GrantmakersNorth Carolina

Smart Start Partnership for Childre

Hendersonville, NC · EIN 56-2092325. Reported 71 grants totalling $4,913,763 to 27 organizations across tax years 2020-2023, on Form 990 Schedule I.

27organizations funded
$27,285median reported grant
$4,913,763granted, 2020-2023
75%of grantees funded again the next year
27%of dollars to its largest recipient

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:

  1. What kind of organization it is. For Smart Start Partnership for Childre, by its IRS classification it is an alliance or advocacy organization in education (NTEE B012).
  2. How spread out its giving is. 27 distinct organizations, with 27% 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.
  3. How much its list changes. 75% of one year's grantees are funded again the next, across 3 year-to-year transitions. That is well above the 57% median for grantmaking charities, and above the 67% private foundations manage. This list is close to settled, so a newcomer has to displace someone rather than fill a gap.

How big are its grants?

The median reported grant is $27,285. Half of what it reported fell between $12,824 and $45,309; the smallest was $5,093 and the largest $562,465. If you are asking for materially more than the top of that range, you are asking the wrong organization.

Schedule I only reports grants over $5,000. Form 990 requires a charity to list recipients it paid more than that and lets it omit the rest, so every grant-size figure on this page describes the grants it reported, not all of them. Its real median is lower and its real recipient count is higher. This is also why these numbers cannot be compared with the private-foundation figures elsewhere on this site -- Form 990-PF has no reporting floor, so the two are different populations rather than two samples of one.
$5,000 - $10,000
16 grants
$10,000 - $25,000
18 grants
$25,000 - $50,000
20 grants
$50,000 - $100,000
2 grants
$100,000 - $250,000
8 grants
$250,000 Or More
7 grants

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.

OrganizationLocationTotal receivedGrantsYears fundedLast
Smart Start of Transylvania CountyBrevard, NC$1,313,938332023
Children & Family Resource Center of Henderson County IncHendersonvlle, NC$1,233,931442023
Little Blessings Christian AcademyHendersonville, NC$553,216442023
Blue Ridge Partnership for ChildrenBurnsville, NC$482,656332023
Love and LearningFletcher, NC$160,829442023
Steps to Hope AcademyHendersonville, NC$159,062442023
Nessa's Young'uns Natural Play CentFlat Rock, NC$156,818442023
Alice's PlaygroundHendersonville, NC$153,658442023
Little Bright MindsHendersonville, NC$139,208442023
Beacon Child Development CenterHendersonville, NC$79,042332023
Mount Pisgah Lutheran ChurchHendersonvlle, NC$77,844332023
Little Red SchoolHendersonville, NC$71,672332022
Buncombe County Partnership for Children IncAsheville, NC$63,427332023
Alexandra Child Care HomeEdneyville, NC$42,985442023
Immaculata Pre-K and the GrottoHendersonville, NC$42,642332022
Tomorrow's Hope Child DevEast Flat Rock, NC$41,241442023
Tumblin ToddlerMills River, NC$27,979222022
Helping Hand Developmentel Center IncE Flat Rock, NC$25,332332022
Here I GrowHendersonville, NC$15,069112022
Western Carolina Community Action IncHendersonvlle, NC$13,640112021
Montessori Country DayHendersonville, NC$13,592112020
Henderson County Department of PublHendersonville, NC$10,700112022
Aletheia AcademyHendersonville, NC$9,537112020
Bells School for Little FolksFletcher, NC$7,199112020
Best Ever Home DaycareGerton, NC$6,422112021
Hensley Corp Dba Carolina AcademyFairview, NC$6,124112020
The Play and Learning CenterHendersonville, NC$6,000112023

18 of 27 (67%) 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.

It also reported 3 groups of grants to individuals -- scholarships, emergency assistance and similar. Schedule I reports these by category with a headcount and never by name, so there is nothing here we could publish about the recipients even if we wanted to.

What kind of organizations it funds

By each recipient's own IRS classification, for the 5 of 27 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.

Education
4 orgs
Human Services
1 org

Giving by year

Tax yearGrants reportedTotalMedian grant
202016$697,284$14,077
202120$1,373,338$27,773
202220$1,588,585$23,036
202315$1,254,556$35,283

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

Hendersonvlle, NC
$1.3M
Brevard, NC
$1.3M
Hendersonville, NC
$1.3M
Burnsville, NC
$483K
Fletcher, NC
$168K
Flat Rock, NC
$157K
Asheville, NC
$63K
Edneyville, NC
$43K

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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.

Dogwood Health Trust6 shared recipientsCommunity Foundation of Henderson6 shared recipientsThe Community Foundation4 shared recipientsWnc Bridge Foundation4 shared recipientsNorth Carolina Partnership for3 shared recipientsImpact Health3 shared recipients

How to approach this grantmaker

  1. 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.
  2. Check you are its size. The median reported grant is $27,285 -- and because grants under $5,000 need not be reported, it very likely writes smaller cheques than this page can see.
  3. Check you are in its geography. Its giving concentrates in North Carolina.
  4. 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.

Related guides

Foundations funding education in North CarolinaEvery funder in this group, ranked

Where these numbers come from

Everything above is taken from Smart Start Partnership for Childre's own Form 990 Schedule I filings, which the IRS publishes in bulk. We used 4 returns (tax years 2020-2023). Nothing here is scraped, inferred or estimated.

Address of record on the latest return: 525 North Justice Street, Hendersonville, NC, 28739.

EIN 56-2092325 · See the original filings on ProPublica · How we build this

This is history, not an open call. Form 990 is published about a year after the tax year it covers. Nothing on this page is a deadline. It is a record of who this organization has actually funded, which is the best available predictor of who it will fund next.

Is something here wrong about your organization? Email [email protected] and we will correct it.