· Private foundation
Tara Foundation
Its FY2025 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
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.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k28 grants · $38k
- $10k–50k1 grant · $15k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Hollings Cancer Center | $15,000 |
| LowCountry Marine Mammal Network | $3,000 |
| Sea Island Hunger Awareness Foundation | $2,800 |
| Meet the Weeds Charleston | $2,500 |
| Third Serve Foundation | $2,000 |
| Backpack Buddies Seabrook Island | $2,000 |
| Sea Island Habitat for Humanity | $2,000 |
| Dragon Boat Charleston | $1,900 |
| LowCountry Marine Mammal Network | $1,850 |
| Charleston Animal Society | $1,750 |
| Arts Etc | $1,700 |
| Respite Care Charleston | $1,500 |
| John H Herbert Scholarship Fund - Elmhurst University | $1,250 |
| Respite Care Charleston | $1,250 |
| Naperville Newcomers and Neighbors Club | $1,230 |
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 (FY17–25, $24k) land where the poverty rate runs at 9%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 32% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants skew toward lower-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 +49% since the first grant, against +19% for the ones you funded once.
33 repeat relationships — 18 still active in FY2025, 15 since wound down; 7 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, 55% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $24k 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
- LELawndale Educational and Regional Network Charter School3× · 2017–2021 · $43k · revenue +78%
- SISea Island Habitat For Humanity Inc5× · 2017–2025 · $13k · revenue +107%
- BIBARRIER ISLANDS FREE MEDICAL CLINIC4× · 2017–2024 · $12k · revenue +94%
Funded once
- ASAutism Speaksone grant, 2022 · $15k
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2024 · $14k
- MTMeet The Needs Charlestongraduatedone grant, 2021 · $7k · revenue +252%
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.
The primary mission of the humane society is to end animal cruelty, neglect and overpopulation in south carolina.
The mission of the Organization is to coordinate, support, and advocate for member Food Banks across the Carolinas to create lasting solutions to address hunger.
Harvest hope is on a mission to eliminate hunger and food insecurity in south carolina. we rescue nutritious food from stores throughout the state and distribute it to food pantries, shelters, and soup kitchens. we operate programs that…
The mission of the South Carolina Cancer Alliance(SCCA)is to reduce the impact of cancer on all South Carolinians.
To strengthen families, organizations, and communities to prevent child abuse and neglect.
Empowering south carolina communities and children's advocacy centers to deliver a best practice response to child abuse
Humane Society of Charlotte mission is to champion the wellbeing of companion animals and strengthen their bond with the people who know, love, and need them.
South carolina legal services is a statewide law firm that provides civil legal services to protect the rights and represent the interests of low income south carolinians.
Nourish people. build solutions. empower communities. no one goes hungry.
Nourishing hope provides food, mental health support, and social services to help all our neighbors thrive.
Paws chicago is a national leader in the no kill animal welfare movement, helping more than 23,842 homeless and at-risk pets each year through comprehensive spay/neuter, medical, and adoption programs.
Charleston waterkeeper's mission it to protect and restore charleston's waterways for our community and future generations. we do that through an effective mix of boots-on-the-water stewardship and data-driven advocacy designed to protect…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Little Friends Inc and the most unlike its peers is Loving Luca 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 25 years old; the field is 17. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 21% startups (under 5 years old) — 4% of your grantees by number, and just 9% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 2% lost their exemption, against 15% 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.
47 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. 47 of the 82 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 Lawndale Educational and Regional Network Charter School ↗
- Who funds MEDICAL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Sea Island Habitat For Humanity Inc ↗
- Who funds BARRIER ISLANDS FREE MEDICAL CLINIC ↗
- Who funds LOAVES & FISHES COMMUNITY SERVICES ↗
- Who funds Sea Island Hunger Awareness Foundation ↗
- Who funds ARTS ETC ↗
- Who funds BACKPACK BUDDIES SEABROOK ISLAND ↗
- Who funds Meet The Needs Charleston ↗
- Who funds LOWCOUNTRY FOOD BANK INC ↗
- Who funds RESPITE CARE OF CHARLESTON ↗
- Who funds CHARLESTON ANIMAL SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds LOWCOUNTRY MARINE MAMMAL NETWORK ↗
- Who funds DRAGON BOAT CHARLESTON ↗
- Who funds NAPERVILLE AREA HUMANE SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds FOLDS OF HONOR FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds CHARLESTON AREA THERAPEUTIC RIDING INC ↗
- Who funds FIELDS TO FAMILIES ↗
- Who funds AMOR HEALING KITCHEN INC ↗
- Who funds HELEN ROSS MCNABB FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds KIAWAH WOMENS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds SPAY ILLINOIS PET WELL CLINICS INC ↗
- Who funds NAPERVILLE WOMANS CLUB ↗
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: Coastal Community Foundation of South Carolina Inc · Kelly Family Foundation · The Joanna Foundation · George R & Janet E Desko Charitable Foundation · Beyond Our Gates Foundation of Kiawah & Seabrook · The Dupage Community Foundation · Exchange Club Charitable Organization · Henry & Sylvia Yaschik Foundation Inc · Arthur J Gallagher Foundation · The Walter S & Lucienne B Driskill Foundation · The Gloria and Joseph Bauer Foundation · Kiawah Cares 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 Tara 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.