Spirit Level Foundation
San Diego, CA · EIN 33-0798749. Reported 59 grants totalling $2,138,769 to 24 organizations across tax years 2021-2025, 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 Spirit Level Foundation, the IRS classifies it as a public foundation -- a grantmaker that raises its money from many sources rather than from one donor (NTEE T30Z).
- How spread out its giving is. 24 distinct organizations, with 25% 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. 50% of one year's grantees are funded again the next, across 4 year-to-year transitions. That is about the 56% median for grantmaking charities -- lower than the 67% median for private foundations. It describes the organizations it already funds, not whether it would consider a new one.
How big are its grants?
The median reported grant is $20,000. Half of what it reported fell between $11,000 and $41,000; the smallest was $6,500 and the largest $450,000. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Orange Coast Uu Church | Costa Mesa, CA | $533,900 | 4 | 4 | 2025 |
| Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of San Dieguito | Solana Beach, CA | $403,000 | 4 | 4 | 2025 |
| First Uu Church of San Diego | San Diego, CA | $190,990 | 4 | 4 | 2025 |
| Orange Coast Uu Church | Costa Mesa, CA | $159,500 | 3 | 3 | 2023 |
| Uu Comm Church of Sta Monica | Santa Monica, CA | $123,875 | 5 | 5 | 2025 |
| Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of the Conejo Valley | Thousand Oaks, CA | $109,425 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| Pacific Unitarian Church | Rch Palos Vrd, CA | $84,000 | 2 | 2 | 2023 |
| Chalice Unitarian Universalist Congregation | Escondido, CA | $82,550 | 4 | 4 | 2025 |
| Monte Vista Unitarian Universalist Congregation | Montclair, CA | $78,000 | 4 | 4 | 2025 |
| Unitarian Universalist Church of Long Beach California | Long Beach, CA | $58,305 | 3 | 3 | 2024 |
| Neighborhood Uu Church | Pasadena, CA | $41,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Palomar Unitarian Universalist | Vista, CA | $37,864 | 2 | 2 | 2023 |
| Tapestry a Unitarian Universalist Congregation | Lake Forest, CA | $37,085 | 3 | 3 | 2025 |
| Throop Uu Church | Pasadena, CA | $35,500 | 3 | 3 | 2025 |
| Uu of Santa Clarita Valley | Santa Clarita, CA | $25,000 | 2 | 2 | 2022 |
| Unitarian Universalist Church of | Rancho Mirage, CA | $24,400 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Uu Church of Laguna Beach | Laguna Beach, CA | $21,500 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Unitarian Universalist Church of Ventura County | Ventura, CA | $20,700 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Uu Church of Studio City | Studio City, CA | $20,110 | 2 | 2 | 2022 |
| First Unitarian Church of Los Angeles | Los Angeles, CA | $15,500 | 2 | 2 | 2022 |
| Unitarian Society Los Angeles West | Los Angeles, CA | $11,300 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Uu Church of Santa Paula | Santa Paula, CA | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Unitarian Universalist Society of the Verdugo Hills | La Crescenta, CA | $8,265 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| The Unitarian Universalist Church in Fullerton | Fullerton, CA | $7,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
16 of 24 (67%) received money in more than one year over the 5 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.
- Uu Fellowship of San Dieguito
Parking lot emergency turn-around - First Uu Church of San Diego
ESSENTIAL & INTERN MINISTER NEED - Orange Coast Uu Church
ESSENTIAL FUND FOR NEW SANCTUARY - Chalice Uu Congregation
SOLENERGY, MULTIMEDIA, VOTE - Chalice Uu Fellowship
ONLINE SERVICE & OUTREACH - Uu Church of Ventura
ESSENTIAL AND VOTE SUPPORT
What kind of organizations it funds
By the activity category the IRS assigns each recipient, for the 3 of 24 recipients we could match to a registered organization. The categories are the IRS's, not ours -- 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 | 21 | $591,690 | $14,200 |
| 2022 | 15 | $299,246 | $12,500 |
| 2023 | 8 | $315,514 | $33,882 |
| 2024 | 7 | $193,962 | $32,275 |
| 2025 | 8 | $738,357 | $18,200 |
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 a sign of overlapping priorities and nothing more: they do not show that any of these funders would consider a new organization. Each page says what its filings show.
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.
Related guides
Where these numbers come from
Everything above is taken from Spirit Level Foundation's own Form 990 Schedule I filings, which the IRS publishes in bulk. We used 5 returns (tax years 2021-2025). Grant figures are from its returns. Recipient classifications, the concentration and retention figures and the funders that support the same organizations are our own calculations from them, described in how we build this.
On its most recent return it told the IRS it made grants to 8 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: 6309 Cypress Point Road, San Diego, CA, 92120.
EIN 33-0798749 · See the original filings on ProPublica · How we build this
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