A Closer Look at Chapel Hill’s Nonprofits

COMMUNITY NEWS

By Adam Powell
Correspondent

CHAPEL HILL – Chapel Hill is home to many worthwhile charities and nonprofits that serve nearly every local need and concern. The town boasts more than 900 nonprofits of all shapes and sizes — from massive foundations and health organizations affiliated with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to much smaller organizations with local-minded missions and organizers.

As nonprofits are squeezed by limited federal funding, rising demand and overextended resources, their role in the community is under an ever-larger microscope. Take a closer look at the many nonprofits around Chapel Hill, their mission and aims, and how they’ve assisted the local community over the years. We also examine some of the current challenges and concerns these organizations face as they navigate the nonprofit landscape.

In a roundup of Chapel Hill’s nonprofits, it would be remiss not to start with The Local Reporter, the community’s own nonprofit newspaper. TLR was born after the loss of The Chapel Hill News, which left the town without a dedicated local news source. A small group of civic-minded residents, led by Del Snow, formed Friends of Local Journalism and spent months consulting with student journalists, regional editors, UNC journalism faculty and community members about how to fill that gap. In September 2019, The Local Reporter published its first stories, and for seven years it has covered Chapel Hill, Carrboro and southern Orange County, funded entirely by grants and reader donations. Like many small newsrooms across the country, TLR is now struggling to keep that coverage going, and it needs the community’s help. Readers who value local news can support it by visiting the “Donate Now” section at thelocalreporter.press    

Helping affected people across Chapel Hill and Orange County

• Compass Center — The Compass Center, based along Chapel Hill’s Henderson Street, works with residents who have experienced domestic violence and relationship abuse. The organization was formed through a merger of the Women’s Center and the Family Violence Prevention Center of Orange County. Compass Center provides a 24-hour crisis line, along with crisis intervention, advocacy, career and financial coaching, community education and programs aimed at preventing domestic violence.

• Orange County Rape Crisis Center — Founded in 1974 and headquartered in Chapel Hill, OCRCC provides free, confidential services to survivors of sexual violence. OCRCC provides numerous community services for local residents, including a 24-hour phone, text and online helplines, along with therapy, advocacy, accompaniment, support groups and case management. OCRCC also conducts prevention and community-education programs.

• Community Empowerment Fund — CEF — an organization that serves residents in Chapel Hill and Carrboro — works with people experiencing homelessness and financial insecurity. CEF, which moved its Chapel Hill office to Carrboro in 2025, offers one-on-one advocacy, financial coaching and other assistance to help people achieve greater financial stability.

• Refugee Community Partnership — RCP is a grassroots mutual-aid network and resource hub serving immigrant and refugee residents in the Triangle. As of 2025, it reported a network of more than 2,000 members from communities including Burma, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, Central and South America and several African countries. Its work centers on social mobility, health equity, language access and helping immigrants and refugees navigate institutions and obtain resources.

Assisting with local hunger and food insecurity

• Meals on Wheels Orange County — Meals on Wheels delivers a hot, balanced meal and personal check-in every weekday to older adults, homebound residents, people with disabilities and people recovering from illnesses who cannot readily prepare meals themselves. The organization, based at Chapel Hill’s St. Thomas More’s Church, says it has grown from four meals on its first delivery nearly five decades ago to more than 250 meals delivered per weekday. It relies heavily on volunteers to deliver meals.

• PORCH Chapel Hill-Carrboro — What started in 2010 as neighbors collecting food for needy residents has grown into a major local hunger-relief organization. PORCH, which serves Chapel Hill and Carrboro, has provided about $8 million in hunger relief to Orange County residents over the last decade and a half. PORCH’s Food for Families program supplies fresh food such as milk, eggs, fruit and vegetables to approximately 800 families with children affiliated with the Chapel Hill-Carrboro School System. Other PORCH programs include supply pantries across the county.

• Inter-Faith Council for Social Service — IFC describes itself as Orange County’s largest nonprofit social-safety-net provider. The organization delivers more than 60,000 hot meals annually to approximately 200 households a week. More than half of IFC’s funding already comes from private giving, and it says it needs to increase private support by 35%, from $1.5 million to $2.2 million over the next fiscal year to sustain its current demand for services.

• Farmer Foodshare — Farmer Foodshare attacks food insecurity from both ends of the food chain. Based in the Triangle, the organization helps people access fresh food while working with local farmers to create new markets. Farmer Foodshare purchases from more than 70 local farmers, supporting the local economy while working to reduce food insecurity throughout the region. Farmer Foodshare packs food boxes and distributes them through community partners. Over the past three years, Farmer Foodshare has returned more than $4 million to local farmers and contributed more than 3 million pounds of produce to the area’s emergency food system.

