· Private foundation
The Joanna Foundation
Its FY2025 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.
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 $10k38 grants · $103k
- $10k–50k1 grant · $25k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $50k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Avian Conservation Center | $50,000 |
| SC Environmental Law Project | $25,000 |
| Joanna-Woodson Elementary School | $7,500 |
| Carolina Ocean Alliance | $5,000 |
| Awendaw Regional Outreach Center | $3,500 |
| Birthday Buds | $3,000 |
| Coastal Conservation League | $3,000 |
| Ari Foss Foundation | $3,000 |
| The Navigation Center | $3,000 |
| Lowcountry Center for Academic Equity | $3,000 |
| Impact Justice | $3,000 |
| Charleston Area Justice Ministry | $3,000 |
| Pet Helpers Inc | $2,500 |
| The ARK of SC | $2,500 |
| Sight Savers of America | $2,500 |
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 (FY17–25, $128k) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 87% 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.
Which US states your grants reach
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 +57% since the first grant, against +12% for the ones you funded once.
89 repeat relationships — 20 still active in FY2025, 69 since wound down; 20 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, 69% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $55k 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
- ACAVIAN CONSERVATION CENTER4× · 2020–2025 · $130k · revenue +126%
- DNDEE NORTON LOWCOUNTRY CHILDREN'S CENTER2× · 2017–2020 · $13k · revenue +140%
- SCSouth Carolina Aquarium2× · 2019–2021 · $12k · revenue +39%
Funded once
- COCOLLEGE OF CHARLESTON FOUNDATIONone grant, 2018 · $50k · revenue +8%
- SMSTELLA MARIS CATHOLIC CHURCHone grant, 2020 · $30k
- JPJOANNA PROJECTone grant, 2024 · $10k
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 facilitate, develop, and advocate for neighborhood revitalization, affordable housing construction, preservation and economic development in Charleston County.
(See Schedule O)
Convene and connect diverse stakeholders to align and catalyze efforts to improve health and well-being for communities across South Carolina.
To provide South Carolinians an opportunity to advance their leadership skills while broadening their understanding of issues and opportunities facing the State.
South carolina legal services is a statewide law firm that provides civil legal services to protect the rights and represent the interests of low income south carolinians.
Enhancing the quality of life for all south carolinians, achieving global competiteveness and ultimately increasing prosperity for sc citizens.
We are independent, community based, nonprofit with a Mission to enhance communities by providing quality, safe, decent and affordable housing, and other forms of economic opportunities that benefit low to moderate income individuals…
The Community Foundation's mission is strengthening community by connecting people, resources, and needs.
Carolina Teen Center is a prevention and education year-round after-school and summer program that services youth and their families. Literacy programs, tutoring, life skills, mentoring, positive peer groups, conflict resolution skills,…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Chesapeake Health Education Program and the most unlike its peers is Pure Theatre. 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 17 years old; the field is 11. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 30% startups (under 5 years old) — 11% of your grantees by number, and just 9% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 1% 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.
173 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2026.
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 2017–2026, not grant rows in a single year — so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 173 of the 258 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 AVIAN CONSERVATION CENTER ↗
- Who funds COLLEGE OF CHARLESTON FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds DEE NORTON LOWCOUNTRY CHILDREN'S CENTER ↗
- Who funds South Carolina Aquarium ↗
- Who funds TEACHERS SUPPLY CLOSET ↗
- Who funds The ARK of SC ↗
- Who funds THE VILLAGE MUSEUM ↗
- Who funds CHARLESTON WATERKEEPER ↗
- Who funds OPERATION HOME INC ↗
- Who funds CHARLESTON HOPE ↗
- Who funds APPARENT WINDS ↗
- Who funds UNDERGARMENT SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds INTERNATIONAL AFRICAN AMERICAN MUSEUM ↗
- Who funds Neighbors Together Inc ↗
- Who funds Enough Pie ↗
- Who funds CHARLESTON AREA JUSTICE MINISTRY ↗
- Who funds The Charleston Parks Conservancy ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN COLLEGE OF THE BUILDING ARTS ↗
- Who funds PALMETTO PROJECT INC ↗
- Who funds Landmarks for Families Inc ↗
- Who funds CHARLESTON AREA THERAPEUTIC RIDING INC ↗
- Who funds Florence Crittenton Programs of South Carolina Inc ↗
- Who funds EAST COOPER LAND TRUST ↗
- Who funds GOING PLACES ↗
- Who funds LOWCOUNTRY MARITIME SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds TRIDENT LITERACY ASSOCIATION INC ↗
- Who funds Carolina Ocean Alliance ↗
- Who funds Charleston Legal Access ↗
- Who funds Green Heart Project Inc ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF COASTAL SOUTH CAROLINA ↗
- Who funds Charleston Jazz ↗
- Who funds PALMETTO TRAIL ↗
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: Coastal Community Foundation of South Carolina Inc · Henry & Sylvia Yaschik Foundation Inc · Post and Courier Foundation · Dominion Energy Charitable Foundation · Trident United Way · The Mark Elliott Motley Foundation Inc · Employees Community Fund of Boeing-Puget Sound · Kuznik Charitable Foundation · Daniel Island Community Fund Inc · Medical Society of South Carolina · Central Carolina Community Foundation · Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley 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 Joanna Foundation 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.