GrantmakersCalifornia

Imperial Valley Community Foundation

El Centro, CA · EIN 33-0681176. Reported 39 grants totalling $720,320 to 26 organizations across tax years 2021-2024, on Form 990 Schedule I.

26organizations funded
$10,000median reported grant
$720,320granted, 2021-2024
40%of grantees funded again the next year
14%of dollars to its largest recipient

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 Imperial Valley Community Foundation, the IRS classifies it as a philanthropic organization (NTEE T99).
  2. How spread out its giving is. 26 distinct organizations, with 14% 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. 40% 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 $10,000. Half of what it reported fell between $8,000 and $18,433; the smallest was $5,250 and the largest $100,000. If you are asking for materially more than the top of that range, you are asking the wrong organization.

Schedule I only reports grants over $5,000. Form 990 requires a charity to list recipients it paid more than that and lets it omit the rest, so every grant-size figure on this page describes the grants it reported, not all of them. Its real median is lower and its real recipient count is higher. This is also why these numbers cannot be compared with the private-foundation figures elsewhere on this site -- Form 990-PF has no reporting floor, so the two are different populations rather than two samples of one.
$5,000 - $10,000
14 grants
$10,000 - $25,000
20 grants
$25,000 - $50,000
2 grants
$50,000 - $100,000
1 grant
$100,000 - $250,000
2 grants

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.

OrganizationLocationTotal receivedGrantsYears fundedLast
Autism Imperial CountyEl Centro, CA$100,000112024
Calipatria Unified School DisCalipatria, CA$100,000112024
Pacific Coast Conservation AlliancePaso Robles, CA$72,502442024
Calipatria Unified School DisCalipatria, CA$60,000112023
Calipatria High SchoolCalipatria, CA$42,735112023
Republic Services #467Phoenix, AZ$37,341332023
Imperial Valley Food BankImperial, CA$32,365112022
Imperial Valley College FoundationImperial, CA$29,820222024
Imperial Valley Trails and Land ConservancyPaso Robles, CA$29,028222024
Imperial Valley Regional Chamber of CommerceEl Centro, CA$24,979112022
Court Appointed Special Advocates of Imperial County IncEl Centro, CA$24,900332024
Imperial Unified School DistrImperial, CA$20,000222024
Grand Canyon UniversityPhoenix, AZ$18,000222024
Imperial County Historical SocietyImperial, CA$17,600222024
California Polytechnic StatePomona, CA$15,000112024
San Diego State UniversitySan Diego, CA$14,050222024
City of CalipatriaCalipatria, CA$12,500112024
Best Step Forward Calip PalCalipatria, CA$10,000112021
Imperial Valley Desert Museum Society IncEl Centro, CA$10,000112021
Imperial County Selpa CofEl Centro, CA$10,000112023
Soroptimist International of the Americas IncEl Centro, CA$10,000112023
San Diego State University FoundationSan Diego, CA$7,000112024
Best S T E P ForwardCalipatria, CA$6,000112023
Little League Baseball IncEl Centro, CA$5,750112024
University of Calif - DavisSacramento, CA$5,500112024
Heber Public Utility DistrictHeber, CA$5,250112024

9 of 26 (35%) 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.

What kind of organizations it funds

By each recipient's own IRS classification, for the 9 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.

Education
3 orgs
Environment
2 orgs
Diseases & Disorders
1 org
Civil Rights
1 org
Crime & Legal
1 org
Human Services
1 org

Giving by year

Tax yearGrants reportedTotalMedian grant
20215$56,682$10,000
20228$122,995$14,209
202310$180,806$10,160
202416$359,837$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

92% 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.

California
$665K
Arizona
$55K

Down to the city

Calipatria, CA
$231K
El Centro, CA
$186K
Paso Robles, CA
$102K
Imperial, CA
$100K
Phoenix, AZ
$55K
San Diego, CA
$21K

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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.

Berkshire Hathaway Energy Foundation4 shared recipientsCatalyst of San Diego & Imperial Counties4 shared recipientsFidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund4 shared recipientsEnterprise Holdings Foundation4 shared recipientsThe San Diego Foundation4 shared recipientsSan Diego Imperial Counties3 shared recipients

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 $10,000 -- 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 California.
  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.

Related guides

Foundations funding education in CaliforniaEvery funder in this group, rankedFoundations funding environment in CaliforniaEvery funder in this group, ranked

Where these numbers come from

Everything above is taken from Imperial Valley 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.

On its most recent return it told the IRS it made grants to 10 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: Po Box 2739, El Centro, CA, 92244.

EIN 33-0681176 · See the original filings on ProPublica · How we build this

This is history, not an open call. Form 990 is published about a year after the tax year it covers. Nothing on this page is a deadline. It is a record of who this organization has actually funded, which is the best available predictor of who it will fund next.

Is something here wrong about your organization? Email hello@funderscope.com and we will correct it.