Thunderbird Foundation
Phoenix, AZ · EIN 23-7163480. Reported 80 grants totalling $696,025 to 41 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:
- What kind of organization it is. The IRS has no activity classification on file for this one, so we cannot tell you whether it is a community foundation or a single-institution support fund. The recipient list below is the better guide.
- How spread out its giving is. 41 distinct organizations, with 7% 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. 58% 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 $10,000. Half of what it reported fell between $7,500 and $10,000; the smallest was $5,000 and the largest $15,000. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Arizona Silver Belle Championship | Phoenix, AZ | $50,000 | 5 | 5 | 2024 |
| Phoenix Police Foundation Inc | Phoenix, AZ | $50,000 | 5 | 5 | 2024 |
| Girls on the Run of Maricopa County | Scottsdale, AZ | $40,000 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| Recreation Association of Madison Simis School | Phoenix, AZ | $40,000 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| The Salvation Army | Rch Palos Vrd, CA | $40,000 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| Valley of the Sun Young Mens Christian Association | Phoenix, AZ | $40,000 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| Gene Lewis Boxing Club | Mesa, AZ | $30,000 | 3 | 3 | 2024 |
| Junior Golf University | Phoenix, AZ | $30,000 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| Phoenix Bobcats Track and Field Club | Phoenix, AZ | $30,000 | 3 | 3 | 2024 |
| Boys & Girls Clubs of Scottsdale Inc | Scottsdale, AZ | $25,000 | 3 | 3 | 2024 |
| Team Impact Foundation Inc | Phoenix, AZ | $22,500 | 3 | 3 | 2024 |
| Playball Pony Baseball Inc | Phoenix, AZ | $21,000 | 3 | 3 | 2024 |
| Boys & Girls Clubs of the Valley | Phoenix, AZ | $20,000 | 2 | 2 | 2023 |
| Little League Baseball Inc | Scottsdale, AZ | $20,000 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Southwestern Golf Association Inc | Phoenix, AZ | $20,000 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| St Francis Xavier Roman Catholic Parish Phoenix | Phoenix, AZ | $20,000 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Arcadia Scottsdale United Soccer Club | Scottsdale, AZ | $15,000 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Real Salt Lake Az | Scottsdale, AZ | $13,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Little League Baseball Inc | Tempe, AZ | $11,525 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| ABILITY360 Inc | Phoenix, AZ | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Az Soccer Association | Phoenix, AZ | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Coyotes Amateur Hockey Association | Scottsdale, AZ | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Little League Baseball Inc | Phoenix, AZ | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Madison Futbol Club Inc | Phoenix, AZ | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Pop Warner Little Scholars Inc | Langhorne, PA | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Scottsdale Firebirds Youth Football and Cheer | Scottsdale, AZ | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Valley of the Sun Hockey Association II | Phoenix, AZ | $9,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| American Junior Golf Association | Braselton, GA | $7,500 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| American Youth Football Inc | Houston, TX | $7,500 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Little League Baseball Inc | Tempe, AZ | $7,500 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Scottsdale Aquatics Club Boosters Inc | Scottsdale, AZ | $6,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Surprise Heat | Surprise, AZ | $5,500 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Arizona District 14 Challenger Little League | Queen Creek, AZ | $5,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Az Youth Football Brigade | Gilbert, AZ | $5,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Cm Baseball League | Scottsdale, AZ | $5,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Heart for the City | Glendale, AZ | $5,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Junior Golf Association of Arizona Inc | Phoenix, AZ | $5,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Kingdom Kids | Litchfield Pk, AZ | $5,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Little League Baseball Inc | Anthem, AZ | $5,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Solanos No Limit Hoops | Tolleson, AZ | $5,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| USA Boxing Arizona Lbc | Phoenix, AZ | $5,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
18 of 41 (44%) 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 kind of organizations it funds
By the activity category the IRS assigns each recipient, for the 26 of 41 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 9 | $85,000 | $10,000 |
| 2021 | 11 | $106,000 | $10,000 |
| 2022 | 14 | $128,000 | $10,000 |
| 2023 | 18 | $172,025 | $10,000 |
| 2024 | 28 | $205,000 | $6,250 |
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
91% of its giving went to organizations in Arizona. 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 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 $10,000 -- 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 Arizona.
- 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 Thunderbird 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 28 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: 7226 N 16TH St 100, Phoenix, AZ, 85020.
EIN 23-7163480 · See the original filings on ProPublica · How we build this
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