Believe in Me
Seattle, WA · EIN 20-4830357. Reported 35 grants totalling $3,030,357 to 30 organizations across tax years 2021-2023, 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 Believe in Me, the IRS classifies it as a public foundation -- a grantmaker that raises its money from many sources rather than from one donor (NTEE T30).
- How spread out its giving is. 30 distinct organizations, with 82% of the dollars going to the largest single recipient. That is extreme concentration. A grantmaker sending three quarters of its money to one organization is in practice a support fund for that organization, whatever its classification says, and an unsolicited request is very unlikely to go anywhere.
- How much its list changes. 26% 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 $11,000. Half of what it reported fell between $10,000 and $18,000; the smallest was $8,000 and the largest $2,492,551. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Morning Star Boys Ranch | Spokane, WA | $2,492,551 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| The Jonah Project | El Segundo, CA | $64,253 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Embrace Washington | Spokane, WA | $53,000 | 2 | 2 | 2023 |
| Communities in Schools of Northeast Washington | Spokane, WA | $47,000 | 2 | 2 | 2022 |
| Melodic Caring Project | Mount Vernon, WA | $40,000 | 2 | 2 | 2023 |
| College Success Foundation | Bellevue, WA | $34,000 | 2 | 2 | 2022 |
| Odyssey Youth Center | Spokane, WA | $25,500 | 2 | 2 | 2022 |
| Spokane Angel Alliance | Spokane, WA | $21,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Family Promise of Spokane | Spokane, WA | $18,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Slingshot | Spokane, WA | $18,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Boys & Girls Club of Spokane County | Spokane Vly, WA | $15,053 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Rainier Athletes | Bellevue, WA | $15,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Young Womens Christian Association | Spokane, WA | $14,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Free Rein Therapeutic Riding | Spokane, WA | $13,500 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Isaac Foundation | Spokane, WA | $12,500 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Dishman Hills Conservancy | Spokane, WA | $11,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Playworks Education Energized | Oakland, CA | $11,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Boys and Girls Clubs of Snohomish County | Everett, WA | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Communities in Schools of Benton-Franklin | Kennewick, WA | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Family and Community Together | Portland, OR | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| First Judicial District CASA Program Inc | Coeur D Alene, ID | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Foster Hearts | Bellingham, WA | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Junior Achievement USA | Auburn, WA | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Lumen Public School | Spokane, WA | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Spokane Hoopfest Association | Spokane, WA | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Spokane Youth Symphony Inc | Spokane, WA | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Vanessa Behan | Spokane, WA | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Transitions | Spokane, WA | $9,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Bridge Music Project | Olympia, WA | $8,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Camp Fire | Spokane Vly, WA | $8,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
5 of 30 (17%) received money in more than one year over the 3 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 28 of 30 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 | 7 | $2,561,551 | $11,000 |
| 2022 | 23 | $416,806 | $12,500 |
| 2023 | 5 | $52,000 | $10,000 |
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
97% of its giving went to organizations in Washington. 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 $11,000 -- 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 Washington.
- 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 Believe in Me'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: 107 Spring St 2ND Floor, Seattle, WA, 98104.
EIN 20-4830357 · See the original filings on ProPublica · How we build this
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