Smart Start Partnership for Childre
Hendersonville, NC · EIN 56-2092325. Reported 99 grants totalling $6,093,308 to 40 organizations across tax years 2020-2024, 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. For Smart Start Partnership for Childre, by its IRS classification it is an alliance or advocacy organization in education (NTEE B012).
- How spread out its giving is. 40 distinct organizations, with 24% 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. 72% of one year's grantees are funded again the next, across 4 year-to-year transitions. That is well above the 56% median for grantmaking charities, and above the 67% median for private foundations. It describes the organizations it already funds, not whether it would consider a new one.
How big are its grants?
The median reported grant is $23,028. Half of what it reported fell between $10,769 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.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Children & Family Resource Center of Henderson County Inc | Hendersonvlle, NC | $1,477,658 | 5 | 5 | 2024 |
| Smart Start of Transylvania County | Brevard, NC | $1,313,938 | 3 | 3 | 2023 |
| Little Blessings Christian Academy | Hendersonville, NC | $706,591 | 5 | 5 | 2024 |
| Blue Ridge Partnership for Children | Burnsville, NC | $482,656 | 3 | 3 | 2023 |
| Nessa's Young'uns Natural Play Cent | Flat Rock, NC | $325,927 | 5 | 5 | 2024 |
| Alice's Playground | Hendersonville, NC | $226,552 | 5 | 5 | 2024 |
| Steps to Hope Academy | Hendersonville, NC | $219,525 | 5 | 5 | 2024 |
| Love and Learning | Fletcher, NC | $190,863 | 5 | 5 | 2024 |
| Little Bright Minds | Hendersonville, NC | $162,621 | 5 | 5 | 2024 |
| Mount Pisgah Lutheran Church | Hendersonvlle, NC | $125,889 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| Little Red School | Hendersonville, NC | $123,315 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| Beacon Child Development Center | Hendersonville, NC | $86,932 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| Tumblin Toddler | Mills River, NC | $69,065 | 3 | 3 | 2024 |
| Buncombe County Partnership for Children Inc | Asheville, NC | $63,427 | 3 | 3 | 2023 |
| Best Ever Home Daycare | Gerton, NC | $51,923 | 3 | 2 | 2024 |
| Alexandra Child Care Home | Edneyville, NC | $42,985 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| Immaculata Pre-K and the Grotto | Hendersonville, NC | $42,642 | 3 | 3 | 2022 |
| The Play and Learning Center | Hendersonville, NC | $42,220 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Tomorrow's Hope Child Dev | East Flat Rock, NC | $41,241 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| Montessori Country Day | Hendersonville, NC | $26,279 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Helping Hand Developmentel Center Inc | E Flat Rock, NC | $25,332 | 3 | 3 | 2022 |
| Gods Gift | Hendersonville, NC | $23,028 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Grace Lutheran Church | Hendersonvlle, NC | $22,146 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Fumc Hendersonville | Hendersonville, NC | $20,418 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Grow Early Learning Corp | Raleigh, NC | $20,306 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Immaculata Pre-K and the Grotto | Hendersonville, NC | $15,903 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Wnc Source | Hendersonville, NC | $15,825 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| His Kids Child Dev Center | East Flat Rock, NC | $15,226 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Here I Grow | Hendersonville, NC | $15,069 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Western Carolina Community Action Inc | Hendersonvlle, NC | $13,640 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Mud Creek Christian School | Hendersonville, NC | $10,769 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Henderson County Department of Publ | Hendersonville, NC | $10,700 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Kids Kountry Klub House | Arden, NC | $10,696 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Aletheia Academy | Hendersonville, NC | $9,537 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Sonshine Preschool | Fletcher, NC | $9,492 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Mountain Fundamentals | Hendersonville, NC | $7,615 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Bells School for Little Folks | Fletcher, NC | $7,199 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Hendersonville Presbyterian Church | Hendersonvlle, NC | $6,325 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Hensley Corp Dba Carolina Academy | Fairview, NC | $6,124 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Wild Oak Independent School | Hendersonvlle, NC | $5,709 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
21 of 40 (52%) received money in more than one year over the 5 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 the activity category the IRS assigns each recipient, for the 7 of 40 recipients we could match to a registered organization. The categories are the IRS's, not ours -- 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 16 | $697,284 | $14,077 |
| 2021 | 20 | $1,373,338 | $27,773 |
| 2022 | 20 | $1,588,585 | $23,036 |
| 2023 | 15 | $1,254,556 | $35,283 |
| 2024 | 28 | $1,179,545 | $21,282 |
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
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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 a sign of overlapping priorities and nothing more: they do not show that any of these funders would consider a new organization. Each page says what its filings show.
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 $23,028 -- 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 North 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.
Related guides
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 5 returns (tax years 2020-2024). Grant figures are from its returns. Recipient classifications, the concentration and retention figures and the funders that support the same organizations are our own calculations from them, described in how we build this.
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
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