· Public charity
United Way of Whatcom County
UNITED WAY OF WHATCOM COUNTY's mission is to unite with a network of local businesses, nonprofits, and community stakeholders to enable financial stability for every person in whatcom county.
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.
The 25 grants below total $668,402 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $739,961 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $71,559 is giving the schedule does not break out: grants under the $5,000 itemisation floor, grants to individuals, and grants reported on other schedules. Every figure below describes the itemised rows only.
By grant size · FY2025
- $10k–50k24 grants · $606k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $62k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| DOLLY PARTON'S IMAGINATION LIBRARY | $62,402 |
| BELLLINGHAM CHILDCARE AND LEARNING CENTER | $46,000 |
| WHATCOM FAMILY YMCA | $45,000 |
| BRIGID COLLINS FAMILY SUPPORT CENTER | $40,000 |
| WHATCOM CENTER FOR EARLY LEARNING | $39,000 |
| BELLINGHAM FOOD BANK | $34,000 |
| WHATCOM COUNCIL ON AGING | $31,500 |
| NORTHWEST YOUTH SERVICES | $31,000 |
| LYDIA PLACE | $30,000 |
| OPPORTUNITY COUNCIL | $30,000 |
| SUN COMMUNITY SERVICES | $28,000 |
| WHATCOM LITERACY COUNCIL | $24,000 |
| MAX HIGBEE CENTER | $22,500 |
| MERCY HOUSING NORTHWEST | $22,500 |
| FUTURESNW | $22,500 |
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, $2.5M) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 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.
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 +63% since the first grant, against +1% for the ones you funded once.
36 repeat relationships — 24 still active in FY2025, 12 since wound down.
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, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 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
- OCOPPORTUNITY COUNCIL9× · 2017–2025 · $619k · revenue +153%
- BCBRIGID COLLINS HOUSE7× · 2017–2023 · $538k · revenue +65%
- DVDOMESTIC VIOLENCE & SEXUAL ASSAULT SERVICES OF WHATCOM COUNTY9× · 2017–2025 · $521k · revenue +6%
Funded once
- SASalvation Army Las Vegas Corpone grant, 2021 · $20k
- TSTHE SALVATION ARMY WORLD SERVICE OFFICEone grant, 2017 · $16k · revenue +1%
- WFWHATCOM FAMILY & COMMUNITY NETWORKone grant, 2021 · $5k · revenue +24%
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.
United way of snohomish county improves lives for families in snohomish county by bringing people, resources, and strategy together.
The wcc foundation strengthens educational opportunities by providing student scholarships, supporting faculty and staff development, and assisting with key college initiatives.
To provide job development, job seeking skills and job placement for persons with disabilities. we are dedicated to providing outstanding quality services that result in successful community involvement and employment for persons with…
Washington Indian Civil Rights Commission is led by and for Indigenous people, and envisions a just society in which we are treated with honor, fairness and respect. Our mission is to uphold our individual civil rights through education…
Building changes advances equitable responses to homelessness in washington state, with a focus on children, youth, and families. we work at the intersection of housing, education, and health systems, partnering with communities and public…
Housing Counseling Services
SWYFS partners with youth and families to transform their futures.
LCSNW partners with individuals, families and communities for health, justice and hope. LCSNW provides a wide variety of social services in Oregon, Washington and Idaho and serves people of all ages, cultures and faiths.
To provide developmentally appropriate, curriculum-based early learning and childcare programs in a nurturing, loving, safe and stimulating environment.
Creating a greener, healthier, more equitable, and better Washington for all through community outreach, network building, and advocacy for conservation and outdoor recreation funding.
To achieve economic fairness in order to establish a more democratic society characterized by racial, social & gender justice, with respect for diversity, & a decent quality of life for those who reside in WA. We are building a movement of…
The whatcom sports commission is committed to develop and maintain athletic facilities of the highest standards for the benefit of the citizens of whatcom county.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Whatcom Council On Aging and the most unlike its peers is Home Port Learning Center Foundation. 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 35 years old; the field is 16. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 18% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 3% lost their exemption, against 12% 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.
33 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. 33 of the 40 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 OPPORTUNITY COUNCIL ↗
- Who funds BRIGID COLLINS HOUSE ↗
- Who funds DOMESTIC VIOLENCE & SEXUAL ASSAULT SERVICES OF WHATCOM COUNTY ↗
- Who funds NORTHWEST YOUTH SERVICES ↗
- Who funds LYDIA PLACE ↗
- Who funds WHATCOM FAMILY YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds Whatcom Center for Early Learning ↗
- Who funds BELLINGHAM CHILDCARE AND LEARNING CENTER ↗
- Who funds Alternatives to Hunger Bellingham Food Bank ↗
- Who funds THE WHATCOM LITERACY COUNCIL ↗
- Who funds WHATCOM COUNCIL ON AGING ↗
- Who funds SUN COMMUNITY SERVICE ↗
- Who funds THE BELLINGHAM PUBLIC SCHOOL FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Boys & Girls Clubs of Whatcom County ↗
- Who funds COMPASS HEALTH ↗
- Who funds MAX HIGBEE COMMUNITY RECREATION CENTER ↗
- Who funds THE DOLLYWOOD FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds MERCY HOUSING NORTHWEST ↗
- Who funds Young Women's Christian Association of Bellingham ↗
- Who funds WORK OPPORTUNITIES INC ↗
- Who funds THE ARC OF WHATCOM COUNTY ↗
- Who funds EVERGREEN GOODWILL OF NORTHWEST WASHINGTON ↗
- Who funds REBOUND OF WHATCOM COUNTY ↗
- Who funds Interfaith Coalition of Whatcom County ↗
- Who funds FOUNDATION FOR WESTERN WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY AND ALUMNI ↗
- Who funds FUTURESNW ↗
- Who funds WHATCOM DISPUTE RESOLUTION CENTER ↗
- Who funds HOME PORT LEARNING CENTER FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITIES IN SCHOOL OF WHATCOM SKAGIT ↗
- Who funds SUSTAINABLE CONNECTIONS ↗
- Who funds THE SALVATION ARMY WORLD SERVICE OFFICE ↗
- Who funds WHATCOM FAMILY & COMMUNITY NETWORK ↗
- Who funds Cascade Medical Advantage ↗
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: Whatcom Community Foundation · Chuckanut Health Foundation · Puget Sound Energy Foundation · The Norcliffe Foundation · First Fed Foundation · North Sound Accountable Community of Health · Mount Baker Foundation · PeaceHealth · The Albertsons Companies Foundation · Jerry H Walton Foundation · Medina Foundation · Seattle 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 United Way of Whatcom County 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.