· Private foundation
The Thomas S Kenan III Foundation
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
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2021–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k29 grants · $82k
- $10k–50k14 grants · $169k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| DUPLIN COUNTY EDUCATION FOUNDATION | $30,000 |
| KENAN CENTER LOCKPORT | $15,000 |
| DUPLIN COUNTY BOARD OF EDUCATION | $12,000 |
| ST STEPHENS EPISCOPAL CHURCH | $12,000 |
| NC ARTS IN ACTION | $10,000 |
| UNC- WILMINGTON | $10,000 |
| ST STEPHENS EPISCOPAL CHURCH | $10,000 |
| URBAN YOUTH IMPACT INC | $10,000 |
| DUKE UNIVERSITYALUMNI AND DEVELOPMENT RECORDS | $10,000 |
| FRANK H KENAN CHAPEL LANDFALL | $10,000 |
| DUKE UNIVERSITY | $10,000 |
| THE ARTS CENTER - CARRBORO | $10,000 |
| UNC - GREENSBORO | $10,000 |
| NORTH CAROLINA STATE UNIVERSITY | $10,000 |
| NATIONAL TROPICAL BOTANICAL GARDEN | $6,000 |
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 (FY23–25, $3k) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 33% 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.
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.
Where the work is directed
The same grants, placed two ways — where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose earmarks the money.
About 6% of The Thomas S Kenan III Foundation’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, 77% of the giving stays in NC; read by stated purpose it is 71% — 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 +26% since the first grant, against +4% for the ones you funded once.
34 repeat relationships — 23 still active in FY2025, 11 since wound down; 15 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, 78% 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
DUKE UNIVERSITY3× · 2022–2025 · $56k · revenue +3%
SECU FAMILY HOUSE AT UNC HOSPITALS3× · 2022–2025 · $48k · revenue +6%
UNC HEALTH FOUNDATION INC3× · 2021–2023 · $43k · revenue +0%
Funded once
- KWKNOWLEDGE WELL INCone grant, 2023 · $25k
The Chamber Orchestra of the Trianglegraduatedone grant, 2022 · $22k · revenue +212%- HMHENRY MORRISON FLAGLER MUSUEMone grant, 2021 · $15k
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 create a place of lifelong learning where people, from young child to senior citizen, embrace science as a way of knowing about themselves, their community, and their world.
Provide relevant educational and entertaining opportunities within the region that exceed customer expectations, while preserving our community's vibrant cultural history.
New york school of interior design provides the most innovative, immersive, and transformative interior design education in the world, demonstrating the impact of professionally designed interiors on the health, happiness, and well-being…
Uncsa foundation's primary purpose is to financially support the advancement and achievement of the students, faculty, and staff of the university of north carolina school of the arts. the uncsa foundation strives to support the strategic…
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.
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…
To receive and hold the endowment of the north carolina symphony society, inc. (the "society"), solicit additions to the endowment, safeguard assets, and expend funds for the exclusive use and benefit of the society.
Brevard college is committed to an experiential liberal arts education that encourages personal growth and inspires artistic, intellectual, and social action.
Queens university of charlotte provides transformative educational experiences that nurture intellectual curiosity, promote global understanding, encourage ethical living and prepare individuals for purposeful and fulfilling lives.
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.
Northeast college of health sciences (the college) is committed to academic excellence, leadership, and professional best practices in the health sciences.
The mission of the school is to provide outstanding legal education in a collegial and supportive environment with attention to newly emerging areas of law, particularly those related to technological development, globalization and the…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is North Carolina Zoological Society Inc and the most unlike its peers is The Frank H Kenan Chapel at Landfall. 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 41 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) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% 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.
56 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. 56 of the 104 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 DUKE UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds SECU FAMILY HOUSE AT UNC HOSPITALS ↗
- Who funds UNC HEALTH FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL TROPICAL BOTANICAL GARDEN ↗
- Who funds Duplin County Education Foundation ↗
- Who funds NORTH CAROLINA ARTS IN ACTION INC ↗
- Who funds DURHAM NATIVITY SCHOOL INC ↗
- Who funds The Chamber Orchestra of the Triangle ↗
- Who funds TRIANGLE RESIDENTIAL OPTIONS FOR SUBSTANCE ABUSERS INC ↗
- Who funds The Frank H Kenan Chapel at Landfall ↗
- Who funds RESCUE MISSIONS MINISTRIES INC ↗
- Who funds THE HENRY MORRISON FLAGLER MUSEUM INC ↗
- Who funds THOMPSON CHILD & FAMILY FOCUS INC ↗
- Who funds MONTPELIER FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds JOHNSON SERVICE CORPS ↗
- Who funds ARTS CENTER ↗
- Who funds TRIANGLE COMMUNITY FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds Urban Youth Impact Inc ↗
- Who funds FURMAN UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds Foxcroft School ↗
- Who funds THE KENAN-FLAGLER BUSINESS SCHOOL FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds LOUISE WELLS CAMERON ART MUSEUM ↗
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 · The Mary Duke Biddle Foundation Missionpost Pmb #101 · Duke Energy Foundation · Foundation for the Carolinas · Duke University · North Carolina Community Foundation · The Cannon Foundation Inc · Bertsch Family Charitable Foundation Inc · The Leon Levine Foundation · The Winston-Salem Foundation · Fox Family Foundation Inc · Randleigh 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 Thomas S Kenan III 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.
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Find your warmest path to The Thomas S Kenan III Foundation 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.