Maine · Nonprofit
Wayside Food Programs
Wayside Food Programs (Maine) receives grants from 63 organizations whose IRS filings report $2,306,583 to it, the largest being Wescustogo Foundation ($353,048). 39 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2024
- $1.0M
- Funders on record
- 63
- Grants received
- $2.3M
- Net assets
- $1.9M
What Wayside Food Programs does
Mission
The mission of Wayside is to increase access to food for those in need in Southern Maine by providing a system for community based volunteers who serve prepared meals where such meals are needed, and by collaborating with other hunger agencies in developing an efficient network for the collection and equitable distribution of food.
As stated on its FY2024 Form 990.
Program
The Community Meals Program helps people access nutritious meals in their own neighborhoods through partnerships with churches and community centers, reaching residents of Greater Portland unserved by existing resources. Neighborhood settings are familiar and reduce the stigma often associated with asking for help. Wayside prepares meals at a central kitchen, shared with Portland Public Schools. The meals improve current conditions by supporting healthy eating habits and reducing food insecurity. Over time, these programs decrease risks for chronic diseases and reduce the financial burden of conditions like obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease upon the community.Wayside's Food Rescue Program provides food to pantries, soup kitchens, and service agencies in Cumberland County. In 2024, Food Rescue distributed approximately 2,004,000 lbs of food through partner agencies. Wayside's Community Garden Program partners with a Portland Housing Authority site for low-income seniors & disabled adults to facilitate garden workshops and built garden beds, a compost bin, and a cold frame. A lawn donated by a South Portland homeowner became a vegetable garden for the Community Meals and…
$853,659 spent$175,627 earned by the program100% of program spending
The program described on its FY2024 Form 990. Program spending in total: $853,659.
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.
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 $810k to $1.5M (+80%).
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: 2017 11% · 2018 8% · 2019 5% · 2020 13% · 2021 6% · 2022 26% · 2023 9% · 2024 3%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
79% of Wayside Food Programs’s revenue is contributions — about as donation-reliant as the typical peer (94% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 4 of the last 8 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.
Chief executive
Mary Zwolinski
Executive Director
As listed on its FY2024 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 10 funders to 27 funders, grant income rose $65k → $487k.
8 of 63 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 14% 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 Wayside Food Programs’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 63 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
Wayside Food Programs has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 15% of grant income, and it takes 5 funders to reach half.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 5 funders to its left
31% 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 Wayside Food Programs.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 50% · 2018 38% · 2019 46% · 2020 14% · 2021 20% · 2022 19% · 2023 41% — 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
62% of Wayside Food Programs's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 62% 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
59% of Wayside Food Programs's grant income comes from Maine funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $333k arriving through sponsors registered in 8 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.
Against its field
Wayside Food Programs is better cushioned than half of the 1,131 food & nutrition nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 1,131 food & nutrition nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2024
Organizations like Wayside Food Programs
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 Maine
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
79% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
80%
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 Wayside Food Programs: 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 Wayside Food Programs?
- Wayside Food Programs (Maine) receives grants from 63 organizations whose IRS filings report $2,306,583 to it, the largest being Wescustogo Foundation ($353,048). 39 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does Wayside Food Programs have?
- IRS filings report 63 organizations giving $2,306,583 in grants to Wayside Food Programs, 39 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of Wayside Food Programs?
- Wescustogo Foundation is the largest funder on record, with $353,048 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like Wayside Food Programs find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Maine. 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 Wayside Food Programs →
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 63 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