North Carolina · Nonprofit
Friendship Trays Inc
Friendship Trays Inc (North Carolina) receives grants from 54 organizations whose IRS filings report $1,720,288 to it, the largest being MERANCAS FOUNDATION INC ($450,000). 27 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2021
- $460k
- Funders on record
- 54
- Grants received
- $1.7M
- Net assets
- $0
What Friendship Trays Inc does
Mission
To deliver nutritious, diet specific meals to individuals throughout the community who are unable to prepare meals for themselves and have no one to do it for them, regardless of age or ability to pay.
As stated on its FY2021 Form 990.
Program
Friendship Trays delivers more than 700 meals daily to elderly, handicapped, and convalescing people who are unable or greatly restricted in their ability to prepare or secure meals and who reside within the area we can reach with our corps of drivers. Deliveries are at the lunch hour but the meal is a full one, more like what many people are accustomed to for dinner. This meal consists of two separate containers, one with meat or fish, vegetable and such, the other with carbohydrate, salad or fruit, and dessert. Diet orders are obtained for all clients from their doctors, and a range of special diets are available to fill doctors' written orders for certain medical conditions. While all recipients are asked to pay for their meals based on their ability to pay, recipient income alone does not pay for Friendship Trays. Sponsors include approximately 80 faith-based communities and organizations, as well as civic organizations and businesses. Other groups welcome donations of time as volunteers or as donors of the financial resources that allow us to serve all who need nutritious meals.
The first program described on its most recent Form 990, which lists programs largest first by expense.
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.
Balance sheet
Total assets and total liabilities at each year end, in dollars. The largest one-year move in total assets was 2020 to 2021, from $3.9M to $0 (−100%).
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 7%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 1 of the last 5 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
2017 → 2023: the base narrowed from 12 funders to 4 funders, grant income fell $193k → $72k.
10 of 54 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 24% 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 Friendship Trays Inc’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 54 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
Friendship Trays Inc has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 26% of grant income, and it takes 4 funders to reach half.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 4 funders to its left
50% 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 Friendship Trays Inc.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 52% · 2018 37% · 2019 30% · 2020 29% · 2021 27% · 2022 36% · 2023 43% — 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
25% of Friendship Trays Inc's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 50% 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
83% of Friendship Trays Inc's grant income comes from North Carolina funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $420k arriving through sponsors registered in 9 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.
Organizations like Friendship Trays 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 North Carolina
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
86% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
87%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Footprint & structure
Files a return copy in 1 state
Part of a family of 1 related entity
- 2400 Distribution Street LLC · disregarded
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for Friendship Trays 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 Friendship Trays Inc?
- Friendship Trays Inc (North Carolina) receives grants from 54 organizations whose IRS filings report $1,720,288 to it, the largest being MERANCAS FOUNDATION INC ($450,000). 27 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does Friendship Trays Inc have?
- IRS filings report 54 organizations giving $1,720,288 in grants to Friendship Trays Inc, 27 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of Friendship Trays Inc?
- MERANCAS FOUNDATION INC is the largest funder on record, with $450,000 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like Friendship Trays Inc 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 Friendship Trays →
These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2021 (financials across 2017–2021), and the filings of 54 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