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North Carolina · Nonprofit

UNIQUE PLACES TO SAVE

UNIQUE PLACES TO SAVE (North Carolina) receives grants from 8 organizations whose IRS filings report $1,123,008 to it, the largest being NATIONAL PHILANTHROPIC TRUST ($445,000). 5 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 53% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.

Revenue FY2024
$1.5M
Funders on record
8
Grants received
$1.1M
Net assets
$5.4M
5/8 repeat funderspeak grant-dependency 32%
01What it does

What Unique Places to Save does

Mission

Unique Places to Save is a non-profit organization dedicated to restoring and protecting high-quality land and aquatic resources.

As stated on its FY2024 Form 990.

Program

  1. The organization has a conservation mitigation program which monitors and completes conservation easements in various states, while ensuring the terms and conditions of the conservation easements are met in perpetuity. The organization also has non-mitigation programs such as ecological resilience programs that they conduct work on in various areas and waterfronts.

    $741,199 spent$933,811 earned by the program
    100% of program spending

The program described on its FY2023 Form 990. Program spending in total: $741,199.

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 ($133k) Expenses 100 ($82k) Net assets 100 ($932k)2018 Revenue 1493 ($2.0M) Expenses 354 ($291k) Net assets 282 ($2.6M)2020 Revenue 445 ($594k) Expenses 382 ($315k) Net assets 359 ($3.3M)2021 Revenue 689 ($920k) Expenses 308 ($254k) Net assets 427 ($4.0M)2022 Revenue 659 ($879k) Expenses 590 ($486k) Net assets 438 ($4.1M)2023 Revenue 750 ($1.0M) Expenses 952 ($785k) Net assets 500 ($4.7M)2024 Revenue 1149 ($1.5M) Expenses 979 ($806k) Net assets 578 ($5.4M)
2017201820202021202220232024
Revenue (1149)Expenses (979)Net assets (578)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 2022 to 2023, from $4.4M to $11M (+145%).

$1.0M
$2.6M
$4.2M
$4.3M
$4.4M
$11M
$11M
2017201820202021202220232024
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
2020
2021
2022
2023
2024
ContributionsProgram revenueInvestmentOther

Government-grant reliance: 2021 5% · 2022 15% · 2023 18% · 2024 12%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.

27% of UNIQUE PLACES TO SAVE’s revenue is contributions — more earned-revenue than three-quarters of its peers (88% for the typical peer).

This organization
Typical peer · 2,293 orgs

Surplus & reserves

Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 0 of the last 7 reported years ran a deficit.

$51k
’17
$1.7M
’18
$279k
’20
$666k
’21
$393k
’22
$215k
’23
$726k
’24
5.6
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.

Board chair

Spencer Tuttle

Chair

As listed on its FY2024 Form 990.

2017201820202021202220232024
Listed7777886
Joined·+0·+1+2+2+1
No longer listed·0·1123
03Who funds it

Who funds it, year by year

2020 → 2023: the base broadened from 2 funders to 4 funders, grant income rose $15k → $317k.

4 of 8 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 53% 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 UNIQUE PLACES TO SAVE’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

UNIQUE PLACES TO SAVE leans on a few funders — its largest provides 40% of grant income and the top three 76%; half comes from just 2 funders.

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

89% 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 UNIQUE PLACES TO SAVE.

40%
largest funder
76%
top three
~4
effective funders

Largest funder’s share by year: 2020 99% · 2021 98% · 2022 100% · 2023 55% — 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

53% of UNIQUE PLACES TO SAVE'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 $527k that is directly attributable, 77% of it comes from funders outside North Carolina, across 2 states.

NC
DC

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

’20
’21
’22
’23
North Carolina out of state home

Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $596k 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

UNIQUE PLACES TO SAVE runs a healthier operating margin than three-quarters of the 2,186 environment nonprofits its size.

Operating margin47% · top quartile
Months of reserve5.6mo · above the median
Revenue growth (annualized)42% · top quartile

this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 2,186 environment nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2024

Government funding UNIQUE PLACES TO SAVE receives

Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $50k on record.

Federal$50k
grants $50kcontracts $0
Top agencies
  • Department of the Interior$50k

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 UNIQUE PLACES TO SAVE

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

73% of spending goes to programs.

Program 73%Management 25%Fundraising 2%

Governance

5
board members
100%
independent
✓Conflict-of-interest policy–Whistleblower policy–Document retention✓Board reviewed the 990–Audited financials

Public support

83%

Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.

Footprint & structure

Files a return copy in 6 states

CA
KY
TN
NC
SC
TX

Screen this organization

A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for UNIQUE PLACES TO SAVE: 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 UNIQUE PLACES TO SAVE?
UNIQUE PLACES TO SAVE (North Carolina) receives grants from 8 organizations whose IRS filings report $1,123,008 to it, the largest being NATIONAL PHILANTHROPIC TRUST ($445,000). 5 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 53% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
How many funders does UNIQUE PLACES TO SAVE have?
IRS filings report 8 organizations giving $1,123,008 in grants to UNIQUE PLACES TO SAVE, 5 of which have funded it in more than one year.
Who is the largest funder of UNIQUE PLACES TO SAVE?
NATIONAL PHILANTHROPIC TRUST is the largest funder on record, with $445,000 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
How can an organization like UNIQUE PLACES TO SAVE 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 Unique Places to Save →

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 8 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