Center for Asian American Media
San Francisco, CA · EIN 94-2801493. Reported 54 grants totalling $1,688,876 to 51 organizations across tax years 2020-2023, 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 Center for Asian American Media, the IRS classifies it under arts & culture rather than as a grantmaker (NTEE A30Z) -- it is an operating charity that also makes grants.
- How spread out its giving is. 51 distinct organizations, with 12% 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. 17% of one year's grantees are funded again the next, across 3 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 $20,000. Half of what it reported fell between $10,000 and $40,000; the smallest was $7,000 and the largest $175,000. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| WGBH Educational Foundation | Brighton, MA | $197,000 | 2 | 2 | 2022 |
| Film Exchange | Los Angeles, CA | $100,000 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Rose Pak Community Fund | San Francisco, CA | $100,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Chol Soo Lee Documentary LLC | Torrance, CA | $83,376 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Asian and Pacific Islander American Vote Inc | Washington, DC | $75,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Axs Lab Inc | Long Island City, NY | $60,000 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| This Is How It Ends LLC | Baltimore, MD | $60,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Firelight Media Inc | New York, NY | $52,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Latino Public Broadcasting | Studio City, CA | $50,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Oyster Films LLC | Brooklyn, NY | $50,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Public Media Group of Southern California | Burbank, CA | $50,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Talkstory LLC | Forest Hills, NY | $50,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| The Golden Screen Series LLC | Los Angeles, CA | $50,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| American Documentary Inc | Brooklyn, NY | $45,000 | 3 | 3 | 2023 |
| Asian Ballers LLC | Cerritos, CA | $40,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Diaspora Arts Connection | Pleasant Hill, CA | $40,000 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Fanp LLC | Decatur, GA | $40,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Shj Productions LLC | Watertown, MA | $40,000 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Anchor Pictures Inc | Los Angeles, CA | $30,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Spirited Films LLC | North Mn, MN | $30,000 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Windy Films | El Cerrito, CA | $30,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Anchor Pictures Inc | Los Angeles, CA | $27,500 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Detroit Public Media | Wixom, MI | $25,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Good Medicine Picture Collc | San Francisco, CA | $25,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Bay Area Video Coalition | San Francisco, CA | $20,000 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Farallon Documentary Films Inc | Berkeley, CA | $20,000 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Flash Cuts | Los Angeles, CA | $20,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Home Is a Hotel LLC | Oakland, CA | $20,000 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Intersection Films LLC | Los Angeles, CA | $20,000 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Making Waves Films LLC | Honolulu, HI | $20,000 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Real Talkies LLC | New York, NY | $20,000 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund Inc | Washington, DC | $20,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Asian Ballers LLC | Cerritos, CA | $15,000 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Nuoc Pictures LLC | Los Angeles, CA | $15,000 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Walking Iris Media | San Francisco, CA | $15,000 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Misc Small Grants | San Francisco, CA | $14,000 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| American Documentary Inc | Brooklyn, NY | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Common Counsel Foundation | Oakland, CA | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Kenneth Eng Films LLC | Los Angeles, CA | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| PBS-Nc | Research Triang, NC | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Bahm Hanul LLC | Lawrenceville, GA | $7,500 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Center for Independent Documentary Inc | Cambridge, MA | $7,500 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Fire Work Media LLC | Philadelphia, PA | $7,500 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Patrick G Lee LLC | New York, NY | $7,500 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Unc-Tv | Research Triang, NC | $7,500 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Unseen Documentary LLC | Panorama City, CA | $7,500 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Alabama Educational Televisio | Birmingham, AL | $7,000 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Arkansas Educational Televisi | Conway, AR | $7,000 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Foundation for Excellence | Baton Rouge, LA | $7,000 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| South Florida PBS Inc | Boynton Beach, FL | $7,000 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Unc-Tv | Research Triang, NC | $7,000 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
2 of 51 (4%) 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 the money was for
Taken verbatim from the purpose column of its filings, largest first. This is the closest thing to a statement of what it funds, in its own words.
- Latnio Public Broadcasting
partially fund film for public tv - Farallon Documentary Films
Film Production & Develop Grant - Ctr for Indep Documentary Inc
Film Production & Develop
What kind of organizations it funds
By each recipient's own IRS classification, for the 13 of 51 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 29 | $652,376 | $15,000 |
| 2021 | 11 | $509,500 | $25,000 |
| 2022 | 6 | $162,000 | $23,500 |
| 2023 | 8 | $365,000 | $50,000 |
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
48% of its giving went to organizations in California. 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 $20,000 -- 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 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 Center for Asian American Media'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.
On its most recent return it told the IRS it made grants to 2 section 501(c)(3) organizations and 6 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: 145 9TH Street 350, San Francisco, CA, 94103.
EIN 94-2801493 · See the original filings on ProPublica · How we build this
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