· Private foundation
The Way Foundation
Its FY2020 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 FY2018–2020.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2020
- Under $10k19 grants · $93k
- $10k–50k5 grants · $105k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| CONVOY OF HOPE | $30,000 |
| THE SALVATION ARMY | $25,000 |
| WILMINGTON CARENET COUNSELING CENTER | $20,000 |
| SAMARITAN'S PURSE | $20,000 |
| FAMILYWORKS MINISTRIES | $10,000 |
| METHODIST HOME FOR CHILDREN | $8,000 |
| COASTAL CHRISTIAN HIGH SCHOOL | $8,000 |
| PENDER COUNTY CHRISTIAN SERVICES | $5,000 |
| MASONBORO BAPTIST CHURCH | $5,000 |
| FIRST FRUITS MINISTRIES | $5,000 |
| WILMINGTON AREA REBUILDING MINISTRIES | $5,000 |
| PORT CITY COMMUNITY CHURCH | $5,000 |
| CASTLE HAYNE CHURCH OF GOD | $5,000 |
| INTERNATIONAL SEAMAN'S SERVICE INC | $5,000 |
| LOWER CAPE FEAR HOSPICE FOUNDATION | $5,000 |
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 (FY18–20, $80k) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 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.
Where the work is directed
The same grants, placed two ways — where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose earmarks the money.
About 30% of The Way 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, 82% of the giving stays in NC; read by stated purpose it is 62% — 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 +73% since the first grant, against +29% for the ones you funded once.
28 repeat relationships — 21 still active in FY2020, 7 since wound down; 1 grantees were first funded in FY2020 (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 FY2020, 97% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $5k 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
- SPSAMARITAN'S PURSE3× · 2018–2020 · $95k · revenue +163%
- FFFIRST FRUIT MINISTRIES3× · 2018–2020 · $42k · revenue +209%
The Methodist Home for Children Inc3× · 2018–2020 · $38k · revenue +37%
Funded once
- WCWILMINGTON CARENET COUNSELINGone grant, 2018 · $30k
- LCLower Cape Fear Hospice Incorporated dba Lower Cape Fear LifeCaregraduatedone grant, 2018 · $17k · revenue +29%
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2018 · $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.
Christian Mission for the United Nations Community is a ministry aimed at leading the head of every nation and other top leaders to faith in Jesus Christ and helping them to walk in dependence upon God as they discharge the…
Christianity Today is a global community inspired by evangelical conviction to advance the stories and ideas of the kingdom of God. Our mission is to elevate the storytellers and sages of the global church.
To glorify god, show christian love, and experience god's presence as christians share each other's medical bills.
To unite the Church to transform the city through the power of the Gospel.
Equipping and enabling believers worldwide to conduct church-based evangelism projects to reach unbelievers and make disciples.
The organization exists to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ while providing support and serving the poor through benevolent assistance, medical services, education, orphan care, church planting, etc.
To provide resources, training, and continuing support to leaders in the us and around the world in order that they may help others find freedom in christ.
Crossroads combines innovative clinical counseling with a redemptive worldview to restore people to emotional health, relational unity, and a hopeful future.
Mobilization of churches in America by taking pastors and laymen on vision and service trips overseas in fulfillment of Jesus command to go ye into all the world, making disciples...
FFICM helps new believers build a firm foundation for their faith based on a strong relationship with Christ. FFICM programs teach how to follow up with new believers and enable them to have a strong relationship with Christ.
The organization is dedicated to reaching people for christ through an international network of christians who journey with the poor and marginalized, bringing practical and spiritual support with hope of a better future,(continued on…
To educate, train, and develop ministers, evangelists, missionaries, and other people who are going to enter the Christian ministry. Educate ministers and missionaries to serve the Lord.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Convoy of Hope and the most unlike its peers is Samaritan's Purse. 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 25 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.
17 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. 17 of the 39 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 SAMARITAN'S PURSE ↗
- Who funds WILMINGTON CARENET COUNSELING CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds CONVOY OF HOPE ↗
- Who funds FIRST FRUIT MINISTRIES ↗
- Who funds WORLD VISION INC ↗
- Who funds The Methodist Home for Children Inc ↗
- Who funds Lower Cape Fear Hospice Foundation Inc ↗
- Who funds Coastal Christian High School Inc ↗
- Who funds PRISON ALLIANCE INC ↗
- Who funds PENDER COUNTY CHRISTIAN SVCS INC ↗
- Who funds FELLOWSHIP OF CHRISTIAN ATHLETES ↗
- Who funds Ratio Christi Inc ↗
- Who funds Lower Cape Fear Hospice Incorporated dba Lower Cape Fear LifeCare ↗
- Who funds MIO Frontiers ↗
- Who funds SAVE OUR KIDS OUTREACH INC ↗
- Who funds CHURCH MISSIONS NETWORK ↗
- Who funds Vigilant Hope 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: North Carolina Community Foundation · Duke Energy Foundation · Seby B Jones Family Foundation · Cape Fear Memorial Foundation · Natl Christian Charitable Fdn Inc · Raymond James Charitable Endowment Fund · Ge Aerospace Foundation · Renaissance Charitable Foundation Inc · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Amazonsmile 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 Way 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.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to The Way Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Way 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.