How much does The Ability Experience give?

The Ability Experience reported 32 itemized grants totaling $277,037, out of $461,141 in total grant expense reported on the return in its FY2025 IRS filing. It funded between 1 and 21 organizations a year over FY2017 to FY2024.

What does The Ability Experience fund?

By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2025, its largest causes are Recreation & Sports (36%), Health (28%), Education (12%).

Who are The Ability Experience's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2017 to FY2025: Texas Christian University ($65k), Best Buddies International Inc ($51k), Children's Assoc for Maximum Potential ( ($47k).

Does The Ability Experience fund new organizations?

In FY2024, 60% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Which funders back the same organizations as The Ability Experience?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Christopher Reeve Foundation, Easter Seals Inc, Edward Jones Foundation.

Where is The Ability Experience based?

The Ability Experience is based in NC.

The Ability Experience

The Ability Experience at a glance Mostly funded, not a grantmaker: see who funds it →

· Public charity

The Ability Experience

THE ABILITY EXPERIENCE uses shared experiences to support people with disabilities and develop the men of pi kappa phi into servant leaders.

$461k

Granted FY2025still arriving

Grants FY2025still arriving

States reached

$19k

Largest

01What it funds

01100% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2024.

Recreation & Sports$282kHealth$216kEducation$92kEnvironment$68kYouth Development$37kHuman Services$28kHousing & Shelter$20kInternational$18kOther$0

02FY2025 · 32 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

How this is measured

The 32 grants below total $277,037, the rows itemized in this filing. The $461,141 headline is the total grant expense on the return; the other $184,104 is giving the schedule does not break out (grants under the $5,000 itemization floor, grants to individuals, grants on other schedules). Every figure below describes the itemized rows only.

By grant size · FY2025

Under $10k25 grants · $177k
$10k–50k7 grants · $100k

$7,000

Median grant

States reached

$4.9M

Total assets

Largest grants
Recipient	Amount
BEST BUDDIES OF ARIZONA	$19,000
CAMP ASCCA	$15,000
ROCKY MOUNTAIN VILLAGE CAMP	$14,500
LIFE HAS NO BOUNDRIES	$14,000
ROCHESTER ROTARY SUNSHINE CAMP	$14,000
BEST BUDDIES	$13,500
MIRACLE LEAGUE	$10,000
BADDOUR CENTER	$9,000
CAMP FOR ALL	$8,000
CAMP CIVITAN	$7,500
STEPPING STONES CAMP ALLYN	$7,500
CLEMSON OUTDOOR LABS	$7,500
CAMP STAND BY ME	$7,500
GOLDEN HEART RANCH	$7,500
CAMP DISCOVERY	$7,000

02The need

Does the money reach high-need areas?

Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.

show:

Its human-services grants (FY17–25, $151k) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 95% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

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

How this is measured

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.

Which US states its grants reach

How this is measured

US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are delivered. Need from public data (U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA), shown as context about the area, never attributed to the funder’s giving.

03Its grantees

repeat funding

Who it funds again

Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.

63%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$671k · 29 repeat orgs$389k to everyone else

29 repeat relationships: 15 still active in FY2025, 14 since wound down; 16 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$671k

$266k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+35%

+66%

Still filing today

66%

35%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 56% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $123k went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant

Human ServicesRecreation & SportsHealthYouth DevelopmentPhilanthropyEducationOther

How this is measured

First-time means a grantee’s first year in the filing window; renewed means funded in an earlier year too. The renewed share climbs naturally as a portfolio matures, so the signal is a year that bucks it (a wave of new grantees). 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

TC
TEXAS CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY
2× · 2018–2024 · $65k · revenue +47%
CA
CHILDREN'S ASSOC FOR MAXIMUM POTENTIAL (
5× · 2018–2025 · $47k · revenue +5%
CT
CAMP TWIN LAKES INC
5× · 2017–2024 · $35k · revenue +79%

Funded once

IG
Individual grant recipient
one grant, 2020 · $20k
CE
CAMP EASTER SEALS UCP
one grant, 2017 · $13k
TK
THE KYLE PEASE FOUNDATION INCgraduated
one grant, 2019 · $12k · revenue +182%

How this is measured

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

04Its field

Closest unfunded matches

The nonprofits that most resemble its grantees but are not funded by it, scored along the direction from the rest of the field toward the portfolio. A resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.

