· Private foundation
The E Merle & Ollie W Edwards Fou
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
By grantee IRS cause code (NTEE).
A cause breakdown isn’t shown here: 55% of THE E MERLE & OLLIE W EDWARDS FOU’s grantee dollars fall outside its nine largest cause areas, whether because the recipient carries no IRS cause code or because its cause sits in the long tail. A chart would be mostly one residual band and misrepresent the portfolio.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k6 grants · $14k
- $10k–50k1 grant · $10k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| THE NC MARINE AND ESTUARY FOUNDATIO | $10,000 |
| ECU COLLEGE OF FINE ARTS | $5,000 |
| BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA | $3,500 |
| HELPS | $2,500 |
| ECU HEALTH FOUNDATION | $1,000 |
| PINETOPS UNITED METHODIST MEN | $1,000 |
| BLADEN WE CARE | $500 |
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 (FY20–20, $1k) land where the poverty rate runs at 20%, 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.
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 +41% since the first grant, against +20% for the ones you funded once.
12 repeat relationships — 4 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, 64% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $9k 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
- SCSOUTHSIDE CHRISTIAN SCHOOL INC3× · 2021–2023 · $100k · revenue +85%
MEREDITH COLLEGE2× · 2023–2024 · $35k · revenue +1%
EAST CAROLINA UNIVERSITY MEDICAL & HEALTH SCIENCES FOUNDATION INC3× · 2018–2020 · $18k · revenue +23%
Funded once
- SNSMITH'S NEW HOME OFWB CHURCHone grant, 2022 · $20k
- PCPITT COUNTY EDUCATION FOUNDATIONone grant, 2019 · $13k
- LFLCC FOUNDATION INCone grant, 2019 · $13k
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.
Supports, by financial assistance and otherwise, the various colleges within the university, the libraries, and other university-connected functions.
Erskine College exists to glorify God as a Christian academic community where students are equipped to flourish as whole persons for lives of service through the pursuit of undergraduate liberal arts and graduate theological education.
It is the mission of norfolk christian schools to equip students spiritually, intellectually, and physically to love god and to serve him as christ's ambassadors in the world.
Charlotte christian school is a christ-centered, college preparatory school, equipping and developing students to effectively integrate biblical truth and learning nto their daily lives and to impact the culture for christ.
SMC Delivers an exceptional education that fuses the empowerment of the liberal arts with crucial career skills. Our mission is to equip our students with the knowledge, skills, virtues, and mindset needed to thrive personally, create…
Catawba college is committed to providing students an education rich in personal attention that blends the knowledge and competencies of liberal studies with career preparation. catawba college draws strength from judeo-christian values,…
The mission of Toccoa Falls College is to glorify God through seeking and developing Christian servant leaders who will impact their world with the love and message of Jesus Christ.
Greenville college d/b/a greenville university empowers students for lives of character and service through a transforming christ-centered education in the liberal arts, sciences, and professional studies.
Cary christian school provides an excellent classical education founded upon a biblical worldview. classical christian education is an integrated approach to learning which complements students' natural learning stages while infusing…
Columbia college improves lives by providing quality education to both traditional and nontraditional students, helping them achieve their true potential.
Columbia college provides educational opportunities that develop students' capacity for critical thought and expression, life-long learning, acceptance of personal responsibilty, and commitment to service and social justice.
Greensboro College provides a liberal arts education grounded in the traditions of the United Methodist Church and fosters the intellectual, social, and spiritual development of all students while supporting their individual needs.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is East Carolina University Foundation Inc and the most unlike its peers is Helping a HeroOrg. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
15 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. 15 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 SOUTHSIDE CHRISTIAN SCHOOL INC ↗
- Who funds MEREDITH COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds EAST CAROLINA UNIVERSITY MEDICAL & HEALTH SCIENCES FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds NORTH CAROLINA COASTAL FEDERATION INC ↗
- Who funds HOPE PREPARATORY SCHOOL INC ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY OF MOUNT OLIVE INC ↗
- Who funds WOMEN FOR WOMEN ↗
- Who funds CARY ACADEMY ↗
- Who funds Methodist Home for Children Foundation ↗
- Who funds Helping a HeroOrg ↗
- Who funds EAST CAROLINA UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds CONGRESSIONAL SPORTSMEN'S FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds PITT COUNTY COUNCIL ON AGING 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: Eddie and Jo Allison Smith Family Foundation Inc · North Carolina Community Foundation · The Cannon Foundation Inc · Foundation for the Carolinas · Triangle Community Foundation Inc · Duke Energy Foundation · American Endowment Foundation · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · National Philanthropic Trust · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · Natl Christian Charitable Fdn Inc
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 E Merle & Ollie W Edwards Fou 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 E Merle & Ollie W Edwards Fou?
Find your warmest path to The E Merle & Ollie W Edwards Fou 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.