· Public charity
The Golden Leaf Inc
Golden leaf's mission is to increase economic opportunity in north carolina's rural and tobacco-dependent communities through leadership in grantsmaking, collaboration, innovation, and stewardship as an independent and perpetual foundation.
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 · $9k
- $10k–50k15 grants · $441k
- $50k–250k66 grants · $8.5M
- $250k+49 grants · $152M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Mountain BizCapital Inc | $57,500,000 |
| North Carolina Department of Public Instruction | $25,000,000 |
| Wilson Community College | $13,000,000 |
| Methodist University Inc | $8,000,000 |
| North Carolina Housing Finance Agency | $6,000,000 |
| North Carolina State Education Assistance Authority | $3,116,173 |
| North Carolina Community College System | $3,000,000 |
| North Carolina Baptist Men | $2,940,000 |
| County of Robeson | $2,875,000 |
| Rowan-Cabarrus Community College | $2,225,000 |
| County of Northampton | $1,536,120 |
| County of Hoke | $1,400,000 |
| County of Halifax | $1,398,000 |
| County of Ashe | $1,385,000 |
| Town of Tabor City | $1,381,500 |
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 (FY18–25, $6.7M) land where the poverty rate runs at 15%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 70% 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.
195 repeat relationships — 58 still active in FY2025, 137 since wound down; 73 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, 28% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $115M 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
- RERURAL ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT CENTER INC8× · 2017–2024 · $113M · revenue ×16 · 76% of their budget
- TNTHE NORTH CAROLINA AGRICULTURAL FOUNDATION INC2× · 2017–2022 · $46M · revenue +55%
- AAAsheville Area Chamber of Commerce Community Betterment Foundation2× · 2020–2021 · $12M · revenue +408% · 72% of their budget
Funded once
- NCNorth Carolina Department of Transportationone grant, 2022 · $40M
- UHUniversity Health Systems of Eastern Carolina Foundation Incone grant, 2018 · $11M · revenue -33%
- ECEdgecombe Community Collegeone grant, 2018 · $11M
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 help all union county nc residents gain access to affordable housing, decent jobs, and to develop a sense of security.
Promoting economic and industrial development in rowan county, north carolina
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…
Carolina Family Health Centers, Inc. provides accessible and affordable health care with excellence...where patients come FIRST
Nourish people. build solutions. empower communities. no one goes hungry.
To promote community based primary health care systems in medically underserved areas.
To promote and advance commerce in burke county, nc
The Yadkin Valley Chamber of Commerce is an organization that promotes a positive business environment, community betterment and supports economic development
Providing healthcare to the underserved population of Harnett County NC and the surrounding area.
The specific objectives and purposes of this corporation shall be to assist individuals and communities, particularly those in low-income and socially disadvantaged areas, in the creation, expansion, and improvement of rural and…
WNC Health Network, Inc supports people and organizations to improve community health and wellbeing across Western North Carolina.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is North Carolina Chamber Foundation and the most unlike its peers is Fair Bluff Fire Department and Rescue Squad Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
For each theme you fund, this compares how the sector’s money is shifting with how your own giving is shifting.
Sector change and giving change are each shown relative to their own range, growing (right) or shrinking (left); both normalized, so inflation isn’t mistaken for growth.
Your grantees are a median of 27 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) — 1% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.3% 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.
224 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. 224 of the 586 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
Showing your 200 largest grantees by grant value.
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 RURAL ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds MOUNTAIN BIZCAPITAL INC ↗
- Who funds THE NORTH CAROLINA AGRICULTURAL FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds Asheville Area Chamber of Commerce Community Betterment Foundation ↗
- Who funds University Health Systems of Eastern Carolina Foundation Inc ↗
- Who funds CENTER FOR CREATIVE LEADERSHIP ↗
- Who funds METHODIST UNIVERSITY INC ↗
- Who funds THE CAROLINAS GATEWAY PARTNERSHIP INC ↗
- Who funds MCNC ↗
- Who funds BLADEN'S BLOOMIN' AGRI-INDUSTRIAL INC ↗
- Who funds Carolina Small Business Development Fund ↗
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: The Cannon Foundation Inc · North Carolina Community Foundation · North Carolina Community Colleges Foundation · North Carolina High School Athletic Association Inc · Dogwood Health Trust · Patriot Foundation · Foundation for the Carolinas · The Community Foundation of Western North Carolina Inc · East Carolina Health · Anonymous Trust U/A Dated 2-4-2008 · The Conservation Fund a Nonprofit Corporation · North Carolina Public Health Association
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 Golden Leaf 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 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.