North Carolina · Nonprofit
Upstream Works
Upstream Works (North Carolina) receives grants from 17 organizations whose IRS filings report $752,036 to it, the largest being UNITED WAY OF THE GREATER TRIANGLE INC ($330,271). 3 of them have funded it in more than one year. Upstream Works administers funds for other donors, so those contributions arrive into funds it holds rather than supporting a program it runs itself.
Hosts funds for others
Upstream Works administers funds on behalf of other donors. The grants recorded as coming in are contributions into those funds, so they count custody rather than support for a programUpstream Works runs itself. This page therefore states the flows and does not draw the comparisons it would draw for an operating charity: concentration, funder retention, grant dependency and the peer field are all left out, because each of them would read a vehicle as if it were a program.
Paid out
$410k
Recipients
18
Contributions on record
$920k
Donors on record
18
Payments out are 0.45x the contributions on record, so the balance accumulates rather than passing straight through.
Three funders worth looking at
Grantmakers with no record of funding this organization, ranked by how strongly the co-funder graph and the mission embeddings agree. The evidence is in section 03.
- Z Smith Reynolds Foundation Incshared fundersportfolio match
- The Forest At Duke Incshared funders
- New Economy Coalition Incportfolio match
The organization over time
Each line starts at 100 in 2019, so what you read is the shape rather than the size: 150 means half as much again as 2019, 50 means half. The number beside each label in the key is where it ended.
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: 2023 18% · 2024 33% · 2025 3%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 2 of the last 7 reported years ran a deficit.
reserve
Who funds it, year by year
2020 → 2023: the base broadened from 2 funders to 5 funders, grant income fell $329k → $111k.
3 of 17 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 17% of grant dollars received. That money is really individual donors directing a sponsor; the institutions to cultivate are the non-DAF funders.
Left out of every figure on this page: $168k from one payer (the same organization on both sides, largest Upstream Works). These are real filings, and they are not money Upstream Works raised.
From the IRS filings of Upstream Works’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.
Where its funders are
73% of Upstream Works'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. $128k arriving through sponsors registered in 2 statesis 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.
Funders to approach
Grantmakers that don’t fund you yet, surfaced two ways: they back organizations that share your funders, or their grantees resemble your mission. The ones both signals agree on come first. Your 17 funders put you under-funded among the 400 organizations that share them.
- Z Smith Reynolds Foundation Incshared fundersportfolio matchNC · backs 72 organizations that share your funders · its grantees resemble your mission
- The Forest At Duke Incshared fundersNC · backs 32 organizations that share your funders
- New Economy Coalition Incportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
- Voices for Racial Justiceportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
- Whyhunger Incportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
- Resist Incportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
- Acorn Foundationportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
- Fund 25portfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
- Community Alliance With Family Farmersportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
- The Burt's Bees Greater Good Foundation AKA THE BURT'S BEES FOUNDATIONportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
- Aj Fletcher Foundationshared fundersNC · backs 60 organizations that share your funders
- Carolina Hurricanes Foundationshared fundersNC · backs 48 organizations that share your funders
From the co-funder graph (funders backing at least two comparable organizations, shrunk for grantee count, donor-advised and mega-funds excluded) and the universe embeddings. A research starting point; overlap is association, not a guarantee of fit.
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
95% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
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 Upstream Works: 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. How the screen works · on the API as GET /api/screening/{ein}?format=pdf
Questions and answers
- Who funds Upstream Works?
- Upstream Works (North Carolina) receives grants from 17 organizations whose IRS filings report $752,036 to it, the largest being UNITED WAY OF THE GREATER TRIANGLE INC ($330,271). 3 of them have funded it in more than one year. Upstream Works administers funds for other donors, so those contributions arrive into funds it holds rather than supporting a program it runs itself.
- How many funders does Upstream Works have?
- IRS filings report 17 organizations giving $752,036 in grants to Upstream Works, 3 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of Upstream Works?
- UNITED WAY OF THE GREATER TRIANGLE INC is the largest funder on record, with $330,271 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like Upstream Works 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.
These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2025 (financials across 2019–2025), and the filings of 17funders 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 August 27, 2026. What this page cannot tell you · view filing