Kentucky · Nonprofit
FOODCHAIN INC
FOODCHAIN INC (Kentucky) receives grants from 41 organizations whose IRS filings report $2,287,044 to it, the largest being BLUE GRASS COMMUNITY FOUNDATION INC ($1,110,012). 18 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 52% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- Revenue FY2024
- $2.1M
- Funders on record
- 41
- Grants received
- $2.3M
- Net assets
- $1.2M
What Foodchain Inc does
Mission
Foodchain is located in the heart of an urban food desert, which constitutes a low-income census tract that is further than 1 mile from a grocery store, where residents struggle with both access to nutritious, wholesome ingredients as well as the food literacy that accompanies a diet high in these components. As a consequence, foodchain aims to forge links between our community residents and fresh food with education and demonstration of ways in which fresh food can be grown, acquired, and/or prepared in order to improve the long-term health outcomes of this high-risk population, encouraging a more robust local food economy, and resulting in a more resilient community. Our model, which we believe is replicable in communities around the country, combines unique operations, inluding an indoor aquaponics farm and a teaching and processing kichen.
As stated on its FY2024 Form 990.
Programs
Many of foodchain's neighbors rely on dollar stores and convenience marts for their weekly shopping, with limited funds and transportation available to get to higher quality stores with a greater abundance of nutritious whole ingredients. Furthermore, with the reliance on snap dollars and other federal food benefit programs, the community has become increasingly dependent on highly-processed, shelf-stable "junk" food for their daily meals, resulting in generational diet-related illnesses, including heart disease, diabetes, and more. While this hunger-obesity paradox is in part a result of limited food access, it has been exacerbated by a decline in food literacy, where families no longer have the knowledge, equipment, and familiarity to prepare meals from fresh ingredients. Foodchain aims to address this deficiency by offering educational programs to teach cooking skills, exposing families to a wider array of cuisines and flavor profiles, inspiring more adventurous eating and kitchen confidence. With this mindset, we launched nourish lexington at the start of the pandemic to provide scratch-made nutritious meals for free to food insecure individuals in our community, along with…
$732,203 spentof which $40,000 as grants$81,884 earned by the program44% of program spendingWhile one answer to the limited access of our fresh food is to increase its availability through retail, foodchain believes it is even more empowering to start at food production. Therefore, we operate our indoor, state-of-the-art aquaponics system, growing fish and greens year-round in a recirculating system that reduces waste and conserves resources, while also generating thousands of pounds of food that can be used for revenue generation and nutritional access. By running our farm as a demonstration facility, hosting tours and workshops for thousands, we work to get individuals more involved in growing wholesome food, understanding where food comes from, and how these techniques could be replicated elsewhere to increase agriculturl productivity while subsequently making fresh food available all year-round for all.
$917,229 spent$16,008 earned by the program56% of program spending
The 2 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $1,649,432.
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 2023 to 2024, from $876k to $1.2M (+35%).
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: 2020 3% · 2022 17% · 2023 21% · 2024 32%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
91% of FOODCHAIN INC’s revenue is contributions — about as donation-reliant as the typical peer (94% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 1 of the last 8 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.
The chief executive listed changed between the FY2020 and FY2021 filings.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 3 funders to 11 funders, grant income rose $53k → $539k.
9 of 41 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 52% 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 FOODCHAIN INC’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 41 funders by total. 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
FOODCHAIN INC leans on a few funders — its largest provides 49% of grant income and the top three 64%; half comes from just 2 funders.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 2 funders to its left
58% 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 FOODCHAIN INC.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 75% · 2018 37% · 2019 39% · 2020 65% · 2021 73% · 2022 55% · 2023 59% — diversifying over time.
“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.
How long its funders stay
43% of FOODCHAIN INC's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 44% give in more than one year at all.
Share of funders still giving k years after their first recorded grant, pooled across every acquisition cohort. A funder counts as retained in a year only if it made a grant that year. Measured to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving — a funder cannot be counted as lapsed in a year most filers have not reached.
Where its funders are
52% of FOODCHAIN INC'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 $1.1M that is directly attributable, 57% of it comes from funders outside Kentucky, across 12 states.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $1.2M arriving through sponsors registered in 8 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
FOODCHAIN INC runs a healthier operating margin than half of the 1,130 food & nutrition nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 1,130 food & nutrition nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2024
Government funding FOODCHAIN INC receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $583k on record.
- Department of Agriculture$583k
Federal grants vs contracts are distinguished; state line items keep their reported category. Matched by name + geography (the BMF), so coverage is partial and precision-first.
Organizations like FOODCHAIN INC
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 Kentucky
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
90% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
93%
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 FOODCHAIN INC: 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 FOODCHAIN INC?
- FOODCHAIN INC (Kentucky) receives grants from 41 organizations whose IRS filings report $2,287,044 to it, the largest being BLUE GRASS COMMUNITY FOUNDATION INC ($1,110,012). 18 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 52% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- How many funders does FOODCHAIN INC have?
- IRS filings report 41 organizations giving $2,287,044 in grants to FOODCHAIN INC, 18 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of FOODCHAIN INC?
- BLUE GRASS COMMUNITY FOUNDATION INC is the largest funder on record, with $1,110,012 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like FOODCHAIN INC find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Kentucky. 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 FY2024 (financials across 2017–2024), and the filings of 41 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