONone grant, 2021 · $50k
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 brands and services that promote applied research and technological innovations that, in turn, contribute positively to the economic strength of the hampton roads region and the commonwealth of virginia.
Sevacf enhances the quality of the life in south hampton roads by connecting people who care with causes large and small, managing charitable funds, and providing grants and scholarships for (continued on schedule o)
The mission of Good Shepherd Episcopal School is to inspire each child to achieve academic excellence within a diverse, nurturing community that builds character and fosters respect for one another and our shared environment, locally and…
The williams school builds with each child the foundation for academic, moral and social success. a williams school student embodies confidence, integrity and a love of learning.
Access partnership facilitates the connection between those with health care needs and available resources. vision is that all residents of hampton roads can obtain the health care that they need to achieve personal wellness. focus is…
Hampton roads academy is an inclusive community grounded in service and compassion, preparing students to excel intellectually, artistically, physically, and morally in higher education and in life.
Youth sailing virginia's mission is to teach life skills to high school, middle school youth and their families in the commonwealth of virginia through safe, fun and competitive, recreational and educational community sailing programs with…
To generate private and public funds for the children's museum of virginia, and to serve as a receiving agent for funds benefiting all of portsmouth's city museums and related projects, in partnership with the city of portsmouth.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Access College Foundation and the most unlike its peers is Townebank 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 28 years old; the field is 14. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 25% startups (under 5 years old) — 7% of your grantees by number, and just 2% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 16% 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.
72 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2026.
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 2017–2026, not grant rows in a single year — so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 72 of the 122 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 FORKIDS INC ↗
- Who funds WESTERN TIDEWATER FREE CLINIC INC ↗
- Who funds GLOBAL ACTION PLATFORM ↗
- Who funds SUFFOLK EDUCATION FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds ROC SOLID FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds NANSEMOND SUFFOLK ACADEMY ASSOCIATION INC ↗
- Who funds RAWLS MUSEUM ARTS INC ↗
- Who funds TOWNEBANK FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Washington and Lee University ↗
- Who funds Children's Hospital of the King's Daughters ↗
- Who funds NANSEMOND RIVER PRESERVATION ALLIANCE ↗
- Who funds MEALS ON WHEELS OF SUFFOLK & ISLE OF WIGHT INC ↗
- Who funds Suffolk Christian Fellowship Center ↗
- Who funds Young Men's Christian Association of South Hampton Roads ↗
- Who funds THE MARINERS' MUSEUM ↗
- Who funds SUFFOLK CENTER FOR CULTURAL ARTS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE MOREHEAD-CAIN FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE UNION MISSION ↗
- Who funds NORFOLK COLLEGIATE SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds WILLIAMSBURG CHRISTIAN ACADEMY ↗
- Who funds HIGHER GROUND USA INC ↗
- Who funds Virginia Legal Aid Society Inc ↗
- Who funds ACCESS COLLEGE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds COALITION AGAINST POVERTY IN SUFFOLK INC ↗
- Who funds SUFFOLK ART LEAGUE ↗
- Who funds AN ACHIEVABLE DREAM 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: Obici Healthcare Foundation Inc · Hampton Roads Community Foundation · Dominion Energy Charitable Foundation · United Way of South Hampton Roads · Beazley Foundation Incorporated · Sentara Health · The Blocker Foundation · Townebank Foundation · Birdsong Charitable Foundation · The Pruden Foundation · The Southeast Virginia Community Foundation · Langley for Families - the Foundation of Lfcu
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 Suffolk 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.