Women's Fund of Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara, CA · EIN 82-5169678. Reported 41 grants totalling $3,700,000 to 37 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 Women's Fund of Santa Barbara, the IRS classifies it as a community foundation (NTEE T31).
- How spread out its giving is. 37 distinct organizations, with 8% 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. 0% 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 $100,000. Half of what it reported fell between $75,000 and $100,000; the smallest was $30,000 and the largest $200,000. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Advancing Collective Transformation | Santa Barbara, CA | $300,000 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Dignitymoves | San Francisco, CA | $200,000 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| CASA Pacifica Centers for Children and Families | Camarillo, CA | $170,000 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Doctors Without Walls-Santa Barbara Street Medicine | Santa Barbara, CA | $160,000 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Alpha Resource Center of Santa Barbara | Santa Barbara, CA | $140,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Santa Barbara County Immigrant Legal Defense Center | Santa Barbara, CA | $130,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Isla Vista Youth Project Inc | Goleta, CA | $120,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Santa Barbara Police Activities League | Santa Barbara, CA | $110,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Pathpoint | Santa Barbara, CA | $105,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Access Central Coast | Santa Barbara, CA | $100,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Children and Family Resource Services | Santa Barbara, CA | $100,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Childrens Resource and Referral of Santa Barbara County | Santa Maria, CA | $100,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Council on Alcoholism & Drug Abuse | Santa Barbara, CA | $100,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Family Service Agency of Santa Barbara County | Santa Barbara, CA | $100,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Freedom 4 Youth | Santa Barbara, CA | $100,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Girls Incorporated of Carpinteria | Carpinteria, CA | $100,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Hillside House | Santa Barbara, CA | $100,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Kingdom Causes | Anaheim, CA | $100,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Legal Aid Foundation of Santa Barbara County | Santa Barbara, CA | $100,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Sanctuary Centers of Santa Barbara Inc | Santa Barbara, CA | $100,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Santa Barbara Education Foundation | Santa Barbara, CA | $100,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Santa Barbara Neighborhood Clinics | Santa Barbara, CA | $100,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| St Vincents Institution | Santa Barbara, CA | $100,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Carpinteria Childrens Project | Carpinteria, CA | $90,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Calm Inc | Santa Barbara, CA | $75,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Channel Islands Young Mens Christian Association | Carpinteria, CA | $75,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Food From the Heart Inc | Santa Barbara, CA | $75,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Nbcc | Santa Barbara, CA | $75,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Unity Shoppe Inc | Santa Barbara, CA | $75,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| United Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater Santa Barbara County | Santa Barbara, CA | $70,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Foodbank of Santa Barbara County | Goleta, CA | $55,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Storyteller Childrens Center Inc | Santa Barbara, CA | $55,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| 2ND Story | Santa Barbara, CA | $50,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| People Assisting the Homeless | Los Angeles, CA | $50,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| The Cecilia Fund | Santa Barbara, CA | $50,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Peoples Self-Help Housing Corporation | Sn Luis Obisp, CA | $40,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Alzheimers Disease and Related Disorders Association Inc | Chicago, IL | $30,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
4 of 37 (11%) 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.
- Sb Act - Santa Barbara Alliance for Community Transformation
STAFF AND SUPPLIES FOR PERMANENT HOMELESSNESS NAVIGATION CENTER - Alpha Resource Center of Santa Barbara
AIR CONDITIONING AND AUTOMATED DOORS - Santa Barbara County Immigrant Legal Defense Center
CASE MANAGEMENT FOR UNACCOMPANIED IMMIGRANT CHILDREN - Dignitymoves
CHILD-CARE CENTER AT THE FAMILY VILLAGE - Leap Listen Engage Advocate Partner
GAP FUNDING FOR CHILD-CARE PROGRAM - Santa Barbara Police Activities League
RENOVATION OF TEEN CENTER
What kind of organizations it funds
By each recipient's own IRS classification, for the 33 of 37 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 | 10 | $750,000 | $75,000 |
| 2022 | 11 | $900,000 | $100,000 |
| 2023 | 10 | $925,000 | $100,000 |
| 2024 | 10 | $1,125,000 | $102,500 |
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
99% 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 $100,000 -- 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 Women's Fund of Santa Barbara'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 10 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: 133 E De La Guerra Street 15, Santa Barbara, CA, 93101.
EIN 82-5169678 · See the original filings on ProPublica · How we build this
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