Grantmakers › Virginia

Firstspark Inc

Newport News, VA · EIN 20-1421876. Reported 62 grants totalling $6,671,282 to 38 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:

1. What kind of organization it is. For Firstspark Inc, the IRS classifies it under education rather than as a grantmaker (NTEE B21) -- it is an operating charity that also makes grants.
2. How spread out its giving is. 38 distinct organizations, with 15% 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.
3. How much its list changes. 67% of one year's grantees are funded again the next, across 3 year-to-year transitions. That is about the 57% median for grantmaking charities -- noticeably lower than the 67% private foundations manage. Organizations like this one rotate more of their list each year, which is where an opening for a newcomer tends to be.

How big are its grants?

The median reported grant is $58,520. Half of what it reported fell between $15,000 and $160,159; the smallest was $775 and the largest $590,972. If you are asking for materially more than the top of that range, you are asking the wrong organization.

5 of those grants were non-cash -- goods, property or services worth $4,659 in total. In-kind giving is real support but it is not a cheque.

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.

18 of 38 (47%) 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.

• Peake Child Development Center $590,972 · 2023
  CHILD CARE SLOT PAYMENT/OUTDOOR LEARNING
• City of Newport News Parks & Recreation $362,820 · 2020
  GRANTS WERE AWARDED TO CHILD CARE PROVIDERS TO CREATE ADDITIONAL SLOTS FOR CHILDREN, SITE RENOVATIONS, AND MATERIALS/EQUIPMENT NEEDED TO ENHANCE LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS.
• Hampton Roads International Montessori School - Jefferson $259,971 · 2022
  CHILD CARE SLOT PAYMENT/EQUIPMENT/MATERIALS
• City of Newport News Parks & Rec $66,708 · 2021
  GRANTS FOR SALARY BONUS, SCHOLARSHIPS AND SLOT PAYMENTS
• Faith Child Care Center $24,921 · 2021
  GRANTS FOR SALARY BONUS, SCHOLARSIHPS AND SLOT PAYMENTS
• Little Light House Care LLC - Nn $17,357 · 2021
  GRANTS FOR SLARY BONUS, SCHOLARSHIPS AND SLOT PAYMENTS

What kind of organizations it funds

By each recipient's own IRS classification, for the 3 of 38 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 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

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

1. 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.
2. Check you are its size. The median reported grant is $58,520 -- and because grants under $5,000 need not be reported, it very likely writes smaller cheques than this page can see.
3. Check you are in its geography. Its giving concentrates in Virginia.
4. 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 Firstspark Inc'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.

Address of record on the latest return: 11832 Canon Boulevard F, Newport News, VA, 23606.

EIN 20-1421876 · See the original filings on ProPublica · How we build this

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