· Public charity
Virginia Early Childhood Foundation
Vecf is the non-partisan steward of virginia's promise for early childhood success.
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 9 grants below total $57,871,813 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $80,431,521 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $22,559,708 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.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| THRIVE BIRTH TO FIVE FOUNDATION | $10,820,195 |
| UNITED WAY GREATER CHARLOTTESVILLE | $9,242,198 |
| OLD DOMINION UNIVERSITY RESEARCH FOUNDATION | $8,393,371 |
| EO COMPANIES INC | $6,882,365 |
| FAIRFAX COUNTY EARLY CHILDHOOD PROGRAMS AND SERVICES | $5,901,231 |
| FIRSTSPARK | $4,785,302 |
| FOUNDATION FIRST | $4,384,860 |
| CENTER FOR EARLY SUCESS | $4,120,838 |
| UNITED WAY OF VIRGINIA'S BLUE RIDGE INC | $3,341,453 |
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 (FY18–25, $7.9M) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 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.
31 repeat relationships — 7 still active in FY2025, 24 since wound down; 1 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, 82% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $8.4M 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
- ECEO COMPANIES9× · 2017–2025 · $29M · revenue +572% · 98% of their budget
- UWUNITED WAY OF GREATER CHARLOTTESVILLE9× · 2017–2025 · $27M · revenue +341% · 73% of their budget
- FIFIRSTSPARK INC9× · 2017–2025 · $16M · revenue +728% · 94% of their budget
Funded once
- CLCREATIVE LEARNERS ACADEMY LLCone grant, 2023 · $100k
- FLFOUNDATION LEARNING ACADEMY & MIDLOTHIAN TURNPIKEone grant, 2023 · $100k
- TGTHE GREENHOUSE DAY CARE CENTER INCone grant, 2023 · $90k
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.
Vecf is the non-partisan steward of virginia's promise for early childhood success.
The west virginia association for young children is dedicated to supporting high quality early childhood programs, expanding opportunities for early childhood professionals, and advocating for west virginia' young children. west virginia…
The thrive birth to five (tb5) foundation (the "foundation") has been the early childhood systems building organization in the richmond region since 2007 and was designated ready region central (rrc) by the virginia early childhood…
To provide community support, workforce development, and advocacy for birthing and postpartum families.
Early years leads efforts to strengthen accessible and affordable quality early care and education by providing support for families, communities and the workforce. early years 's primary purpose is to provide services, research and…
The north carolina partnership for children (ncpc) is the lead organization and backbone of the smart start network, setting statewide vision, policy, and funding priorities. while local partnerships translate the statewide vision into…
Our mission is to align, strengthen and sustain early childhood systems through collective leadership, equity, and innovation. to ensure every child in the City of Alexandria has a strong start in life.
To provide quality services and support to children, families, and the early childhood community
When they have challenges, we connect all children and their families to programs and resources that provide opportunities and hope.
Csc prepares young children and their families to succeed in learning and life through innovative, comprehensive, leading edge services.
Educare dc's mission is to eliminate the opportunity gap for young children living in poverty and give them the skills necessary for success in kindergarten and beyond. we work at the intersection of practice, policy, and research to…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Eo Companies and the most unlike its peers is Obici Healthcare Foundation 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 53 years old; the field is 16. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 23% 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 13% 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.
32 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. 32 of the 69 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 EO COMPANIES ↗
- Who funds UNITED WAY OF GREATER CHARLOTTESVILLE ↗
- Who funds THE COMMUNITY FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds FIRSTSPARK INC ↗
- Who funds UNITED WAY OF VIRGINIA'S BLUE RIDGE INC ↗
- Who funds FOUNDATION FIRST ↗
- Who funds OLD DOMINION UNIVERSITY RESEARCH FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds HENRICO EDUCATION FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds CENTER FOR EARLY SUCCESS ↗
- Who funds UNITED WAY OF CENTRAL VIRGINIA INC ↗
- Who funds FIRST CONNECTIONS FOR EARLY SUCCESS ↗
- Who funds UNITED WAY OF DANVILLE-PITTSYLVANIA COUNTY ↗
- Who funds THE CAMPAGNA CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds ACT FOR ALEXANDRIA ↗
- Who funds UNITED WAY OF HENRY COUNTY & MARTINSVILLE ↗
- Who funds HAMPTON ROADS COMMUNITY ACTION PROGRAM INC ↗
- Who funds TOTAL ACTION AGAINST POVERTY IN THE ROANOKE VALLEY ↗
- Who funds VIRGINIA CHILD CARE RESOURCE AND REFERRAL NETWORK ↗
- Who funds UNITED WAY OF CENTRAL SHENANDOAH VALLEY INC ↗
- Who funds United Way of South Hampton Roads ↗
- Who funds UNITED WAY OF STAUNTON AUGUSTA COUNTY & WAYNESBORO INC ↗
- Who funds OBICI HEALTHCARE FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds Prince William County Public Schools Education Fou ↗
- Who funds YWCA RICHMOND ↗
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: The Virginia Foundation for Community College Education Inc · Sentara Health · Virginia Community Action Partnership Inc · The Community Foundation Inc · Dominion Energy Charitable Foundation · Early Impact Virginia · United Way of Virginia's Blue Ridge Inc · Truist Foundation Inc · Obici Healthcare Foundation Inc · Community Foundation Serving Western Virginia · United Way of South Hampton Roads · Virginia Nonprofit Housing Coalition
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 Virginia Early Childhood 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.
- Third Sector New England Inc — 3% of income from government
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.