Palmetto Electric Trust
Ridgeland, SC · EIN 57-0931978. Reported 81 grants totalling $1,315,203 to 39 organizations across tax years 2021-2024, on Form 990 Schedule I.
Does this grantmaker accept applications?
Its tax return does not say, and we will not guess. Private foundations file Form 990-PF, which asks outright whether they fund only organizations they select themselves -- 78% say yes, and that one answer is what lets the rest of this site tell you which foundations are worth approaching. Grantmaking charities like this one file a regular Form 990 instead, and the IRS never puts the question to them. Anyone claiming to know the answer from the filing is inventing it.
Three things in the filing do bear on it:
- What kind of organization it is. The IRS has no activity classification on file for this one, so we cannot tell you whether it is a community foundation or a single-institution support fund. The recipient list below is the better guide.
- How spread out its giving is. 39 distinct organizations, with 9% of the dollars going to the largest single recipient. That is genuinely spread out -- the mark of a funder making many independent decisions rather than underwriting one institution.
- How much its list changes. 52% of one year's grantees are funded again the next, across 3 year-to-year transitions. That is about the 57% median for grantmaking charities -- noticeably lower than the 67% private foundations manage. Organizations like this one rotate more of their list each year, which is where an opening for a newcomer tends to be.
How big are its grants?
The median reported grant is $13,322. Half of what it reported fell between $10,000 and $20,000; the smallest was $5,526 and the largest $75,000. If you are asking for materially more than the top of that range, you are asking the wrong organization.
Every organization it funded
This is the complete list from its filings, largest first. Recipients are grouped by the EIN the filer reported, not by name, so an organization that was typed differently in two years appears once rather than twice.
| Organization | Location | Total received | Grants | Years funded | Last |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Other Community Assistance | Ridgeland, SC | $115,572 | 3 | 3 | 2023 |
| Volunteers in Medicine Clinic | Hilton Head, SC | $105,040 | 3 | 2 | 2024 |
| American National Red Cross | Washington, DC | $102,500 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| Lowcountry Food Bank Inc | Charleston, SC | $74,650 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| Jasper County Council for the Aging | Ridgeland, SC | $74,000 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| Helping Hand Center Inc | Pineland, SC | $73,600 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| Programs for Exceptional People | Bluffton, SC | $72,000 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| Meals on Wheels Bluffton Hilton Head Inc | Hilton Head, SC | $65,000 | 3 | 3 | 2024 |
| Bluffton Self Help Inc | Bluffton, SC | $57,000 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| Boy Scouts of America | N Charleston, SC | $44,490 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| Bright Ideas 17 Recipients | Ridgeland, SC | $38,775 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Real Champions Inc | Ridgeland, SC | $36,980 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Staying Connected | Bluffton, SC | $33,300 | 3 | 3 | 2024 |
| Childrens Center Inc | Hilton Head, SC | $32,500 | 3 | 3 | 2024 |
| Memory Matters | Hilton Head, SC | $27,000 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Sandalwood Community Food Pantry | Hilton Head, SC | $27,000 | 2 | 2 | 2023 |
| Boys and Girls Clubs of Lowcountry Inc | Bluffton, SC | $25,950 | 3 | 3 | 2023 |
| Royal Live Oaks Academy-Ridgeland | Hardeeville, SC | $25,298 | 3 | 3 | 2023 |
| Operation Patriots Fob Inc | Bluffton, SC | $24,500 | 2 | 2 | 2023 |
| Pregnancy Center and Clinic of Low Country Inc | Hilton Head, SC | $22,587 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Friends of Honey Hill | Ridgeland, SC | $18,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Historic Mitchelville Freedom Park Inc | Hilton Head, SC | $17,703 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| American Heart Association Inc | Dallas, TX | $16,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Agape Family Life Center Inc | Hardeeville, SC | $15,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Bluffton Community Soup Kitchen | Bluffton, SC | $15,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Lowcountry Autism Foundation Inc | Bluffton, SC | $14,805 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Amercian Legion | Hampton, SC | $13,380 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Coastal Discovery Museum | Hilton Head, SC | $13,322 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Habitat for Humanity International Inc | Bluffton, SC | $13,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Burn Foundation of America Inc | Augusta, GA | $12,675 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Bluffton Gullah Cultural Heritage Center | Bluffton, SC | $12,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Low Country Legal Volunteers | Bluffton, SC | $11,800 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Hospital Auxiliary | Hilton Head, SC | $11,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| United Way of the Lowcountry Inc | Beaufort, SC | $10,600 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Community Foundation of the Lowcountry Inc | Hilton Head, SC | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Mental Health America of South Carolina | Bluffton, SC | $9,650 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Neighborhood Outreach Connection | Hilton Head, SC | $9,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Other Community Grants | $9,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 | |
| Hilton Head Preparatory School | Hilton Head, SC | $5,526 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
21 of 39 (54%) received money in more than one year over the 4 years we hold. Remember the $5,000 floor: an organization funded every year at $3,000 shows up here as never funded at all.
What kind of organizations it funds
By each recipient's own IRS classification, for the 27 of 39 recipients we could match to a registered organization. These are assigned categories, not our guesses -- Schedule I reports the recipient's EIN, so this is a lookup rather than a name match.
Giving by year
| Tax year | Grants reported | Total | Median grant |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 17 | $220,443 | $11,000 |
| 2022 | 21 | $323,440 | $13,322 |
| 2023 | 17 | $278,310 | $15,000 |
| 2024 | 26 | $493,010 | $15,520 |
Tax years, not calendar years, and the most recent year is usually incomplete -- Form 990 arrives about a year after the year it covers, so a low final year means late paperwork rather than a grantmaker winding down.
Where its money goes
90% of its giving went to organizations in South Carolina. Community foundations and federated funds are usually the most geographically bounded funders there are -- being outside the footprint is normally disqualifying in a way that a weak programme fit is not.
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Funders that support the same organizations
These grantmakers and private foundations gave to organizations this one also funded. Shared grantees are the strongest signal available that two funders have overlapping priorities -- and a funder already backing your peers is a far warmer prospect than one that merely lists your cause.
How to approach this grantmaker
- Look for a published programme first. Unlike most private foundations, organizations of this kind often do run open, deadlined grant cycles with written guidelines. Its own website is the authority on that; this page is the authority on who it has actually paid.
- Check you are its size. The median reported grant is $13,322 -- and because grants under $5,000 need not be reported, it very likely writes smaller cheques than this page can see.
- Check you are in its geography. Its giving concentrates in South Carolina.
- Read the recipient list for organizations like yours. If nothing on it resembles your work, that is a real answer and a cheap one to get.
Where these numbers come from
Everything above is taken from Palmetto Electric Trust's own Form 990 Schedule I filings, which the IRS publishes in bulk. We used 4 returns (tax years 2021-2024). Nothing here is scraped, inferred or estimated.
Address of record on the latest return: 4063 Grays Hwy, Ridgeland, SC, 29936.
EIN 57-0931978 · See the original filings on ProPublica · How we build this
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