South Carolina · Nonprofit
Charleston Wine & Food Festival
Charleston Wine & Food Festival (South Carolina) receives grants from 5 organizations whose IRS filings report $71,150 to it, the largest being DONOR ADVISED CHARITABLE GIVING INC ($35,900). 1 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 58% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- Revenue FY2025
- $4.5M
- Funders on record
- 5
- Grants received
- $71k
- Net assets
- $-1287397
What Charleston Wine & Food Festival does
Mission
Charleston Wine + Food is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that supports Charleston and the Lowcountry's diverse culinary + hospitality community. The organization champions the region's unique foodways 365 days a year through world-renowned culinary experiences that bring people together to share stories, create connections, and inspire curiosity. The mission of Charleston Wine + Food is to celebrate the diverse food + beverage community of the greater Charleston area on a national stage and to create programs that build a sustainable, vibrant, and connected culinary + hospitality community.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Program
The organization was founded in July 2005 by a group of community leaders with a vision of creating an event to promote + elevate Charleston's culinary brand. The goal was to put Charleston on the map as a culinary destination, with a reputation rivaling other well-known food + dining destinations, and to bring national and international attention to the city. To do so, the organization would create a wine + food festival that would attract affluent visitors to the city who would return to Charleston throughout the year to help drive the city's economic engine by staying in our hotels, dining in our restaurants, and otherwise spending money locally. (Continued on Schedule O)The Festival was strategically timed to create visitor demand in Charleston during a time of year normally not popular for tourism. Since the first festival debuted in 2006, it has grown into a five-day event featuring 90+ unique individual events taking place across the greater Charleston area. Festival programming showcases the stories, culture, and history of Charleston's cuisine, waterways, and its people through the production of a variety of events ranging in size and style. In the spirit of collaboration…
$4,118,096 spentof which $6,983 as grants$2,871,091 earned by the program100% of program spending
The program described on its FY2024 Form 990. Program spending in total: $4,118,096.
The organization over time
Each line starts at 100 in 2017, so what you read is the shape rather than the size: 150 means half as much again as 2017, 50 means half. The number beside each label in the key is where it ended. The shaded band is where the middle 50% of its peers' revenue would sit, given their growth.
Balance sheet
Total assets and total liabilities at each year end, in dollars. The largest one-year move in total assets was 2021 to 2022, from $917k to $2.1M (+132%).
How it's funded, over time
Each bar is one year's revenue split into where it came from, and every bar is the same height — these are shares, not amounts, so a year that raised twice as much looks the same size. Hover a bar for the split.
Government-grant reliance: 2017 6% · 2018 7% · 2019 4% · 2020 2% · 2021 58% · 2022 29% · 2023 11% · 2024 11% · 2025 9%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
36% of Charleston Wine & Food Festival’s revenue is contributions — more earned-revenue than three-quarters of its peers (94% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 5 of the last 9 reported years ran a deficit.
reserve
Leadership and staff
The officers, directors, trustees and key employees listed on each return. Joined and no longer listed compare each filing with the year before, matching people by surname and first initial; a year after a gap, or a roster under three people, has no comparison.
Chief executive
Alyssa Maute Smith
Executive Director
Board chair
Jennifer Murray
Chair
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2021 → 2023: the base held at 1 funder, grant income rose $5k → $20k.
2 of 5 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 58% of grant dollars received. That money is really individual donors directing a sponsor; the institutions to cultivate are the non-DAF funders.
Left out of every figure on this page: $51k from 2 payers (the payer shares this organization's board, largest The Chicago Community Trust). These are real filings, and they are not money Charleston Wine & Food Festival raised.
From the IRS filings of Charleston Wine & Food Festival’s funders (the co-funder graph). Association, not causation. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.
How concentrated its funding is
Charleston Wine & Food Festival leans on a few funders — its largest provides 50% of grant income and the top three 86%; half comes from just 1 funder.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 1 funder to its left
72% of the income these shares are computed over arrives through pass-through sponsors or from payers whose filings do not say what kind of payment it is. Concentration is still measured over all of it, because the money is real; what it does not support is a claim about how many institutions have chosen to fund Charleston Wine & Food Festival.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2021 100% · 2023 100% — broadly stable.
“Effective funders” = inverse Herfindahl index (1 / Σ shareᵢ²) — the number of equal-sized funders that would give the same concentration. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.
Where its funders are
58% of Charleston Wine & Food Festival's grant income arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors, whose addresses record where the money is held rather than where the donor is. Of the $30k that is directly attributable, 67% of it comes from funders outside South Carolina, across 3 states.
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $41k arriving through sponsors registered in 2 states is excluded from the map and the split above: a sponsor holds money on a donor’s behalf, so its registered address would place those dollars somewhere no donor need ever have been. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.
Against its field
Charleston Wine & Food Festival's revenue grew 44% between 2017 and 2025.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 605 food & nutrition nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2025
Organizations like Charleston Wine & Food Festival
Organizations whose mission and program text most resemble this one, by semantic similarity over every organization in the US filings — the closest peers, and often the clearest route to shared or prospective funders.
In South Carolina
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
84% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
100%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Footprint & structure
Files a return copy in 1 state
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for Charleston Wine & Food Festival: IRS status (Business Master File, Publication 78, auto-revocation), the OFAC sanctions lists, the Internal Revenue Bulletin, and California registration, with the Rev. Proc. 2018-32 §8.01 reliance elements stated element by element. Generated from the current files at the moment you download it.
Screens are triage, not determinations; a source that cannot be read reports not screened, never clear. Screen this nonprofit · How the screen works · on the API as GET /api/screening/{ein}?format=pdf
Questions and answers
- Who funds Charleston Wine & Food Festival?
- Charleston Wine & Food Festival (South Carolina) receives grants from 5 organizations whose IRS filings report $71,150 to it, the largest being DONOR ADVISED CHARITABLE GIVING INC ($35,900). 1 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 58% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- How many funders does Charleston Wine & Food Festival have?
- IRS filings report 5 organizations giving $71,150 in grants to Charleston Wine & Food Festival, 1 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of Charleston Wine & Food Festival?
- DONOR ADVISED CHARITABLE GIVING INC is the largest funder on record, with $35,900 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like Charleston Wine & Food Festival find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in South Carolina. The funding by cause and by state pages list the largest funders for a given area and how to approach them.
These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2025 (financials across 2017–2025), and the filings of 5 funders that report grants to it. “On record” means captured in the filings we have parsed — a funder that does not e-file, or whose grant detail is not itemized, will not appear. Filings run roughly 12–24 months behind. Trends on this page end at FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving; later years are shown and marked, and move no figure. Data on this page was exported October 14, 2026. What this page cannot tell you · view filing