North Carolina · Nonprofit
Discerning Deacons
Discerning Deacons (North Carolina) receives grants from 7 organizations whose IRS filings report $541,300 to it, the largest being NATIONAL PHILANTHROPIC TRUST ($210,000). 2 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 65% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- Revenue FY2025
- $786k
- Funders on record
- 7
- Grants received
- $541k
- Net assets
- $440k
What Discerning Deacons does
Mission
To engage and educate Catholics to promote roles of women in the church.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Program
During 2025, Discerning Deacons expanded programs supporting Catholic discernment, leadership formation, and dialogue regarding women in the diaconate. The organization convened more than 1,000 participants through educational events, launched the PROCLAIM preaching formation program with support from Saint Thomas More Catholic Community, awarded international microgrants in four countries, expanded vocational formation initiatives, strengthened partnerships with theological institutions, and enhanced organizational governance, fundraising, and operational capacity to support its mission.
$587,305 spentof which $3,600 as grants$513 earned by the program100% of program spending
The program described on its FY2025 Form 990. Program spending in total: $587,305.
The organization over time
Each line starts at 100 in 2024, so what you read is the shape rather than the size: 150 means half as much again as 2024, 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 2024 to 2025, from $502k to $466k (−7%).
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.
100% of Discerning Deacons’s revenue is contributions — more donation-reliant than the typical peer (100% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 1 of the last 2 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.
Who funds it, year by year
Grant support over time, funder by funder — shade shows the grant size each year.
4 of 7 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 65% of grant dollars received. That money is really individual donors directing a sponsor; the institutions to cultivate are the non-DAF funders.
From the IRS filings of Discerning Deacons’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
Discerning Deacons leans on a few funders — its largest provides 39% of grant income and the top three 94%; half comes from just 2 funders.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 2 funders to its left
65% 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 Discerning Deacons.
“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
65% of Discerning Deacons'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 $188k that is directly attributable, 100% of it comes from funders outside North Carolina, across 3 states.
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $353k arriving through sponsors registered in 3 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
Discerning Deacons is better cushioned than half of the 7,850 religion nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 7,850 religion nonprofits $100k–$1M, FY2025
Organizations like Discerning Deacons
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 North Carolina
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
71% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
0%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for Discerning Deacons: 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 Discerning Deacons?
- Discerning Deacons (North Carolina) receives grants from 7 organizations whose IRS filings report $541,300 to it, the largest being NATIONAL PHILANTHROPIC TRUST ($210,000). 2 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 65% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- How many funders does Discerning Deacons have?
- IRS filings report 7 organizations giving $541,300 in grants to Discerning Deacons, 2 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of Discerning Deacons?
- NATIONAL PHILANTHROPIC TRUST is the largest funder on record, with $210,000 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like Discerning Deacons find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in North Carolina. The funding by cause and by state pages list the largest funders for a given area and how to approach them.
Play a game about who funds Discerning Deacons →
These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2025 (financials across 2024–2025), and the filings of 7 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 22, 2026. What this page cannot tell you · view filing