Housing — Chapel Hill’s defining nonprofit mission

• Community Home Trust — One of Chapel Hill’s most important affordable-housing nonprofits, Community Home Trust uses the community-land-trust model to create homes that remain affordable for years. This differs from the traditional market-price real estate model, where homes are resold for their present market value. Community Home Trust works with a variety of developers and construction firms to develop and steward affordable housing units throughout Chapel Hill and Orange County.

• EMPOWERment Inc. — EMPOWERment, Inc., celebrating its 20th anniversary in 2026, owns and manages more than 50 affordable rental units in Orange County and provides HUD-certified housing assistance to local residents. In 2025, EMPOWERment Inc. opened the PEACH Apartments, a crown jewel in the Chapel Hill affordable housing stock. PEACH Apartments, which includes 10 below-market-rate units, is located in Chapel Hill’s historically African-American Pine Knolls community.

• Habitat for Humanity of Orange County — Weavers Grove — Habitat for Humanity’s Weavers Grove project, which will include more than 200 homes upon final buildout, is one of the larger affordable housing projects in Chapel Hill’s recent history. The mixed-income development will include 102 Habitat homes, all intended for people who live or work in Orange County. Construction on Weavers Grove began in 2023 and is expected to continue for at least the next two years.

• Pee Wee Homes — Pee Wee Homes has brought the increasingly popular ‘small house’ concept to Orange County. A builder and manager of small, affordable and accessible homes, Pee Wee Homes markets to a wide range of residents, from those who have experienced homelessness to those who wish to live independently while remaining part of a supportive community.

• Hope Renovations — Hope Renovations, based in Chapel Hill, offers a popular free pre-apprenticeship program that helps prepare underemployed women and gender-expansive residents for careers in the construction trades, such as plumbing, welding, drywall installation and carpentry. Hope Renovations’ construction operation performs repairs and Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)- approved accessibility modifications that help older residents and people with disabilities remain safely in their homes and maintain higher levels of personal independence.

• Marian Cheek Jackson Center — Established in 2008 amid rapid demographic change in historically African-American Chapel Hill communities such as Northside and Pine Knolls, the Jackson Center has become deeply connected to the fight to preserve Chapel Hill’s historically Black neighborhoods. The Jackson Center’s work combines history and storytelling with neighborhood organization, advocacy for affordable housing policies, community events, and youth leadership opportunities.

• Triangle Land Conservancy — Since its founding in 1983, the Triangle Land Conservancy (TLC) has protected more than 27,000 acres of wild and working lands throughout the greater Chapel Hill region. TLC’s mission combines clean-water protection, wildlife habitat, local farms and public access to nature. The organization owns and manages eight free public nature preserves across the Triangle.

Kids, schools and extracurricular opportunities for children

• Chapel Hill-Carrboro Public School Foundation — Since the 1980s, the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Public School Foundation has raised funds to supplement the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City School System and its resources for students. The foundation funds teacher grants and professional development, along with scholarships, tutoring, field trips, enrichment programs, emergency assistance, literacy initiatives and other student programs.

• Boomerang Youth — Boomerang Youth serves students in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro and Orange County school districts, including an Alternative to Suspension program designed to keep suspended students academically and socially engaged, while also helping them successfully return to school.

• Volunteers for Youth — Serving Orange County for the last 45 years, Volunteers for Youth operates mentoring, community-service and Teen Court programs for area youths. Its mentoring program pairs young people with adults, while Teen Court offers first-time offender youths charged with minor offenses an alternative process to accept responsibility for their actions without facing long-term ramifications such as a felony conviction. Chapel Hill’s Town Council is a primary funding source for this organization.

• SKJAJA Fund — SKJAJA, a volunteer-driven nonprofit, provides scholarships for K-12 students in Orange County and helps cover costs for extracurricular activities such as music, sports and the arts. SKJAJA has served nearly 3,000 local students over the years and has provided more than a quarter million dollars in materials and funding for various activities. SKJAJA’s Play It Forward program also collects and refurbishes musical instruments for students who otherwise could not afford them.

Building an inclusive community

• B3 — Founded by three neurodivergent UNC-Chapel Hill students in 2018, B3 brings people with and without disabilities together through social, educational and vocational programs. The organization’s B3 Coffee kiosk inside the Chapel Hill Public Library operates as a transitional-employment program, where people with and without disabilities can work and learn together in a cohesive setting.

• El Centro Hispano — North Carolina’s largest Latino-led organization — has a strong presence in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro community. El Centro Hispano’s programs span education, workforce development, health and well-being, community assistance, economic development and civic participation.

Adam Powell has been a correspondent for The Local Reporter since 2023. A 2001 graduate of UNC-Chapel Hill, Powell has served as managing editor of multiple local publications, including the News of Orange County, the Mebane Enterprise, the Caswell Messenger, and the ACC Sports Journal. The author of four books. Adam currently resides in Mebane with his wife Julie and children Colt and Jenna. This reporter can be reached at:Information@TheLocal Reporter.press