Helena Area Community Foundation
Helena, MT · EIN 81-0536902. Reported 31 grants totalling $386,820 to 30 organizations across tax years 2022-2023, 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 Helena Area Community Foundation, the IRS classifies it as a community foundation (NTEE T31).
- How spread out its giving is. 30 distinct organizations, with 6% 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. 3% of one year's grantees are funded again the next, across 1 year-to-year transition. 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 $13,667. Half of what it reported fell between $10,000 and $14,000; the smallest was $5,500 and the largest $24,000. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Family Promise of Greater Helena Inc | Helena, MT | $24,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Region IV Family Outreach Inc | Helena, MT | $19,475 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Explorationworks Inc | Helena, MT | $17,670 | 2 | 2 | 2023 |
| Broadwater Productions Inc | Helena, MT | $14,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| First Judicial District CASA-Gal Program Inc | Helena, MT | $14,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Florence Crittenton Home & Services | Helena, MT | $14,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Friendship Center of Helena Inc | Helena, MT | $14,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Good Samaritan Ministries Series 900 LLC | Helena, MT | $14,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Habitat for Humanity International Inc | Helena, MT | $14,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Intermountain Deaconess Childrens Services | Helena, MT | $14,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Montana Budget and Policy Center | Helena, MT | $14,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Montana Legal Services Association | Helena, MT | $14,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Montana Preservation Alliance Inc | Helena, MT | $14,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Shodair Childrens Foundation | Helena, MT | $14,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| The Myrna Loy | Helena, MT | $14,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Young Womens Christian Assn | Helena, MT | $14,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Big Brothers Big Sisters of Central Montana | Helena, MT | $13,667 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Prickly Pear Land Trust | Helena, MT | $13,050 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Holter Museum of Art Inc | Helena, MT | $12,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Musikanten Inc | Clancy, MT | $11,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Archie Bray Foundation | Helena, MT | $10,598 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Healthy Mothers Healthy Babies the Montana Coalition Inc | Helena, MT | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Helena Food Share Inc | Helena, MT | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Lewis & Clark Humane Society | Helena, MT | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Queen City Ballet Company | Helena, MT | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| The Angel Fund | Helena, MT | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| United Way of the Lewis and Clark Area | Helena, MT | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Helena Symphony | Helena, MT | $9,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Cohesion Dance Project | Helena, MT | $8,860 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Merlin Mediation Counseling & Consult Inc | Helena, MT | $5,500 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
1 of 30 (3%) received money in more than one year over the 2 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.
- Family Promise of Greater Helena
TO HELP NONPROFITS RECOVER FINANCIALLY FROM THE COVID PANDEMIC
What kind of organizations it funds
By each recipient's own IRS classification, for the 22 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 30 | $379,260 | $13,833 |
| 2023 | 1 | $7,560 | $7,560 |
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
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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 $13,667 -- 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 Montana.
- 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 Helena Area Community Foundation'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: 27 Neill Ave Suite 102, Helena, MT, 59601.
EIN 81-0536902 · See the original filings on ProPublica · How we build this
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