GrantmakersCalifornia

To Celebrate Life

Kentfield, CA · EIN 94-3323358. Reported 63 grants totalling $1,266,000 to 22 organizations across tax years 2021-2024, on Form 990 Schedule I.

22organizations funded
$15,000median reported grant
$1,266,000granted, 2021-2024
87%of grantees funded again the next year
19%of dollars to its largest recipient

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 To Celebrate Life, by its IRS classification it raises and distributes funds for diseases & disorders (NTEE G123).
  2. How spread out its giving is. 22 distinct organizations, with 19% 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. 87% 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 $15,000. Half of what it reported fell between $10,000 and $20,000; the smallest was $7,000 and the largest $240,000. If you are asking for materially more than the top of that range, you are asking the wrong organization.

Schedule I only reports grants over $5,000. Form 990 requires a charity to list recipients it paid more than that and lets it omit the rest, so every grant-size figure on this page describes the grants it reported, not all of them. Its real median is lower and its real recipient count is higher. This is also why these numbers cannot be compared with the private-foundation figures elsewhere on this site -- Form 990-PF has no reporting floor, so the two are different populations rather than two samples of one.
$5,000 - $10,000
5 grants
$10,000 - $25,000
46 grants
$25,000 - $50,000
11 grants
$100,000 - $250,000
1 grant

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.

OrganizationLocationTotal receivedGrantsYears fundedLast
Allocation for Grants for 2024 Grants Will Be Paid in 2025Kentfield, CA$240,000112024
Marin General Hospital FoundationGreenbrae, CA$110,000442024
Womens Cancer Resource CenterBerkeley, CA$100,000442024
The Charlotte Maxwell ClinicOakland, CA$89,000442024
Marin Center for Independent LivingSan Rafael, CA$80,000332023
Tim and Jeannie Hamann FoundationBenicia, CA$75,000442024
Shanti Project IncSan Francisco, CA$72,000442024
Ceres Community ProjectSanta Rosa, CA$64,925442024
Hers Breast Cancer FoundationFremont, CA$64,500442024
Pilipino Senior Resource CenterSan Francisco, CA$60,000442024
Bay Area Cancer ConnectionsSan Mateo, CA$55,000332023
San Francisco Womens Cancer NetworkSan Francisco, CA$52,000442024
Sutter Bay HospitalsSacramento, CA$40,000332023
Bright Spot NetworkAlameda, CA$35,000332024
Latinas Contra CancerSan Jose, CA$30,075332023
Community Health Partnership of Santa Clara County IncorporatedSan Jose, CA$21,500222023
Cancer Carepoint IncSan Jose, CA$20,000222024
Cancer Support Community San Francisco Bay AreaWalnut Creek, CA$17,500222024
Pink Ribbon Good IncTroy, OH$15,000222024
San Francisco General Hospital FoundationSan Francisco, CA$10,000112023
Zero Breast CancerSan Rafael, CA$7,500112024
Community Health PartnershipColorado Spgs, CO$7,000112021

18 of 22 (82%) 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 kind of organizations it funds

By each recipient's own IRS classification, for the 19 of 22 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.

Diseases & Disorders
6 orgs
Health Care
4 orgs
Human Services
2 orgs
Medical Research
2 orgs
Housing & Shelter
1 org
Philanthropy & Grantmaking
1 org

Giving by year

Tax yearGrants reportedTotalMedian grant
202115$240,000$15,000
202215$275,000$17,500
202318$311,000$15,000
202415$440,000$15,000

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

98% 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.

California
$1.2M
Ohio
$15K
Colorado
$7K

Down to the city

Kentfield, CA
$240K
San Francisco, CA
$194K
Greenbrae, CA
$110K
Berkeley, CA
$100K
Oakland, CA
$89K
San Rafael, CA
$88K

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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.

Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund15 shared recipientsAmerican Online Giving Foundation Inc13 shared recipientsDonor Advised Charitable Giving Inc12 shared recipientsAmerican Endowment Foundation11 shared recipientsMorgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc11 shared recipientsSilicon Valley Community Foundation11 shared recipients

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 $15,000 -- 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

Foundations funding health care in CaliforniaEvery funder in this group, rankedFoundations funding human services in CaliforniaEvery funder in this group, ranked

Where these numbers come from

Everything above is taken from To Celebrate Life'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 14 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: Po Box 367, Kentfield, CA, 94914.

EIN 94-3323358 · See the original filings on ProPublica · How we build this

This is history, not an open call. Form 990 is published about a year after the tax year it covers. Nothing on this page is a deadline. It is a record of who this organization has actually funded, which is the best available predictor of who it will fund next.

Is something here wrong about your organization? Email hello@funderscope.com and we will correct it.