Grantmakers › California

The San Francisco Foundation

San Francisco, CA · EIN 01-0679337. Reported 7,671 grants totalling $976.6M to 3,298 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 Francisco Foundation, the IRS classifies it as a public foundation -- a grantmaker that raises its money from many sources rather than from one donor (NTEE T30).
2. How spread out its giving is. 3,298 distinct organizations, with 4% 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. 65% 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 $27,000. Half of what it reported fell between $12,000 and $88,000; the smallest was $5,095 and the largest $34.7M. If you are asking for materially more than the top of that range, you are asking the wrong organization.

Every organization it funded

All 3,298 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.

1,781 of 3,298 (54%) 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.

• Goldman Sachs Philanthropy Fund $34.7M · 2021
  ADVISED - FOR THE PICHAI FAMILY FUND
• East Bay Community Foundation $21.1M · 2024
  FOR GENERAL AND PROJECT SUPPORT
• UC Berkeley Foundation $12.6M · 2023
  FOR UC BERKELEY GRADUATE SCHOOL OF JOURNALISM. TO SUPPORT THE UNDOCUMENTED STUDENT PROGRAM. TO SUPPORT THE UC REGENTS, CAL PERFORMANCES SHENSON CONCERTS. TO SUPPORT THE DREAMERS (UNDOCUMENTED STUDENTS PROGRAM). TO SUPPORT THE CENTER FOR NONPROFIT AND PUBLIC LEADERSHIP AT THE HAAS SCHOOL OF BUSINESS. TO SUPPORT MULTIPLE PURPOSES AND PROJECTS. THE BIG GIFT MATCH. GENERAL SUPPORT FOR BERKELEY ART MUSEUM AND FILM ARCHIVE (BAMPFA). FOR UNRESTRICTED GENERAL SUPPORT AT THE DISCRETION OF THE CHANCELLOR. FOR UNDERGRADUATE SCHOLARSHIPS. FOR THE UNDOCUMENTED STUDENTS PROGRAM. FOR THE UNDERGROUND SCHOLARS INITIATIVE. FOR THE TRANSFER SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM. FOR THE RE-ENTRY SCHOLARSHIPS PROGRAM. FOR THE RAUSSER COLLEGE OF NATURAL RESOURCE AT UC BERKELEY. FOR THE POLICY ADVOCACY CLINIC FUND AT UCB LAW SCHOOL. FOR THE OSCAR AND THEODORE GEBALLE SCHOLAR-ATHLETE AWARD. FOR THE MAGNES COLLECTION OF JEWISH ART AND LIFE. FOR THE LIGHT THE WAY CAPITAL CAMPAIGN FOR THE HAAS SCHOLARS PROGRAM. FOR THE JEFF MACK
• University of California Berkeley Foundation $11.8M · 2020
  ADVISED - TO SUPPORT THE CLASS OF 1984 SCHOLARSHIP. ADVISED - IN SUPPORT OF VARIOUS INITIATIVES AND FUNDS, ADVISED - IN SUPPORT OF THE MBB EXCELLENCE FUND. ADVISED - FUNDS FOR THE UC BOTANICAL GARDEN IN SUPPORT OF HORTICULTURAL STAFF. ADVISED - FOR VARIOUS SCHOLARSHIPS FUNDS AND PROGRAMS, ADVISED - FOR UNRESTRICTED GENERAL SUPPORT AT THE DISCRETION OF CHANCELLOR CHRIST. ADVISED - FOR UNDERGRADUATE SCHOLARSHIPS. ADVISED - FOR THE UNDOCUMENTED STUDENT PROGRAM ON MENTAL HEALTH IN SUPPORT OF THE WORK CURRENTLY PERFORMED BY LICENSED PSYCHOLOGIST DIANA PENA FOR THE 2020-2021 ACADEMIC YEAR. ADVISED - FOR THE SAM DUBAL FELLOWSHIP, ADVISED - FOR THE INCENTIVE AWARDS PROGRAM. ADVISED - FOR THE HAAS SCHOLARS PROGRAM ENDOWMENT. ADVISED - FOR THE HAAS FAMILY FIAT LUX SCHOLARSHIP MATCHING FUND. ADVISED - FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF CIVIL AND ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING FUND, ADVISED - FOR THE COLLEGE OF LETTERS AND SCIENCE L&S LEADERSHIP FUND -- BIG GIVE. ADVISED - FOR SUPPORT OF THE TERNER CENTER. ADVISED
• New Profit Inc $10.0M · 2021
  ADVISED - TO INVEST DOLLARS AND TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE (TA) IN DIVERSE-LED NONPROFITS WORKING TO CREATE ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITIES IN COMMUNITIES OF COLOR IN PRIORITY CITIES.
• San Francisco Housing Accelerator Fund $9,000,000 · 2021
  ADVISED - FOR GENERAL SUPPORT. ADVISED - FOR R&D AND GENERAL OPERATING SUPPORT.

What kind of organizations it funds

By the activity category the IRS assigns each recipient, for the 2,775 of 3,298 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

73% 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

45 private foundations that told the IRS they contribute only to organizations they select themselves reported 159 grants totalling $147.8M to The San Francisco Foundation. That is 45% of the 100 funders we can see giving to it. Those 45 foundations do not take unsolicited requests -- their own returns say so. The IRS classifies this organization as a grantmaking organization.

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 45.

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 $27,000 -- 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 Francisco 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 1,692 section 501(c)(3) organizations and 15 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: One Embarcadero Center 1400, San Francisco, CA, 94111.

EIN 01-0679337 · See the original filings on ProPublica · How we build this

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