North Carolina · Nonprofit
WNC Communities
WNC Communities (North Carolina) receives grants from 24 organizations whose IRS filings report $4,592,891 to it, the largest being DOGWOOD HEALTH TRUST ($3,634,977). 10 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $4.6M
- Funders on record
- 24
- Grants received
- $4.6M
- Net assets
- $4.3M
What WNC Communities does
Mission
WNC Communities empowers the people of Western North Carolina to cultivate the vitality and prosperity of mountain communities through collaboration and agricultural opportunities. This mission is accomplished through a program of work focused on community development, agriculture revenue, and forest health.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Programs
On its FY2024 return the organization reported a significant change in how it conducts a program.
WNC Brewers Grain LLC activities ceased January 2025.
Its own explanation, from Schedule O of that return (Part III, line 3).
Each year since 1949, WNCC has evaluated the applications of community centers across 20 counties in WNC and given cash awards to a network of over 70 community centers that have offered quality programs to serve their residents needs. Each November, the WNC Awards event brings these community clubs together to celebrate and receive recognition and cash awards for the work they have accomplished during the year. In 2024, 73 participating communities received over $106,000 (donated by WNC business and industry) in awards to recognize their hard work. These good deeds represented 5800 volunteers, clocking 128,600 volunteer hours, representing an estimated $6.7 million investment of time, talent, and money benefitting rural residents in WNC. These efforts include providing food pantries, meals, assistance with accessing medical care, affordable rental space for events, family- oriented social gatherings, free wi-fi, business incubation, afterschool programs, and more.
$3,673,345 spentof which $2,715,765 as grants$378,217 earned by the program100% of program spendingWNC Agricultural Options Program: Since 2012, WNC Communities has managed a cost-share grant program to support small family farms in WNC. Funded by the North Carolina General Assembly, through the NC Tobacco Trust Fund Commission, the mission of the WNC AgOptions program is to build sustainable farming communities in the mountain region by providing resources directly to farmers who are diversifying and expanding their operations. In 2024, WNC AgOptions awarded 29 farm businesses a total of $228,000 in $4,000 and $8,000 grants. Funded projects highlight farmer innovation, operational improvements, and investments that increase productivity and long-term farm viability. Returns on initial farm investments are often immediate, with new farm income frequently matching the size of the grant in the first year and continuing to grow over time. Since the programs inception in 2004, more than 600 farm businesses in Western North Carolina have received over $3 million in support.
Hemlock Restoration Initiative (HRI): The objective of HRI is to restore eastern and Carolina hemlocks to their native habitats throughout North Carolina and to mitigate damage to hemlocks caused by infestation of the hemlock woolly adelgid. More specifically, the goal is to work with a variety of partners and current restoration initiatives to ensure that eastern and Carolina hemlocks can resist the deadly hemlock woolly adelgid and survive to maturity on North Carolinas public and private lands. This involves Identifying and establishing hemlock conservation areas, educating landowners on how to economically treat and manage the hemlocks, increasing the number of trees being treated on public lands, implementing Integrated Pest Management and long-term biological controls and advancing the development of other control strategies and restoration techniques. . In 2024, over 19,000 trees were treated in 18 counties in WNC; 26 outreach events, educational hikes, and presentations were given; 4 management workshops/ demonstrations were provided and 858 volunteer hours were utilized in the HRI program.
The 3 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $3,673,345.
The organization over time
Each line starts at 100 in 2021, so what you read is the shape rather than the size: 150 means half as much again as 2021, 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 2021 to 2022, from $3.3M to $3.9M (+17%).
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: 2021 24% · 2022 26% · 2023 40% · 2024 53% · 2025 21%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
91% of WNC Communities’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. 2 of the last 5 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
Jennifer L Ferre
Executive Director
Board chair
Karen Hammett
Chair
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2020 → 2023: the base broadened from 4 funders to 6 funders, grant income fell $434k → $245k.
7 of 24 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 11% 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 WNC Communities’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 23 of 24 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
WNC Communities leans on a few funders — its largest provides 79% of grant income and the top three 88%; half comes from just 1 funder.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 1 funder to its left
Largest funder’s share by year: 2020 97% · 2021 97% · 2022 47% · 2023 54% — 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
50% of WNC Communities's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 42% 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
96% of WNC Communities'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. $526k 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.
Against its field
WNC Communities has grown faster than three-quarters of the 605 food & nutrition nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 605 food & nutrition nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2025
Government funding WNC Communities receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $276k on record.
- Department of Agriculture$276k
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 WNC Communities
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
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
92% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
78%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Footprint & structure
Files a return copy in 1 state
Part of a family of 2 related entities
- WNC Brewers Grain LLC · disregarded
- WNC Forestry Education LLC · disregarded
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for WNC Communities: 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 WNC Communities?
- WNC Communities (North Carolina) receives grants from 24 organizations whose IRS filings report $4,592,891 to it, the largest being DOGWOOD HEALTH TRUST ($3,634,977). 10 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does WNC Communities have?
- IRS filings report 24 organizations giving $4,592,891 in grants to WNC Communities, 10 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of WNC Communities?
- DOGWOOD HEALTH TRUST is the largest funder on record, with $3,634,977 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like WNC Communities 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 2021–2025), and the filings of 24 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