Cooper Foundation
Waco, TX · EIN 74-1272389. Reported 109 grants totalling $8,265,193 to 58 organizations across tax years 2020-2023, 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. 58 distinct organizations, with 10% 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. 40% 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 $50,000. Half of what it reported fell between $25,000 and $97,855; the smallest was $2,000 and the largest $750,000. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Heart of Texas Community Health Center Inc | Waco, TX | $825,000 | 2 | 1 | 2021 |
| Planned Parenthood of Greater Texas | Dallas, TX | $600,000 | 3 | 3 | 2023 |
| Greater Waco Collective Impact Initiative | Waco, TX | $550,802 | 5 | 3 | 2022 |
| Baylor University | Waco, TX | $447,464 | 7 | 4 | 2023 |
| Waco Community Development Corporation | Waco, TX | $414,000 | 4 | 3 | 2023 |
| Mclennan Community College Foundation | Waco, TX | $350,000 | 2 | 2 | 2022 |
| CASA of Mclennan County | Waco, TX | $313,512 | 4 | 3 | 2023 |
| Waco Creative Art Center | Waco, TX | $259,100 | 2 | 2 | 2022 |
| Communities in Schools of the Heart of Texas | Waco, TX | $258,227 | 2 | 2 | 2023 |
| Dr Pepper Museum and Free Enterprise Institute | Waco, TX | $256,305 | 2 | 2 | 2022 |
| Greater Waco Legal Services | Waco, TX | $250,000 | 2 | 2 | 2023 |
| Talitha Koum Institute | Waco, TX | $230,144 | 2 | 2 | 2023 |
| Cameron Park Zoological & Botanical Society | Waco, TX | $225,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Waco Family YMCA | Round Rock, TX | $197,475 | 4 | 3 | 2023 |
| Heart of Texas Workforce Development Board Inc | Waco, TX | $194,370 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Cen-Tex Hispanic Chamber of Comm | Waco, TX | $179,500 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Habitat for Humanity International Inc | Waco, TX | $170,000 | 3 | 3 | 2023 |
| Cove-Heart of Texas Inc | Waco, TX | $162,050 | 2 | 2 | 2023 |
| Meals on Wheels Waco | Waco, TX | $160,000 | 3 | 3 | 2023 |
| American Gateways | Austin, TX | $150,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Mission Waco Mission World Inc | Waco, TX | $150,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Heart of Texas Region Mental Health Mental Retardation Center | Waco, TX | $145,785 | 3 | 2 | 2022 |
| World Hunger Relief Institute | Waco, TX | $141,000 | 2 | 2 | 2022 |
| Waco Symphony Association Inc | Waco, TX | $125,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Family Abuse Center | Waco, TX | $101,341 | 2 | 2 | 2022 |
| Waco Foundation | Waco, TX | $98,988 | 2 | 2 | 2022 |
| Animal Birth Control Clinic Inc | Waco, TX | $90,600 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Waco Civic Theatre | Waco, TX | $84,480 | 2 | 2 | 2022 |
| Waco Independent School District | Waco, TX | $82,699 | 2 | 2 | 2023 |
| The Salvation Army | Brookhaven, GA | $82,255 | 2 | 1 | 2020 |
| Ascension Providence Foundation | Saint Louis, MO | $75,000 | 3 | 3 | 2023 |
| Cenikor Foundation | Houston, TX | $73,500 | 2 | 2 | 2023 |
| Compassion Ministries of Waco Inc | Waco, TX | $60,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Caritas of Waco | Waco, TX | $52,000 | 2 | 2 | 2023 |
| Heart of Texas Goodwill Industries | Waco, TX | $51,748 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| American National Red Cross | Washington, DC | $50,000 | 2 | 2 | 2023 |
| Girl Scouts of Central Texas Inc | Austin, TX | $50,000 | 2 | 2 | 2022 |
| The Arc of Texas | Waco, TX | $50,000 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Central Texas Food Bank Inc | Austin, TX | $49,000 | 2 | 2 | 2021 |
| Texas Retired Teachers Residence Corporation | Waco, TX | $43,080 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| City of Waco | Waco, TX | $42,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Creative Waco | Waco, TX | $40,000 | 3 | 2 | 2023 |
| Mclennan County Dispute Resolution Center | Waco, TX | $40,000 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Quinn Campus Inc | Waco, TX | $40,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Carter Bloodcare | Bedford, TX | $26,500 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Philanthropy Southwest | Dallas, TX | $25,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Transformation Waco | Waco, TX | $25,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Waco Downtown Farmers Market | Waco, TX | $25,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Advocacy Center for Crime Victims and Children | Waco, TX | $24,089 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Waco Cultural Arts Fest | Waco, TX | $20,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Community Healthcare of Texas | Fort Worth, TX | $18,629 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Historic Waco Foundation Inc | Waco, TX | $18,600 | 2 | 2 | 2023 |
| Boys & Girls Club of Waco | Waco, TX | $18,000 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Cook Childrens Medical Center | Fort Worth, TX | $17,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| W I Cook Foundation Inc | Fort Worth, TX | $13,450 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Texas Museums & Halls of Fame | Waco, TX | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| United Cancer Society | Waco, TX | $7,500 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Communities Foundation of Texas | Dallas, TX | $5,000 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
29 of 58 (50%) 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.
- Waco Family Medicine
SUPPORT FOR THE COUNSELING SERVICES WING OF THE CENTRAL CAMPUS REDEVELOPMENT - Prosper Waco
RAPID WORKFORCE TRAINING SERIES - Cameron Park Zoological & Botanical Society
REMOTE LEARNING TECHNOLOGY FOR THE EDUCATION CENTER - Mclennan Community College Foundation
RENOVATION OF THE WILLIAM CAMERON HOUSE ON MCC CAMPUS - Planned Parenthood of Greater Texas
REPRODUCTIVE HEALTHCARE SERVICES - Heart of Texas Workforce Workforce Development Board Inc
EARLY EDUCATION APPRENTICESHIP
What kind of organizations it funds
By each recipient's own IRS classification, for the 52 of 58 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 32 | $1,422,647 | $31,349 |
| 2021 | 23 | $2,711,506 | $75,000 |
| 2022 | 29 | $2,128,308 | $50,420 |
| 2023 | 25 | $2,002,732 | $55,144 |
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
97% of its giving went to organizations in Texas. 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 $50,000 -- 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 Texas.
- 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 Cooper Foundation's own Form 990 Schedule I filings, which the IRS publishes in bulk. We used 4 returns (tax years 2020-2023). Nothing here is scraped, inferred or estimated.
Address of record on the latest return: Attn Felicia Goodman, Waco, TX, 76701.
EIN 74-1272389 · See the original filings on ProPublica · How we build this
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