The Washington STEM Center
Seattle, WA · EIN 27-2133169. Reported 264 grants totalling $6,549,055 to 32 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 The Washington STEM Center, the IRS classifies it under education rather than as a grantmaker (NTEE B90) -- it is an operating charity that also makes grants.
- How spread out its giving is. 32 distinct organizations, with 11% 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. 78% 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 $20,000. Half of what it reported fell between $10,000 and $37,500; the smallest was $500 and the largest $85,000. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apple STEM Network | Wenatchee, WA | $690,549 | 25 | 4 | 2024 |
| South Central STEM Network | Yakima, WA | $659,126 | 25 | 4 | 2024 |
| West Sound STEM Network | Port Orchard, WA | $593,000 | 21 | 4 | 2024 |
| Capitol Region STEM Network | Tumwater, WA | $558,137 | 25 | 4 | 2024 |
| Northwest Washington STEM Network | Anacortes, WA | $549,061 | 23 | 4 | 2024 |
| Southwest STEM Network | Vancouver, WA | $535,055 | 18 | 3 | 2024 |
| Foundation for Tacoma Students | Tacoma, WA | $525,871 | 21 | 4 | 2024 |
| Economic Alliance Snohomish County | Everett, WA | $487,280 | 21 | 4 | 2024 |
| Spokane Regional Chamber of Commerce | Spokane, WA | $452,546 | 19 | 4 | 2024 |
| Washington State STEM Education Foundation | Richland, WA | $434,580 | 19 | 4 | 2024 |
| Institute for Systems Biology | Seattle, WA | $218,396 | 3 | 3 | 2023 |
| Educational Service District #101 | Spokane, WA | $179,022 | 5 | 3 | 2023 |
| Southwest Washington Workforce Development Council | Vancouver, WA | $178,766 | 7 | 1 | 2021 |
| Educational Service District #123 | Pasco, WA | $69,303 | 3 | 3 | 2023 |
| Zeno | Seattle, WA | $45,000 | 3 | 2 | 2024 |
| Educational Service District #114 | Bremerton, WA | $43,867 | 3 | 3 | 2023 |
| Hip of Spokane County | Spokane, WA | $39,954 | 2 | 1 | 2024 |
| First Five Fundamentals | Tacoma, WA | $38,600 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Elma School District No 68 | Elma, WA | $30,000 | 2 | 1 | 2023 |
| Richland School District #400 | West Richland, WA | $30,000 | 2 | 1 | 2023 |
| Yakima Valley Community Foundation | Yakima, WA | $30,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| University of Washington Bothell | Bothell, WA | $26,743 | 2 | 2 | 2022 |
| Brightspark Early Learning Services | Renton, WA | $20,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Rvc Seattle | Seattle, WA | $20,000 | 2 | 1 | 2023 |
| Washington Multicultural Services Link | Seattle, WA | $20,000 | 2 | 1 | 2023 |
| Shoreline School District No 412 | Shoreline, WA | $17,999 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Franklin Pierce School District No 402 | Tacoma, WA | $13,800 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Praxis Institute for Early Childhood Education | Seattle, WA | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Tacoma Public Schools | Tacoma, WA | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Young Women Empowered | Seattle, WA | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Tacoma Public Library | Tacoma, WA | $7,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Valley Cities Counseling and Consultation | Kent, WA | $5,400 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
17 of 32 (53%) 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.
- West Sound STEM Network
HIGHSCHOOL TO POSTSECONDARY PROJECT - Apple STEM Network
EARLY LEARNING ACTIVITY GRANT - South Central STEM Network
CAREER CONNECTED LEARNING PROGRAM - Career Connect Northeast (greater Spokane Incorporated)
CAREER PATHWAYS ACTIVITY GRANT - Snohomish STEM Network
FAFSA AND WASFA PROVISO PROJECT - Valley Cities Behavioral Health Care
GRADUATE DEGREE PRECEPTOR SITE GRANT
What kind of organizations it funds
By each recipient's own IRS classification, for the 13 of 32 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 | 69 | $1,516,907 | $12,500 |
| 2022 | 70 | $1,789,361 | $20,000 |
| 2023 | 87 | $1,938,533 | $20,000 |
| 2024 | 38 | $1,304,254 | $31,000 |
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
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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 Washington.
- 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.
Where these numbers come from
Everything above is taken from The Washington STEM Center'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 15 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: 210 S Hudson St, Seattle, WA, 98134.
EIN 27-2133169 · See the original filings on ProPublica · How we build this
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