· Public charity
Variety of Eastern Tennessee
VARIETY OF EASTERN TENNESSEE's primary exempt purpose is to provide funding and services for programs that strive to improve the quality of life for underpriviledged, physically and mentally challenged, ill, abused, neglected and abandoned children in eastern tennessee.
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 27 grants below total $212,000 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $379,581 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $167,581 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
- Under $10k21 grants · $89k
- $10k–50k6 grants · $124k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| FISH HOSPITALITY PANTRIES | $30,000 |
| DREAM CONNECTION | $28,500 |
| COVENANT HEALTH - KATERPILLAR KIDS CAMP | $20,000 |
| AID TO DISTRESSED FAMILIES OF APPALACHIAN COUNTIES | $20,000 |
| FRIENDS OF KNOX COUNTY LIBRARY - DOLLY'S IMAGINATION LIBRARY | $15,000 |
| EPILEPSY FOUNDATION OF EAST TENNESSEE | $10,000 |
| CHILD ADVOCACY CENTER OF THE 9TH JUDICIAL DISTRICT | $8,500 |
| IVA'S PLACE | $7,000 |
| COURT APPOINTED SPECIAL ADVOCATE LAKEWAY | $6,500 |
| GIRL TALK | $6,000 |
| NOURISH ONE CHILD PROGRAM - KEITH MEMORIAL CHURCH | $6,000 |
| SMALL MIRACLES THERAPEUTIC EQUESTRIAN CENTER | $6,000 |
| HOOF & HARNESS EXPERIMENTAL LEARNING | $5,000 |
| KOINONIA FOUNDATION | $5,000 |
| FRIENDS OF TENNESSEE BABIES WITH SPECIAL NEEDS | $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 (FY17–25, $472k) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 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.
42 repeat relationships — 23 still active in FY2025, 19 since wound down; 4 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, 91% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $20k 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
- HPHOSPITALITY PANTRIES INC8× · 2017–2025 · $215k · revenue +77%
- CHCovenant Health Foundation8× · 2017–2025 · $170k · revenue +6%
- ATAID TO DISTRESSED FAMILIES OF APPALACHIAN COUNTIES7× · 2017–2025 · $163k · revenue +143%
Funded once
- SHSECOND HARVEST FOOD BANKone grant, 2019 · $10k
- ETEAST TENNESSEE TECHNOLOGY ACCESS CENTER INCone grant, 2020 · $5k · revenue -5%
- BTBIJOU THEATRE CENTERone grant, 2024 · $5k · revenue -2%
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 combat severe physical and sexual abuse and resulting trauma by coordinating and providing services in a child friendly, safe and nurturing environment.
To support, develop, expand, and unite local casa programs in recruiting and training volunteers to advocate for tennessees children who have been abused and neglected.
To be the voice for children who have been victims of abuse and/or neglect. Our vision is to serve every child in the Cheaha Region by providing them with a caring and competent trained volunteer.
To provide court-appointed special advocates to child victims of abuse and neglect. The programs vision is a safe, permanent, loving home for every child it serves.
The organization advocates for abused or neglected children. they make recommendations to the court on permament living arrangements andcommunicating with the child ensuring that their interests are being met.
To reduce the trauma of child abuse by providing a child oriented environment for the coordinated and multi-disciplinary investigation, intervention, and treatment of child sexual and severe physical abuse.
Tennessee children's home, inc. is a not-for-profit organization that provides a home for neglected and pre-delinquent children who have an unstable family situation and who are beginning to develop problems which cannot be solved in their…
Interview facility for child abuse victims.
To promote, assist, and support the development, growth, and sustainability of child advocacy centers in their service to at-risk, abused, and neglected children and their families.
Tennessee Kids Belong dramatically improves the experiences and outcomes for children in foster care.
To provide a safe place to report child abuse, reduce the emotional trauma for children and non-offending family members, and extend professional services to protect the intergrity of an investigation.
Effective prosecution of child abuses, providing therapy and education for the abused, and providing a safe haven for the abused.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Catholic Charities of East Tennessee Inc and the most unlike its peers is Hoof & Harness Experiential Learning 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 31 years old; the field is 15. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 23% startups (under 5 years old) — 2% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 2% 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.
52 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. 52 of the 58 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 HOSPITALITY PANTRIES INC ↗
- Who funds Covenant Health Foundation ↗
- Who funds AID TO DISTRESSED FAMILIES OF APPALACHIAN COUNTIES ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF TENNESSEE'S BABIES WITH SPECIAL NEEDS ↗
- Who funds Parent Teacher Counselor Association TSD ↗
- Who funds THE DREAM CONNECTION ↗
- Who funds BIG BROTHERS BIG SISTERS OF EAST TENNESSEE INC ↗
- Who funds Knoxville News-Sentinel Charities Inc The Empty Stocking Fund ↗
- Who funds Friends of the Knox County Public Library ↗
- Who funds CATHOLIC CHARITIES OF EAST TENNESSEE INC ↗
- Who funds Cerebral Palsy Center for Handicapped Adults Inc ↗
- Who funds YOUTH VILLAGES INC ↗
- Who funds BOYS & GIRLS CLUBS OF THE TENNESSEE VALL ↗
- Who funds CASA OF THE TENNESSEE HEARTLAND INC ↗
- Who funds CASA CORRIDOR OF EAST TENNESSEE ↗
- Who funds EPILEPSY FOUNDATION OF EAST TENNESSEE ↗
- Who funds CASA MONROE INC ↗
- Who funds CHILDHELP INC ↗
- Who funds SECOND HARVEST FOOD BANK OF NORTHEAST TN ↗
- Who funds THE CHILD ADVOCACY CENTER OF THE 9TH JUDICIAL DISTRICT INC ↗
- Who funds WESLEY HOUSE COMMUNITY CENTER CO ↗
- Who funds MUSCULAR DYSTROPHY ASSOCIATION INC ↗
- Who funds SMALL MIRACLES THERAPEUTIC EQUESTRIAN CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds CASA OF BRADLEY COUNTY TENNESSEE ↗
- Who funds EMERALD YOUTH FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds SOAR YOUTH MINISTRIES INC THRIVE LONSDALE ↗
- Who funds CASA of East Tennessee Inc ↗
- Who funds SECOND HARVEST FOOD BANK OF EAST TENNESSEE ↗
- Who funds MISSION OF HOPE ↗
- Who funds JONI AND FRIENDS ↗
- Who funds WILLIAMS CREEK YOUTH FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds HARMONY FAMILY CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds HOOF & HARNESS EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING INC ↗
- Who funds GIRL TALK INC ↗
- Who funds THE CHILDREN'S ADVOCACY CENTER OF HAMILTON COUNTY INC ↗
- Who funds CASA OF THE TENNESSEE VALLEY ↗
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: East Tennessee Foundation · Thompson Charitable Foundation · Akima Club Inc · United Way of Greater Knoxvilleinc · Haslam Family Foundation Inc · The Clayton Homes Foundation · Gene & Florence Monday Foundation Inc · Lawson Family Foundation · Stowers Machinery Foundation Inc · Trinity Health Foundation of East Tennessee · The Chairman Club · The Melrose 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 Variety of Eastern Tennessee 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.