Avenue Greenlight
San Francisco, CA · EIN 86-2945144. Reported 37 grants totalling $3,226,149 to 26 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. 26 distinct organizations, with 59% of the dollars going to the largest single recipient. That is concentrated. Most of the money has a settled destination, and the remainder is what is realistically in play.
- How much its list changes. 35% of one year's grantees are funded again the next, across 2 year-to-year transitions. That is below the 57% median for grantmaking charities, and well below the 67% private foundations manage. A list that turns over this much is one a newcomer can realistically join.
How big are its grants?
The median reported grant is $48,650. Half of what it reported fell between $25,000 and $50,469; the smallest was $5,082 and the largest $1,388,715. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Avenue Greenlight | San Francisco, CA | $1,895,999 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Outer Sunset Merchant and Professional Assoc | San Francisco, CA | $178,168 | 4 | 1 | 2022 |
| Bayview Merchants Association | San Francisco, CA | $95,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Potrero Dogpatch Merchants Association | San Francisco, CA | $77,500 | 2 | 2 | 2022 |
| Hayes Valley Merchants Association | San Francisco, CA | $55,082 | 2 | 2 | 2022 |
| Chinatown Merchants Association | San Francisco, CA | $55,000 | 2 | 2 | 2022 |
| Dogpatch & Northwest Potrero Hill Green Benefit District | San Francisco, CA | $55,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Fillmore Merchants & Improvement Association | San Francisco, CA | $55,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Glen Park Merchants Association | San Francisco, CA | $55,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Inner Sunset Merchants Association | San Francisco, CA | $55,000 | 2 | 2 | 2022 |
| Union Street Association Inc | San Francisco, CA | $55,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| West Portal Merchants Association Inc | San Francisco, CA | $55,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Valencia Corridor Merchants Assoc | San Francisco, CA | $54,999 | 2 | 2 | 2022 |
| Merchants of Upper Market Inc | San Francisco, CA | $50,469 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Balboa Village Merchants Association | San Francisco, CA | $50,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Haight Ashbury Merchants Association Inc | San Francisco, CA | $50,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Mission Merchants Association Incorporated | San Francisco, CA | $50,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Nihonmachi Merchants Association of San Francisco | San Francisco, CA | $50,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| North of Market Tenderloin Community Benefit Corporation | San Francisco, CA | $50,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Eomm Inc | San Francisco, CA | $48,650 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Fishermans Wharf Merchants Assoc Baccari & Associates | San Francisco, CA | $37,713 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Lower Haight Merchants and Neighbors Assoc | San Francisco, CA | $27,069 | 2 | 2 | 2022 |
| Good Stuff Partners LLC | Sausalito, CA | $26,500 | 2 | 2 | 2022 |
| Potrero Hill Neighborhood House Incorporated | San Francisco, CA | $25,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| San Francisco Council of District Merchants Association | San Francisco, CA | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| South of Market Business Assoc | San Francisco, CA | $9,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
8 of 26 (31%) 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 12 of 26 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 | 10 | $339,133 | $39,684 |
| 2022 | 25 | $991,017 | $48,168 |
| 2023 | 1 | $1,388,715 | $1,388,715 |
| 2024 | 1 | $507,284 | $507,284 |
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
Find more funders like Avenue Greenlight
We read newly filed IRS returns and email you the grantmakers whose giving matches your state and cause, as they are published. Free.
No spam, unsubscribe in one click. We never sell or share your address.
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 $48,650 -- 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 California.
- 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 Avenue Greenlight'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.
On its most recent return it told the IRS it made grants to 16 section 501(c)(3) organizations and 10 other organizations. That is the filer's own count for one year; the totals above cover every year we hold.
Address of record on the latest return: 58 West Portal Ave, San Francisco, CA, 94127.
EIN 86-2945144 · See the original filings on ProPublica · How we build this
Is something here wrong about your organization? Email hello@funderscope.com and we will correct it.