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North Carolina · Nonprofit

ROOT CAUSE FARM INC

ROOT CAUSE FARM INC (North Carolina) receives grants from 13 organizations whose IRS filings report $208,923 to it, the largest being THE COMMUNITY FOUNDATION OF WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA INC ($54,700). 8 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 FY2020
$99k
Funders on record
13
Grants received
$209k
Net assets
$113k
8/13 repeat funderspeak grant-dependency 10%
01What it does

What Root Cause Farm Inc does

Mission

To grow food to feed the hungry in buncombe county, nc

As stated on its FY2020 Form 990-EZ.

Program

More than 500 volunteers grew over 7 tons of produce to give away to those in need.

The first program described on its most recent Form 990-EZ.

02The organization over time

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.

100 = 20172017 Revenue 100 ($137k) Expenses 100 ($115k) Net assets 100 ($173k)2019 Revenue 66 ($90k) Expenses 95 ($110k) Net assets 70 ($121k)2020 Revenue 72 ($99k) Expenses 93 ($107k) Net assets 65 ($113k)
201720192020
Revenue (72)Expenses (93)Net assets (65)Peer revenue range

Balance sheet

Total assets and total liabilities at each year end, in dollars. The largest one-year move in total assets was 2019 to 2020, from $254k to $244k (−4%).

$303k
$254k
$244k
201720192020
Total assetsTotal liabilities

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.

2017
2019
2020
ContributionsProgram revenueInvestmentOther

100% of ROOT CAUSE FARM INC’s revenue is contributions — more donation-reliant than the typical peer (97% for the typical peer).

This organization
Typical peer · 4,244 orgs

Surplus & reserves

Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 2 of the last 3 reported years ran a deficit.

$22k
’17
−$19k
’19
−$8k
’20
03Who funds it

Who funds it, year by year

2017 → 2023: the base narrowed from 5 funders to 4 funders, grant income rose $14k → $15k.

7 of 13 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 ROOT CAUSE FARM INC’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

ROOT CAUSE FARM INC has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 26% of grant income, and it takes 3 funders to reach half.

the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 3 funders to its left

66% 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 ROOT CAUSE FARM INC.

26%
largest funder
61%
top three
~6
effective funders

Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 44% · 2018 67% · 2019 50% · 2020 69% · 2021 85% · 2022 43% · 2023 79% — growing more concentrated.

“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

50% of ROOT CAUSE FARM INC's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 62% give in more than one year at all.

first grant+1y+2y+3y+4y+5y+6y

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 ROOT CAUSE FARM 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 $100k that is directly attributable, 55% of it comes from funders outside North Carolina, across 4 states.

IL
NY
NC
FL

In-state vs out-of-state, by year

’17
’18
’19
’20
’21
’22
’23
North Carolina out of state home

Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $109k arriving through sponsors registered in 6 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.

04Its place in the field

Against its field

ROOT CAUSE FARM INC's revenue fell 28% between 2017 and 2020.

Operating margin−8% · below the median
Revenue growth (annualized)−10% · below the median

this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 2,192 public benefit nonprofits under $100k, FY2020

Organizations like ROOT CAUSE FARM 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

05Profile & governance

Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.

Public support

100%

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 ROOT CAUSE FARM 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.

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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 ROOT CAUSE FARM INC?
ROOT CAUSE FARM INC (North Carolina) receives grants from 13 organizations whose IRS filings report $208,923 to it, the largest being THE COMMUNITY FOUNDATION OF WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA INC ($54,700). 8 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 ROOT CAUSE FARM INC have?
IRS filings report 13 organizations giving $208,923 in grants to ROOT CAUSE FARM INC, 8 of which have funded it in more than one year.
Who is the largest funder of ROOT CAUSE FARM INC?
THE COMMUNITY FOUNDATION OF WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA INC is the largest funder on record, with $54,700 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
How can an organization like ROOT CAUSE FARM 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 Root Cause Farm →

These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2020 (financials across 2017–2020), and the filings of 13 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