Merritt Community Capital
Oakland, CA · EIN 94-3099401. Reported 69 grants totalling $2,340,623 to 41 organizations across tax years 2021-2024, 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 Merritt Community Capital, the IRS classifies it under housing & shelter rather than as a grantmaker (NTEE L99Z) -- it is an operating charity that also makes grants.
- How spread out its giving is. 41 distinct organizations, with 32% 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. 55% of one year's grantees are funded again the next, across 2 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 $20,000. Half of what it reported fell between $10,000 and $30,000; the smallest was $6,500 and the largest $250,000. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Local Initiatives Support Corporation | New York, NY | $750,000 | 3 | 3 | 2024 |
| National Association of State and Local Equity Funds | Detroit, MI | $162,857 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Non-Profit Housing Association of Northern California | San Francisco, CA | $120,000 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Housing California | Sacramento, CA | $117,563 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Pep Housing | Santa Rosa, CA | $100,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| California Coalition for Rural Housing Project | Sacramento, CA | $95,000 | 3 | 3 | 2024 |
| California Housing Partnership | San Francisco, CA | $90,000 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| California Housing Consortium | Agoura Hills, CA | $80,000 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| University of California Berkeley Foundation | Berkeley, CA | $80,000 | 3 | 3 | 2024 |
| San Diego Housing Federation | San Diego, CA | $70,000 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Southern California Association of Non-Profit Housing Inc | Los Angeles, CA | $60,000 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| The University Corporation San Francisco State | San Francisco, CA | $53,434 | 3 | 1 | 2021 |
| California State University Sacramento | Sacramento, CA | $50,000 | 3 | 3 | 2024 |
| Enterprise Community Partners Inc | Columbia, MD | $45,000 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| California State University Long Beach | Long Beach, CA | $40,000 | 3 | 3 | 2024 |
| U C San Diego Foundation | La Jolla, CA | $38,231 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| California State University - Northridge Foundation | Northridge, CA | $30,000 | 2 | 2 | 2023 |
| U C Santa Cruz Foundation | Santa Cruz, CA | $30,000 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| University of California Irvine Foundation | Irvine, CA | $30,000 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| The Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University | Stanford, CA | $21,038 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Cal Poly Pomona Foundation Inc | Pomona, CA | $20,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| California State University Fresno Foundation | Fresno, CA | $20,000 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| California State University Los Angeles Foundation | Los Angeles, CA | $20,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Regents of the University of California | Oakland, CA | $20,000 | 2 | 2 | 2023 |
| Regents Univ of California | Los Angeles, CA | $20,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| San Jose State University Research Foundation | San Jose, CA | $20,000 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| The Regents of the University of California Davis | Davis, CA | $20,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Kennedy Commission | Irvine, CA | $12,500 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| The Housing Partnership Network Inc | Boston, MA | $12,500 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| California Polytechnic State University Foundation | San Luis Obispo, CA | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| California State University East Bay Foundation Inc | Hayward, CA | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Midwestern State University Foundation Inc | Wichita Falls, TX | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| San Francisco State University Foundation | San Francisco, CA | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| The Tower Foundation of San Jose State University | San Jose, CA | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| The UCLA Foundation | Los Angeles, CA | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| University of San Diego | San Diego, CA | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| University of San Francisco | San Francisco, CA | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| University of Southern California | Los Angeles, CA | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Sv Home | San Jose, CA | $8,500 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Bay Area Council | San Francisco, CA | $7,500 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Consortium for Housing and Asset Management Inc | Baltimore, MD | $6,500 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
21 of 41 (51%) 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.
- Lisc La
HDTI PROGRAM IMPLEMENTATION - Pep Housing
DONATION TO ADVANCE THEIR MISSION - National Association of State and Local Equity Funds
AFFORDABLE HOUSING EDUCATION - Non-Profit Housing Association of Northern California
INVESTING IN AFFORDABLE HOUSING - California Housing Partnership Corporation
EQUITY POLICY RESEARCH FELLOWSHIP - Enterprise Community Partners Inc
AFFORDABLE HOUSING DEVELOPMENT
What kind of organizations it funds
By each recipient's own IRS classification, for the 32 of 41 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 | 3 | $53,434 | $14,000 |
| 2022 | 17 | $575,000 | $10,000 |
| 2023 | 23 | $826,794 | $20,000 |
| 2024 | 26 | $885,395 | $20,000 |
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
58% 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.
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Where these numbers come from
Everything above is taken from Merritt Community Capital'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: 1901 Harrison Street 1650, Oakland, CA, 94612.
EIN 94-3099401 · See the original filings on ProPublica · How we build this
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