Urban Sustainability Directors Network
Sanford, NC · EIN 82-5015863. Reported 57 grants totalling $2,409,294 to 50 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 Urban Sustainability Directors Network, the IRS classifies it under environment rather than as a grantmaker (NTEE C35) -- it is an operating charity that also makes grants.
- How spread out its giving is. 50 distinct organizations, with 13% 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. 11% of one year's grantees are funded again the next, across 3 year-to-year transitions. That is below the 57% median for grantmaking charities, and well below the 67% private foundations manage. A list that turns over this much is one a newcomer can realistically join.
How big are its grants?
The median reported grant is $20,000. Half of what it reported fell between $15,000 and $60,000; the smallest was $5,300 and the largest $325,000. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Utah Clean Energy Alliance Inc | Salt Lake Cty, UT | $325,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Solar United Neighbors | Washington, DC | $295,000 | 2 | 2 | 2023 |
| San Francisco County Transportation Authority | San Francisco, CA | $200,000 | 2 | 2 | 2023 |
| Rheaply | Chicago, IL | $174,000 | 2 | 2 | 2023 |
| Chugach Electric Association Inc | Anchorage, AK | $100,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| City of Amsterdam | Baldwinsville, NY | $100,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| District of Columbia Department of Transportation | Washington, DC | $100,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Memphis-Shelby County | Memphis, TN | $81,000 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Elevate Energy | Chicago, IL | $69,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| City of Madison | Madison, WI | $61,786 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| City of Milwaukee | Milwaukee, WI | $60,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| City of Reno | Reno, NC | $60,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| City of Sacramento | Sacramento, CA | $60,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Nelsonnygaard | San Francisco, CA | $50,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Bayview Hunters Point Center for Arts and Technology | San Francisco, CA | $40,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| City of South Bend | South Bend, IN | $40,000 | 3 | 3 | 2024 |
| Cambium Carbon | Washington, DC | $32,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| City of Boulder | Boulder, CO | $30,500 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Coastal Quest | Berkeley, CA | $30,000 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| City of Balitmore | Baltimore, MD | $26,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| City of San Francisco | San Francisco, CA | $26,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Ceti | Portland, OR | $20,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| City of Ann Arbor | Ann Arbor, MI | $20,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| County of Louisville | Louisville, KY | $20,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| County of Yolo | Woodland, CA | $20,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Omega Mentoring Program | Buffalo, NY | $20,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Safe Streets Campaign | Tacoma, WA | $20,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Salt Lake City | Salt Lake City, UT | $20,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| City of Green Bay | Greenbay, WI | $19,450 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| County of Alameda | Oakland, CA | $19,300 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Csf Faciliation | Oakland, CA | $19,300 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| City of Watsonville | Watsonville, CA | $15,717 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Booker T Washington Community Service Center | San Francisco, CA | $15,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| City of Berkeley | Berkeley, CA | $15,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| City of Cincinnati | Cincinnati, OH | $15,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| City of Indianapolis | Indianapolis, IN | $15,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| City of San Luis Obispo | San Luis Obispo, CA | $15,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| City of Santa Cruz | Santa Cruz, CA | $15,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| City of Shoreline | Shoreline, WA | $15,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| King County | Seattle, WA | $15,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Philadelphia City Fund Inc | Philadelphia, PA | $15,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| City of Portland | Portland, OR | $14,920 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| City of Oakland | Oakland, CA | $14,404 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Burlington Bicycle Project Corp | Burlington, VT | $13,750 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| City of Waco | Waco, TX | $13,220 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Anchorage Neighborhood Housing Services Inc | Anchorage, AK | $11,992 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| City of Tucson | Tucson, AZ | $10,655 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| City of Richmond | Richmond, VA | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| City of Duluth | Duluth, MN | $6,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Southface Energy Institute Inc | Atlanta, GA | $5,300 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
6 of 50 (12%) 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.
- Utah Clean Energy
SOLAR POWERED COMMUNITIES - PHOENIX AMERICAN EXPRESS - Solar United Neighbors
MC 05 CLEVELAND SOLAR ENERGY FOR LMI RESIDENTS - Chugach Electric Association
DECARBONIZING DOWNTON BUSINESS DELIVERIES STUDY - Rheaply
GROWING SECONDARY MARKETS TO INFORM CONSTRUCTION MATERIALS POLICY - San Francisco County Transportation Authority
DECARBONIZING DOWNTOWN BUSINESS DELIVERIES STUDY - District of Columbia Department of Transportation
SUSTAINABLE DELIVERY MODE PILOTS
What kind of organizations it funds
By each recipient's own IRS classification, for the 13 of 50 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 | 8 | $348,586 | $41,000 |
| 2022 | 12 | $591,647 | $60,000 |
| 2023 | 19 | $1,106,987 | $20,000 |
| 2024 | 18 | $362,074 | $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
23% 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.
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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 California.
- 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 Urban Sustainability Directors Network'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 1 section 501(c)(3) organizations and 18 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: 500 Westover Drive 14973, Sanford, NC, 27330.
EIN 82-5015863 · See the original filings on ProPublica · How we build this
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