Grantmakers › California

The San Diego Foundation

San Diego, CA · EIN 95-2942582. Reported 5,139 grants totalling $554.5M to 2,148 organizations across tax years 2020-2024, 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:

1. What kind of organization it is. For The San Diego Foundation, the IRS classifies it as a community foundation (NTEE T310).
2. How spread out its giving is. 2,148 distinct organizations, with 5% 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. 66% 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 $25,000. Half of what it reported fell between $10,500 and $75,000; the smallest was $5,004 and the largest $19.7M. If you are asking for materially more than the top of that range, you are asking the wrong organization.

Every organization it funded

All 2,148 recipients appear in its filings; the 250 largest are listed here. Years funded is the number of separate tax years in which the organization received a reported grant.

1,134 of 2,148 (53%) 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.

• Regents of the University of California at San Diego $19.7M · 2023
  STUDENT FINANCIAL AID AT UC SAN DIEGO AND SCRIPPS INSTITUTION OF OCEANOGRAPHY
• UC San Diego Foundation $13.4M · 2021
  FOR THE HALICIOGLU DATA SCIENCE INSTITUTE AT UC SAN DIEGO TO BE USED FOR PURPOSES STATED IN THE AGREEMENT DATED DECEMBER 12, 2017 BETWEEN THE SAN DIEGO FOUNDATION, THE HALICIOGLU FAMILY FOUNDATION, UCSD, AND THE UCSD FOUNDATION. THIS IS A GRANT BY AN OTHER INTERESTED PARTY AS REFERRED TO IN SUCH AGREEMENT
• YMCA of San Diego County $13.3M · 2020
  TO SUPPORT THE SUMMERBRIDGE PROGRAM
• Southwestern Community College District $7,961,000 · 2021
  TO SUPPORT THE SBDC FOR THE CITY OF SAN DIEGO AMERICAN RESCUE PLAN FUND DIRECT GRANTS FOR SMALL BUSINESS AND NONPROFIT RELIEF GRANT PROGRAM PER AGREEMENT. APPROVED AT BOG MEETING 9/23/21.
• Campanile Foundation $7,040,756 · 2021
  TO ESTABLISH THE JAMES SILBERRAD BROWN ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE CENTER
• Salk Institute for Biological Studies $6,832,445 · 2021
  FOR THE CAMPAIGN FOR THE FUTURE CHALLENGE MATCH

What kind of organizations it funds

By the activity category the IRS assigns each recipient, for the 1,733 of 2,148 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 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

87% 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.

Down to the city

Foundations that fund only organizations they pick gave to this one

63 private foundations that told the IRS they contribute only to organizations they select themselves reported 139 grants totalling $18.5M to The San Diego Foundation. That is 45% of the 139 funders we can see giving to it. Those 63 foundations do not take unsolicited requests -- their own returns say so. The IRS classifies this organization as a community foundation.

26 of them gave in more than one tax year, which is the only durability signal the filings carry.

What that does not mean. It does not mean an application here reaches that money. A grant from a closed foundation is often a designated gift or a donor-advised fund earmarked by whoever gave it, and has nothing to do with any open programme this organization runs. Neither tax return says which, so neither do we. The list below is who put money in. It is not a route to it.

The 10 largest by reported dollars, of 63.

A linked name has a page of its own. We publish one for a foundation that takes no unsolicited requests only when a real share of its giving goes to organizations that make grants themselves, and that page opens by saying it does not take requests.

Both the count and the total are floors. A foundation appears here only where its return named this organization clearly enough for us to match the name to an EIN, which we manage for about two thirds of 990-PF grant rows. There are more; we cannot name them.

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

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 $25,000 -- 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

Where these numbers come from

Everything above is taken from The San Diego Foundation's own Form 990 Schedule I filings, which the IRS publishes in bulk. We used 5 returns (tax years 2020-2024). 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 1,157 section 501(c)(3) organizations and 1 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: 2508 Historic Decatur Road 200, San Diego, CA, 92106.

EIN 95-2942582 · See the original filings on ProPublica · How we build this

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