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North Carolina · Nonprofit

Signs for Hope Inc

Signs for Hope Inc (North Carolina) receives grants from 5 organizations whose IRS filings report $249,019 to it, the largest being VANGUARD CHARITABLE ENDOWMENT PROGRAM ($118,000). 3 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 90% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.

Revenue FY2024
$201k
Funders on record
5
Grants received
$249k
Net assets
$108k
3/5 repeat funderspeak grant-dependency 23%
01What it does

What Signs for Hope Inc does

Mission

Signs for Hope strives to connect deaf and hard of hearing orphans around the world with sources of hope through adoption and sponsorship.

As stated on its FY2024 Form 990.

Program

  1. Signs for Hope strives to connect deaf and hard of hearing orphans around the world with sources of hope through adoption and sponsorship.

    $139,933 spent
    100% of program spending

The program described on its FY2023 Form 990. Program spending in total: $139,933.

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 ($70k) Expenses 100 ($72k) Net assets 100 ($10k)2018 Revenue 109 ($76k) Expenses 101 ($72k) Net assets 142 ($15k)2019 Revenue 247 ($173k) Expenses 98 ($70k) Net assets 1148 ($118k)2020 Revenue 88 ($61k) Expenses 136 ($98k) Net assets 795 ($81k)2021 Revenue 186 ($130k) Expenses 191 ($137k) Net assets 729 ($75k)2022 Revenue 172 ($120k) Expenses 204 ($146k) Net assets 499 ($51k)2023 Revenue 294 ($206k) Expenses 234 ($167k) Net assets 843 ($86k)2024 Revenue 286 ($201k) Expenses 251 ($180k) Net assets 1049 ($108k)
'17'18'19'20'21'22'23'24
Revenue (286)Expenses (251)Net assets (1049)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 2018 to 2019, from $17k to $121k (+614%).

$13k
$17k
$121k
$85k
$90k
$67k
$88k
$115k
'17'18'19'20'21'22'23'24
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
2018
2019
2020
2021
2022
2023
2024
ContributionsProgram revenueInvestmentOther

89% of Signs for Hope Inc’s revenue is contributions — more earned-revenue than three-quarters of its peers (100% for the typical peer).

This organization
Typical peer · 4,945 orgs

Surplus & reserves

Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 4 of the last 8 reported years ran a deficit.

−$1k
’17
$4k
’18
$103k
’19
−$36k
’20
−$7k
’21
−$26k
’22
$39k
’23
$21k
’24
5.3
months of
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.

2021202220232024
Listed6888
Joined·+3+0+0
No longer listed·100
03Who funds it

Who funds it, year by year

2020 → 2023: the base broadened from 1 funder to 3 funders, grant income rose $122 → $47k.

4 of 5 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 90% 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 Signs for Hope 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

Signs for Hope Inc leans on a few funders — its largest provides 47% of grant income and the top three 90%; half comes from just 2 funders.

the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 2 funders to its left

90% 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 Signs for Hope Inc.

47%
largest funder
90%
top three
~3
effective funders

Largest funder’s share by year: 2020 100% · 2021 99% · 2022 50% · 2023 68% — 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.

Where its funders are

90% of Signs for Hope 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 $25k that is directly attributable, 100% of it comes from funders outside North Carolina, across 1 state.

NM

Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $224k arriving through sponsors registered in 4 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

Signs for Hope Inc runs a healthier operating margin than half of the 4,524 international nonprofits its size.

Operating margin11% · above the median
Months of reserve5.3mo · above the median
Revenue growth (annualized)16% · above the median

this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 4,524 international nonprofits $100k–$1M, FY2024

Organizations like Signs for Hope 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.

Where the money goes

85% of spending goes to programs.

Program 85%Management 15%Fundraising 0%

Governance

7
board members
100%
independent
–Conflict-of-interest policy–Whistleblower policy–Document retention✓Board reviewed the 990–Audited financials

Public support

74%

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 Signs for Hope 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 Signs for Hope Inc?
Signs for Hope Inc (North Carolina) receives grants from 5 organizations whose IRS filings report $249,019 to it, the largest being VANGUARD CHARITABLE ENDOWMENT PROGRAM ($118,000). 3 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 90% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
How many funders does Signs for Hope Inc have?
IRS filings report 5 organizations giving $249,019 in grants to Signs for Hope Inc, 3 of which have funded it in more than one year.
Who is the largest funder of Signs for Hope Inc?
VANGUARD CHARITABLE ENDOWMENT PROGRAM is the largest funder on record, with $118,000 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
How can an organization like Signs for Hope 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 Signs for Hope →

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 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