· Private foundation
The Empire Gives Back
Its FY2024 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 FY2019–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k14 grants · $31k
- $10k–50k4 grants · $76k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $75k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| NC STATE FOUNDATION | $75,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $25,000 |
| SAFECHILD | $20,260 |
| OCCONEECHEE COUNCIL BSA | $15,300 |
| AMERICAN UNIVERSITY | $15,250 |
| THE BROUGHTON HIGH SCHOOL CAPS CLUB | $8,575 |
| CATHOLIC DIOCESE OF RALEIGH | $4,800 |
| NC STATE STUDENT AID ASSOCIATION | $4,483 |
| FREEDOM RIDE RESCUE | $3,302 |
| THE DERECK WHITTENBURG FOUNDATION | $2,500 |
| LIGON MAGNET MIDDLE SCHOOL | $1,482 |
| JUNIOR LEAGUE OF RALEIGH | $1,327 |
| BROUGHTON MAGNET HIGH SCHOOL | $1,086 |
| ENLOE EAGLE ATHLETIC BOOSTER CLUB | $1,000 |
| ARTSPLOSURE | $750 |
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 (FY20–21, $21k) land where the poverty rate runs at 8%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 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.
Where the work is directed
The same grants, placed two ways — where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose earmarks the money.
About 12% of The Empire Gives Back’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, 97% of the giving stays in NC; read by stated purpose it is 85% — 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 +89% since the first grant, against +30% for the ones you funded once.
15 repeat relationships — 12 still active in FY2024, 3 since wound down; 7 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (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 FY2024, 72% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $51k 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
SAFECHILD4× · 2020–2024 · $78k · revenue +119%- TYThe Young Men's Christian Association of the Triangle Area Inc (4598)2× · 2020–2021 · $21k · revenue +89%
- NSNC STATE STUDENT AID ASSOCIATION INC2× · 2023–2024 · $14k · revenue +68%
Funded once
The Historic Preservation Foundation of North Carolina Incgraduatedone grant, 2021 · $15k · revenue +80%- NSNC STATE ENGINEERING FOUNDATION INCgraduatedone grant, 2021 · $10k · revenue +208%
- BBRIDGEone grant, 2021 · $6k
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 north carolina biotechnology center aids the biotechnology-related efforts of researchers, businesses, state and federal governments, and other agencies primarily through awards of grants and loans related to specific programs and…
The nc state alumni association engages alumni and friends through programs and services that foster pride and enhance a lifelong connection to nc state university ("nc state").
The north carolina bar association is organized for the purposes of promoting and improving the administration of justice in north carolina; fostering and encouraging law reform when in the public interest; advancing the science of…
Founded in 1902, barton college is a four-year, private, liberal arts college located in wilson, n.c. the barton experience focuses on academic excellence within a wide range of professional and liberal arts programs leading to…
The mission of the nchsaa is to provide governance and leadership for interscholastic athletic programs in north carolina that support and enrich the educational experience of students; the administration of the state's interscholastic…
The primary mission of furman as a liberal arts institution is to provide a distinctive education in fine arts, humanities, social sciences, mathematics and the sciences, as well as selected professional disciplines.
Wake Forest University, a 501(c)(3) institution of higher education, is dedicated to the pursuit of excellence in the liberal arts and in graduate and professional education. The organization is comprised of seven constituent parts: Wake…
Supports, by financial assistance and otherwise, the various colleges within the university, the libraries, and other university-connected functions.
To advocate for members and students, to enhance the education profession, and to advance public education.
Carolina ballet's mission is to perform world-class professional ballet, entertaining and enlightening audiences in raleigh, the triangle region, the state of north carolina, and beyond. carolina ballet works to accomplish this mission by…
The research triangle regional partnership is an association of area economic development agencies dedicated to keeping the research triangle region economically strong by collectively marketing the region's competitive advantages and…
The university's goal in the coming decade is to advance learning through the integration of teaching, research and service to others. the core of this goal is to prepare graduates to engage with the world and lead lives of meaning. to do…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is United Arts Council of Raleigh and Wake County Inc and the most unlike its peers is Nash Autism Seeking Hope. 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 34 years old; the field is 11. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 28% startups (under 5 years old) — 4% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 3% 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.
29 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. 29 of the 54 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 SAFECHILD ↗
- Who funds The Young Men's Christian Association of the Triangle Area Inc (4598) ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds The Historic Preservation Foundation of North Carolina Inc ↗
- Who funds NC STATE STUDENT AID ASSOCIATION INC ↗
- Who funds NC STATE ENGINEERING FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds BROUGHTON HIGH SCHOOL CAPS CLUB BROUGHTON HIGH SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds The Partnership Project ↗
- Who funds The Dereck Whittenburg Foundation ↗
- Who funds NASH AUTISM SEEKING HOPE ↗
- Who funds THE NORTH CAROLINA THEATRE ↗
- Who funds KAY YOW CANCER FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds FREEDOM RIDE RESCUE ↗
- Who funds SHOPSPACE INC ↗
- Who funds FOOD BANK OF CENTRAL & EASTERN NC INC ↗
- Who funds UNITED ARTS COUNCIL OF RALEIGH AND WAKE COUNTY INC ↗
- Who funds BLOOD CANCER UNITED INC ↗
- Who funds JUNIOR LEAGUE OF RALEIGH INC ↗
- Who funds ARTSPLOSURE THE RALEIGH ARTS FESTIVAL ↗
- Who funds ENLOE EAGLE ATHLETIC BOOSTER CLUB ↗
- Who funds Ligon Arts Boosters Inc co Ligon GT Magnet Middle School ↗
- Who funds DURHAM LITERACY CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds Enloe Arts Guild 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: Triangle Community Foundation Inc · Duke Energy Foundation · Bell Cook Family Foundation · Bell Koonce Burnette Foundation · W Trent Ragland Jr Foundation · John William Pope Foundation · Foundation for the Carolinas · Knier Family Foundation · Bailey Endowment Inc · North Carolina Community Foundation · Analog Devices Foundation · Fidelity 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 The Empire Gives Back 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.