· Public charity
The Bargain Box
THE BARGAIN BOX's mission is to raise funds from the sale of donated merchandise and distribute the funds to various local charitable organizations.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
The 34 grants below total $512,000 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $555,000 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $43,000 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 · FY2024
- Under $10k10 grants · $81k
- $10k–50k24 grants · $432k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| THE CHILDREN'S CENTER | $42,500 |
| HILTON HEAD ISLAND DEEP WELL PROJECT | $35,000 |
| HOPEFUL HORIZONS | $34,500 |
| VOLUNTEERS IN MEDICINE HILTON HEAD ISLAND | $30,000 |
| COASTAL DISCOVERY MUSEUM | $26,000 |
| BOYS AND GIRLS CLUB OF HILTON HEAD ISLAND | $23,000 |
| HH ISLAND REC CHALLENGE CAMP | $18,500 |
| HILTON HEAD SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA | $18,000 |
| LOW COUNTRY LEGAL VOLUNTEERS | $18,000 |
| MEMORY MATTERS | $17,000 |
| LOWCOUNTRY GULLAH FOUNDATION | $15,000 |
| FIRST PRESBYTERIAN DAY SCHOOL | $15,000 |
| NEIGHBORHOOD OUTREACH CONNECTION | $15,000 |
| SECOND HELPINGS | $15,000 |
| FAMILY PROMISE OF BEAUFORT COUNTY | $14,000 |
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.
Your human-services grants (FY17–24, $521k) land where the poverty rate runs at 10%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 0% 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.
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.
52 repeat relationships — 33 still active in FY2024, 19 since wound down.
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, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 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
- TCTHE CHILDREN'S CENTER INC8× · 2017–2024 · $300k · revenue +49%
- HHHOPEFUL HORIZONS8× · 2017–2024 · $271k · revenue +42%
- HHHILTON HEAD ISLAND DEEP WELL PROJECT INC8× · 2017–2024 · $245k · revenue +8%
Funded once
- TCTECHNICAL COLLEGE OF THE LOWCOUNTRYone grant, 2017 · $13k
- TFTCL FOUNDATIONone grant, 2019 · $10k
- HAHUNGER AND HOMELESS COALITION - BACKPACK BUDDIESone grant, 2017 · $8k
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 emergency assistance to low income individuals and families in the lowcountry of south carolina.
Meals on wheels bluffton-hilton head provides nutritious meals and wellness checks to elderly, ill, disabled, and homebound individuals residing in bluffton and on hilton head island. the organization's primary purpose is to reduce hunger…
Lowcountry Veterans Home provides transitional housing and individualized support for homeless veterans, working to restore stability, dignity, and independence. Through case management, peer support, transportation, and strong community…
Provide community healthcare services to the citizens in the low country of south carolina.
To prevent domestic animal overpopulation through spaying and neutering programs, to place animals into proper homes, to educate the public on responsible pet ownership, and assist at the animal shelter.
The mission is to feed the hungry and eliminate hunger in our community. last year, we fed over 101,000 adults in our general feeding program and nourished 32,644 children in our childrens hunger initiative program (chip). every person who…
To reduce hunger and poverty in the Tri-County Area by providing individuals and families with food, clothing, shelter, resource and spiritual support while striving to employ, educate and empower.
To provide affordable housing for low-income families in darlington county, sc
To eliminate food insecurity and to fight hunger by providing access to nutritional food and meals to those who need our services on Hatteras Island.
To provide one week dream vacations for families with terminally ill children on hilton head isalnd, sc
Helping Hands is a crisis food pantry providing groceries and resources to Lowcountry families facing food insecurity.
To provide low-cost housing for those in need in Brunswick County, North Carolina.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Bluffton Self Help Inc and the most unlike its peers is Thumbs Up Inc. 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 19 years old; the field is 12. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 26% 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 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.
42 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. 42 of the 63 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 THE CHILDREN'S CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds HOPEFUL HORIZONS ↗
- Who funds HILTON HEAD ISLAND DEEP WELL PROJECT INC ↗
- Who funds COASTAL DISCOVERY MUSEUM ↗
- Who funds THE VOLUNTEERS IN MEDICINE CLINIC ↗
- Who funds BOYS & GIRLS CLUBS OF THE LOWCOUNTRY INC ↗
- Who funds SECOND HELPINGS ↗
- Who funds LOWCOUNTRY LEGAL VOLUNTEERS ↗
- Who funds HILTON HEAD SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA INC ↗
- Who funds FAMILY PROMISE OF THE LOWCOUNTRY ↗
- Who funds MEMORY MATTERS ↗
- Who funds CHILD ABUSE PREVENTION ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds Neighborhood Outreach Connection ↗
- Who funds BLUFFTON SELF HELP INC ↗
- Who funds MEALS ON WHEELS INC ↗
- Who funds Foundation for Educational Excellence ↗
- Who funds RONALD MCDONALD HOUSE CHARITIES OF THE COASTAL EMPIREINC ↗
- Who funds THE HUNGER COALITION OF THE LOWCOUNTRY ↗
- Who funds BLUFFTON-JASPER COUNTY VOLUNTEERS IN MEDICINE INC ↗
- Who funds HEROES ON HORSEBACK ↗
- Who funds ARTS CENTER OF COASTAL CAROLINA ↗
- Who funds HILTON HEAD ISLAND RECREATION ↗
- Who funds Heroes of the Low Country ↗
- Who funds PROGRAMS FOR EXCEPTIONAL PEOPLE ↗
- Who funds THE LITERACY CENTER ↗
- Who funds SANDALWOOD COMMUNITY FOOD PANTRY ↗
- Who funds PORT ROYAL SOUND FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds LOWCOUNTRY AUTISM FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds Lowcountry Gullah Foundation ↗
- Who funds NAMI LOWCOUNTRY ↗
- Who funds GOOD NEIGHBOR FREE MEDICAL CLINIC OF BEAUFORT ↗
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: Community Foundation of the Lowcountry · Coastal Community Foundation of South Carolina Inc · Heritage Classic Foundation · Wexford Foundation · The Berkeley Hall Charitable Foundation · The Church Mouse Thrift Shop Inc · Palmetto Electric Trust · United Way of the Lowcountry · Hilton Head Firefighters Association Inc · Rotary Club of Hilton Head Island-Sunset · The Watterson Family Foundation · Breedlove Foundation Im 020120186528
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 The Bargain Box 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.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to The Bargain Box?
Find your warmest path to The Bargain Box through trustees and officers whose names appear on both boards. Search for your organization and Plinth traces the shortest route it can evidence.
Each link is a name appearing on two organizations’ public IRS 990 filings, matched on that name and, where the filings support it, on location. A same-state match has geographic support, which is a second matching feature rather than confirmation that the two are one person; a cross-state one is the likeliest to be two people who share a name. Every hop shows its tier, low-confidence and distant paths are held back rather than guessed, and it is worth confirming the person before you use the introduction.