Camp Sunshine

To offer experiences that model and nurture a culture of inclusion, grace and joy, through which people with and without disabilities can transcend barriers and value both their own gifts and the talents of others.

Human Services

Camp Beausite Northwest

To provide a fun, safe environment where campers have the opportunity to increase skills and independence in a setting otherwise not available to them.

Youth Development

Camp Starfish Inc

Conduct a highly therapeutic camp for nine weeks during the summer for emotionally, behaviorally and learning disabled children.

Youth Development

Camp Dream Foundation Inc

Camp Dream Foundation Inc. serves children and young adults with moderate to severe physical and developmental disabilities by offering traditional Camp, recreational and eductional activities.

—

Camp Rise Above Inc

Camp rise above provides life-changing camp programs for children and adults with serious illnesses, disabilities, and life challenges.

Recreation & Sports

Star Lake Camp

Star Lake Wilderness Camp provides an outdoor education, recreation and living experience where youth can unplug and grow in their physical, social and mental health. We intentionally welcome youth who are traditionally underserved, have…

Recreation & Sports

Special Days Camps

Special Days Camps exists to provide a safe and memorable camping opportunity in a medically supervised environment for children who have experienced cancer, their siblings, and their families.

—

The Exceptional Foundation

Social and recreational activities for exceptional people, people with mental and physical challenges, to enhance the quality of their lives and their family's lives.

Recreation & Sports

Camp Sunshine At Sebago Lake Inc

Founded in 1984, camp sunshine provides retreats combining respite, recreation and support, while enabling hope and promoting joy, for children with life-threatening illnesses and their families through the various stages of a child's…

Recreation & Sports

Camp Skywild

Designing a world that better fits all kids. we are building overnight summer camp spaces for kids on the autism spectrum to be in their element, able to access the same exciting recreational programming available to their peers with added…

Youth Development

Camp Recreation Inc

Camp recreation sponsors a christ-centered summer camp for developmentally disabled youth and adults

Religion

Special Kids Inc

Provide therapeutic rehabilitation and professional nursing services to children with special needs.

Health

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Easter Seals Wisconsin Inc; the most unlike its peers is Texas Christian University. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.

04the grantee network

46 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.

Each grant beside the grantee’s revenue from every source, year by year.

How this is measured

Counted here: distinct organizations funded across 2017 to 2025, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 46 of the 82 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile.

Each grantee is resolved to its own IRS returns. Association, dated; never a causal claim.

Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)

Early backer (in before they grew)

42/46

Grantees still filing

26/46

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Other$519,735Human Services$151,100Health$136,500Recreation & Sports$107,700Education$65,000International$50,500Youth Development$30,000

Each grantee by its size and the funder’s share of it; top left is load-bearing

Grantee by grantee: a decade per organization, before and after funding

A decade per grantee: revenue shaded, grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.

Co-funders

Grantmakers whose grantees overlap with this funder’s far more than size alone predicts. Closer means stronger alignment; arcs show where they also fund each other. Here they form a tightly interlocked group: most of these funders back each other's grantees too.

Christopher Reeve FoundationNJ16.9× affinity6 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Christopher Reeve Foundation · Easter Seals Inc · Edward Jones Foundation · Enterprise Holdings Foundation · Charities Aid Foundation America · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · The Blackbaud Giving Fund · Jpmorgan Chase Foundation · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Network for Good

How this is measured

Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. Overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.

How much its grantees rely on government

Each dot is one organization The Ability Experience funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from The Ability Experience. Bigger dots raise more.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

0get no government money at all

10report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)

0rely on government for over half their income

typical government reliance, FY20–25

How this is measured

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 a grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first, a floor rather than 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 to 24 months.

Play a game based on Ability Experience’s filings →

More from the funding graph

The unnamed billions

grants reported with no recipient in the public record

The regranting layer

51% of grant dollars land in the regranting layer

The DAF merry-go-round

$9.7B circulates between donor-advised funds

The endowment market

who holds foundation money, and what just moved

The camps

funders cluster by geography, not ideology

By state

where grant money is based, and what stays home