Santa Barbara Bowl Foundation
Santa Barbara, CA · EIN 95-3618955. Reported 108 grants totalling $1,181,157 to 47 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 Santa Barbara Bowl Foundation, the IRS classifies it under recreation & sports rather than as a grantmaker (NTEE N99I) -- it is an operating charity that also makes grants.
- How spread out its giving is. 47 distinct organizations, with 8% 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. 74% of one year's grantees are funded again the next, across 3 year-to-year transitions. That is well above the 57% median for grantmaking charities, and above the 67% private foundations manage. This list is close to settled, so a newcomer has to displace someone rather than fill a gap.
How big are its grants?
The median reported grant is $9,477. Half of what it reported fell between $7,500 and $13,490; the smallest was $5,178 and the largest $33,500. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Scholarship Foundation of Santa Barbara | Santa Barbara, CA | $91,000 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| Childrens Creative Project | Santa Barbara, CA | $83,800 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| Santa Barbara Education Foundation | Santa Barbara, CA | $55,500 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| San Marcos High School Royal Band Boosters | Santa Barbara, CA | $48,500 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| Santa Barbara High School Theatre | Santa Barbara, CA | $47,000 | 6 | 2 | 2024 |
| Cabrillo High School Theater | Lompoc, CA | $46,542 | 4 | 3 | 2024 |
| Lights Up Theater | Santa Barbara, CA | $45,250 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| Royals Theatre Production Fund | Santa Barbara, CA | $44,000 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| Dos Pueblos Band Boosters | Goleta, CA | $41,560 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| The Turner Foundation - Since 1958 | Santa Barbara, CA | $41,455 | 3 | 3 | 2024 |
| A Compas Inc | Santa Barbara, CA | $39,500 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| PTA California Congress of Parents | Santa Barbara, CA | $37,400 | 3 | 3 | 2024 |
| Notes for Notes Incorporated | Santa Barbara, CA | $36,000 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| Infinite Music Foundation | Morro Bay, CA | $33,972 | 3 | 3 | 2024 |
| Santa Barbara Hs Band Booster Corp | Santa Barbara, CA | $29,000 | 2 | 2 | 2022 |
| Carpinteria Unified School District | Carpinteria, CA | $26,069 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Pioneer Valley High School | Santa Maria, CA | $25,990 | 3 | 2 | 2024 |
| Creative Netwerk | Astoria, NY | $25,000 | 3 | 3 | 2024 |
| Dos Pueblos High School Foundation | Goleta, CA | $25,000 | 3 | 3 | 2024 |
| Santa Barbara Dance Institute | Santa Barbara, CA | $23,000 | 3 | 3 | 2024 |
| Arts Mentorship Program Inc | Santa Barbara, CA | $22,500 | 3 | 3 | 2024 |
| Certain Sparks Music Foundation | Lompoc, CA | $21,908 | 2 | 2 | 2023 |
| Music Academy of the West | Santa Barbara, CA | $21,500 | 3 | 3 | 2024 |
| Santa Maria Philharmonic Society | Santa Maria, CA | $21,500 | 2 | 2 | 2023 |
| Santa Barbara Arts Collaborative Inc | Santa Barbara, CA | $21,300 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Santa Barbara Symphony Orchestra Association | Santa Barbara, CA | $19,000 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Lobero Theatre Foundation | Santa Barbara, CA | $18,000 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Washington School Parent-Teacher Organization | Westfield, NJ | $16,667 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| The Foundation for Santa Barbara City College | Santa Barbara, CA | $15,000 | 2 | 2 | 2023 |
| Orcutt Childrens Art Foundation Inc | Santa Maria, CA | $13,640 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Santa Barbara Festival Ballet | Santa Barbara, CA | $13,500 | 2 | 2 | 2023 |
| Pickleberry Pie Incorporated | Cheltenham, PA | $13,400 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Carpinteria Rotary Charitable Foundation | Carpinteria, CA | $11,729 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Community Partners | Los Angeles, CA | $10,900 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Buellton Union School District | Buellton, CA | $10,531 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Rockshop Academy | Santa Barbara, CA | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Girls Rock Sb | Santa Barbara, CA | $9,454 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Boxtales Theatre Company | Santa Barbara, CA | $9,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| PTA California Congress of Parents Teachers & Students Inc | Santa Barbara, CA | $7,997 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Franklin Elementary PTA | Santa Barbara, CA | $7,500 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Santa Barbara Strings | Santa Barbara, CA | $6,500 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Flamenco Arts Festival Inc | Santa Barbara, CA | $6,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Mosaic Therapy Collective | Santa Barbara, CA | $6,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Washington School Parent Teacher Organization and Foundation Inc | Santa Barbara, CA | $6,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Monte Vista Elementary PTA | Santa Barbara, CA | $5,500 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Star Jasmine Foundation | Santa Barbara, CA | $5,415 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Friends of the Carpinteria Public Library | Carpinteria, CA | $5,178 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
28 of 47 (60%) 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 kind of organizations it funds
By each recipient's own IRS classification, for the 32 of 47 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 | 18 | $172,840 | $8,350 |
| 2022 | 23 | $281,333 | $12,029 |
| 2023 | 29 | $318,978 | $9,454 |
| 2024 | 38 | $408,006 | $8,500 |
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
95% 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 $9,477 -- 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 Santa Barbara Bowl 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 38 section 501(c)(3) organizations and 0 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: 1122 North Milpas Street, Santa Barbara, CA, 93103.
EIN 95-3618955 · See the original filings on ProPublica · How we build this
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