Grantmakers › New York

Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo

Buffalo, NY · EIN 22-2743917. Reported 2,132 grants totalling $134.6M to 966 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:

1. What kind of organization it is. For Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo, the IRS classifies it as a community foundation (NTEE T31).
2. How spread out its giving is. 966 distinct organizations, with 3% 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. 69% of one year's grantees are funded again the next, across 3 year-to-year transitions. That is about the 57% median for grantmaking charities -- noticeably lower than the 67% private foundations manage. Organizations like this one rotate more of their list each year, which is where an opening for a newcomer tends to be.

How big are its grants?

The median reported grant is $25,000. Half of what it reported fell between $11,500 and $54,765; the smallest was $5,022 and the largest $1,790,661. If you are asking for materially more than the top of that range, you are asking the wrong organization.

Every organization it funded

All 966 recipients appear in its filings; the 250 largest are listed here. Years funded is the number of separate tax years in which the organization received money -- the clearest signal of who this grantmaker actually has a relationship with.

531 of 966 (55%) 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.

• Say Yes Buffalo Scholarship Inc $1,790,661 · 2024
  CHARITABLE SUPPORT. ANY RESTRICTIONS HAVE BEEN COMMUNICATED TO THE GRANTEE.
• Research Foundation for the SUNY on Behalf of the University at Buffalo $1,315,021 · 2022
  OPEN4 IMPLEMENTATION PROGRAM MANAGEMENT SERVICES; PROJECT IMPLEMENTATION TEAM-EAST SIDE AVENUES; HEART RESEARCH SUPPORT; CANCER RESEARCH AND EDUCATION-PREF TO BE ALIGNED W/CFGB FOCUS AREAS
• Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra Society $981,559 · 2022
  UNRESTRICTED USE; ANNUAL SUPPORT; BPO MUSIC FOR YOUTH EDUCATION HUB; EDUCATION DEPT USE; MAGIC FLUTE WITH HILLMAN OPERA; GENERAL EXPENSES; OPERATIONAL SUPPORT; TOWARDS OUTREACH PROGRAMS FOR CHILDREN, ADULTS, AND SENIORS; MAINTENANCE SUPPORT OF ORCHESTRA; IN MEMORY OF
• Tony Hawk Foundation Dba the Skatepark Project $930,000 · 2022
  BUILT TO PLAY SKATEPARKS IN SWEDEN, NY, ELLICOTTVILLE, NY AND LOCKPORT, NY
• Say Yes Buffalo Scholarship $917,431 · 2022
  UNRESTRICTED USE; SAY YES BUFFALO TECHNOLOGY CAMPAIGN; PURCHASE WINTER COATS FOR BPS FAMILIES FACING HOMELESSNESS; SUPPORT SETUP FOR PARTICIPATING IN THE YOUTH EMPLOYMENT COALITION DATA PLATFORM; BOYS & MEN OF COLOR INITIATIVE; BREAKING BARRIERS LEADERSHIP ACADEMY; FAMILY SUPPORT SPECIALISTS AND COMMUNITY CLINICIANS INITIATIVE; BUFFALO FAIR FUTURES; SAY YES BUFFALO TECHNOLOGY CAMPAIGN; BOYS & MEN OF COLOR BREAKING BARRIERS RETREAT; SAY YES SCHOLARSHIP AND DEVELOPMENT EXPENSES; HONORARIUM
• Buffalo Fine Arts Academy $904,861 · 2022
  UNRESTRICTED USE; 2021-2022 BOARD DONATION; RESTRICTED FOR PERMANENT ENDOWMENT; STURGES ENDOWMENT FUND; ANNUAL FUND; AKAG 360 CAPITAL CAMPAIGN; OPERATING EXPENSES; IN MEMORY OF

What kind of organizations it funds

By each recipient's own IRS classification, for the 735 of 966 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 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

88% of its giving went to organizations in New York. 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.

Down to the city

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

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 $25,000 -- 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 New York.
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

Where these numbers come from

Everything above is taken from Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo'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.

Address of record on the latest return: 726 Exchange Street 525, Buffalo, NY, 14210.

EIN 22-2743917 · See the original filings on ProPublica · How we build this

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