· Public charity
The Caroline Foundation Inc
To award grants to nonprofit organizations that benefit the local community.
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 $10k1 grant · $8k
- $10k–50k9 grants · $218k
- $50k–250k8 grants · $635k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| ST MARTIN'S MINISTRIES | $120,000 |
| HIS HOPE MINISTRIES | $115,000 |
| COMPASS REGIONAL HOSPICE | $100,000 |
| AARON'S PLACE | $70,000 |
| YMCA OF THE CHESAPEAKE | $60,000 |
| CAROLINE COUNTY PUBLIC SCHOOLS | $60,000 |
| CHOPTANK COMMUNITY HEALTH SYSTEM | $60,000 |
| FOR ALL SEASONS | $50,000 |
| COMMUNITY CIVIC LEAGUE OF FEDERALSBURG | $45,150 |
| FRIENDS OF THE GRAPE DBA CHESAPEAKE CULINARY CENTER | $35,000 |
| CHANNEL MARKER | $30,000 |
| REBUILDING TOGETHER CAROLINE COUNTYCRITICAL REPAIRS CAROLINE COUNTY | $24,110 |
| DC CENTER | $23,240 |
| PARTNERS IN CARE | $20,000 |
| CASA CAROLINE COUNTY | $20,000 |
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 (FY18–25, $439k) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 7%. 94% 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.
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.
Where the work is directed
The same grants, placed two ways — where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose earmarks the money.
About 5% of The Caroline Foundation Inc’s grant dollars are earmarked, by their stated purpose, for a different county than the recipient’s own address — money that lands at a nonprofit in one place but is meant to do its work in another. Read by recipient address, 100% of the giving stays in MD; read by stated purpose it is 95% — less of the work is directed home than the recipients' locations suggest.
Recipient view: each grant at its grantee’s ZIP, mapped to a county. Directed view: each grant at the county its stated purpose names, falling back to the recipient’s county when the purpose names no place; US grants only. A county shows only if it carries the top 95% of that view’s dollars. Purposes are read from the foundation’s own 990 grant descriptions.
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 +59% since the first grant, against +2% for the ones you funded once.
23 repeat relationships — 15 still active in FY2025, 8 since wound down; 3 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, 95% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $43k 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
- CRCOMPASS REGIONAL HOSPICE INC7× · 2019–2025 · $700k · revenue +4%
- SMSAINT MARTINS MINISTRIES INC8× · 2018–2025 · $530k · revenue +61%
- YMYOUNG MENS CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION OF THE CHESAPEAKE INC9× · 2017–2025 · $443k · revenue +64%
Funded once
- UOUniversity of Maryland Shore Regional Health Incone grant, 2019 · $30k · revenue -63%
- MFMASSB FOUNDATIONgraduatedone grant, 2024 · $28k · revenue +35%
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2018 · $16k
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 mission of middle river volunteer fire and rescue co., inc. is to prepare for and respond to emergencies, protecting people, property, and the environment of middle river and the surrounding communities by fostering a progressive and…
Provide volunteer fire and emergency rescue services to the general public of the city of virginia beach, virginia.
Provide quality compassionate holistic care to patients at home.
Provide fire suppression, rescue, and emergency medical services to local community in towson, md and surrounding areas.
To provide fire protection, rescue and ambulance services to a community of approximately 4000 people.
The mission of essex volunteer fire company, inc. is to provide emergency services to citizens of baltimore county, maryland in their time of need. we accomplish this through education, prevention and protection of life and property with…
Care during final stage of life
Fire and rescue services
Provide fire and rescue services in the new market, md area
Chapel pointe at carlisle is a continuing care retirement community of the christian and missionary alliance and is for persons of all faiths. our mission is to provide comfortable retirement living and quality care and service to each…
Fire and emergency services
The fire company provides fire, rescue, and medical service for a community of approx. 3,450 homes in baltimore county, md.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Mid Shore Community Foundation Inc and the most unlike its peers is Aarons Place 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 31 years old; the field is 21. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 15% startups (under 5 years old) — 6% of your grantees by number, and just 4% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 3% lost their exemption, against 9% 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.
31 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. 31 of the 47 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 COMPASS REGIONAL HOSPICE INC ↗
- Who funds SAINT MARTINS MINISTRIES INC ↗
- Who funds YOUNG MENS CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION OF THE CHESAPEAKE INC ↗
- Who funds HIS HOPE MINISTRIES INC ↗
- Who funds UPPER SHORE AGING INC ↗
- Who funds FOR ALL SEASONS INC ↗
- Who funds CHANNEL MARKER INC ↗
- Who funds CHOPTANK COMMUNITY HEALTH SYSTEM INC ↗
- Who funds CAROLINE HOSPICE FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds NORTH CAROLINE CLERGY ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds PARTNERS IN CARE MARYLAND INC ↗
- Who funds THE FRIENDS OF THE GRAPE INC ↗
- Who funds AARONS PLACE INC ↗
- Who funds CAROLINE CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds CASA OF CAROLINE INC ↗
- Who funds MID-SHORE COUNCIL ON FAMILY VIOLENCE ↗
- Who funds University of Maryland Shore Regional Health Inc ↗
- Who funds MASSB FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds RIDGELY VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPARTMENT ↗
- Who funds GOLDSBORO VOLUNTEER FIRE COMPANY INC ↗
- Who funds FEDERALSBURG VOLUNTEER FIRE CO INC ↗
- Who funds GREENSBORO VOLUNTEER FIRE COMPANY INC ↗
- Who funds DENTON VOLUNTEER FIRE COMPANY ↗
- Who funds PRESTON VOLUNTEER FIRE CO ↗
- Who funds MID-SHORE RESTORING HOPE IN WOMEN ↗
- Who funds ADKINS ARBORETUM LTD ↗
- Who funds MARYDEL VOLUNTEER FIRE COMPANY OF MARYDEL DELAWARE 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: Mid Shore Community Foundation Inc · Grayce B Kerr Fund Inc · Dock Street Foundation · The Llandaff Family Trust · The Burke & Herbert Bank Foundation · United Way of Caroline County Maryland Inc · At & Mary H Blades Foundation Inc · David a Bramble Foundation Inc · The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation Inc · United Fund of Talbot County Inc · United Way of Kent County Inc · Van Strum Foundation 8833023
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 Caroline Foundation Inc 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, a single department, or state — and drag the year to watch it move.
- Partners in Care Maryland Inc — 40% of income from government
- Casa of Caroline Inc — 26% of income from government
- Mid-Shore Council On Family Violence — 26% of income from government
- Upper Shore Aging Inc — 24% of income from government
- For All Seasons Inc — 22% of income from government
- Moveable Feast Inc — 18% of income from government
- Choptank Community Health System Inc — 13% of income from government
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 Caroline Foundation Inc?
Find your warmest path to The Caroline Foundation Inc 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.