National Industries for the Blind
Alexandria, VA · EIN 13-5596799. Reported 87 grants totalling $3,491,811 to 45 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. 45 distinct organizations, with 29% 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. 43% 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 $31,750. Half of what it reported fell between $13,240 and $40,000; the smallest was $5,137 and the largest $603,281. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Core Career | Alexandria, VA | $1,000,000 | 2 | 2 | 2022 |
| Winston-Salem Industries for the Blind Inc | Winston Salem, NC | $184,163 | 5 | 4 | 2023 |
| Industries of the Blind Inc | Greensboro, NC | $169,000 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| Lighthouse for the Blind Inc | Seattle, WA | $160,320 | 5 | 4 | 2023 |
| Beyond Vision Inc | West Allis, WI | $138,334 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| Dallas Lighthouse for the Blind Inc | Farmers Brnch, TX | $130,000 | 3 | 3 | 2022 |
| Lions Volunteer Blind Industries Inc | Morristown, TN | $127,221 | 3 | 3 | 2022 |
| Cincinnati Association for the Blind | Cincinnati, OH | $122,164 | 3 | 3 | 2023 |
| Newview Oklahoma Inc | Oklahoma City, OK | $121,963 | 3 | 3 | 2022 |
| Central Association for the Blind Inc | Utica, NY | $113,528 | 3 | 3 | 2023 |
| San Antonio Lighthouse for the Blind | San Antonio, TX | $99,639 | 3 | 3 | 2022 |
| Tarrant County Association for the Blind | Ft Worth, TX | $88,655 | 2 | 2 | 2021 |
| Keystone Vocational Services Inc | Hermitage, PA | $78,363 | 3 | 3 | 2022 |
| Lighthouse for the Blind in New Orleans | New Orleans, LA | $76,619 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Chicago Lighthouse Industries | Chicago, IL | $66,795 | 2 | 2 | 2023 |
| Association for Vision Rehabilitation and Employment Inc | Binghamton, NY | $52,202 | 2 | 2 | 2022 |
| Alphapointe | Kansas City, MO | $50,000 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Travis Association for the Blind | Austin, TX | $50,000 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Visionserve Alliance Inc | Saint Louis, MO | $50,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Lions Industries for the Blind Inc | Kinston, NC | $48,491 | 2 | 2 | 2022 |
| West Texas Lighthouse for the Blind | San Angelo, TX | $48,225 | 2 | 2 | 2023 |
| Mississippi Industries for the Blind Inc | Jackson, MS | $43,478 | 2 | 2 | 2022 |
| Bestwork Industries for the Blind Inc | Cherry Hill, NJ | $40,912 | 2 | 2 | 2022 |
| Lighthouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired | San Francisco, CA | $40,548 | 2 | 2 | 2023 |
| Alabama Institute for Deaf and Blind Foundation Inc | Talladega, AL | $40,000 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Envision Industries Inc | Wichita, KS | $40,000 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Northeastern Association of the Blind at Albany Inc | Albany, NY | $37,746 | 3 | 3 | 2023 |
| North Central Sight Services Inc | Williamsport, PA | $36,412 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Georgia Industries for the Blind | Bainbridge, GA | $30,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Industries for the Blind and Visually Impaired Inc | West Allis, WI | $30,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Outlook-Nebraska Inc | Omaha, NE | $29,287 | 2 | 2 | 2023 |
| Goodwill of the Finger Lakes Inc | Rochester, NY | $21,503 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Beyond Vision-Aib Inc | West Allis, WI | $20,556 | 2 | 2 | 2023 |
| Beacon Lighthouse Inc | Wichita Falls, TX | $13,959 | 2 | 2 | 2023 |
| L C Industries Foundation | Durham, NC | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Louisiana Assn for the Blind Inc | Shreveport, LA | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| South Texas Lighthouse for the Blind | Corp Christi, TX | $9,600 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Alexandria Chamber of Commerce | Alexandria, VA | $9,250 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Lighthouse Works Inc | Orlando, FL | $9,000 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Visioncorps | Lancaster, PA | $9,000 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| East Texas Lighthouse for the Blind Inc | Tyler, TX | $8,100 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Lighthouse for the Blind | Saint Louis, MO | $8,100 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Lighthouse of Broward County Inc | Sunrise, FL | $7,200 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Lions Services Inc | Charlotte, NC | $5,978 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Blind Industries & Services of Maryland | Baltimore, MD | $5,500 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
24 of 45 (53%) 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.
- Core Career Dba Nsite
TRAINING PROGRAM DEVELOPMENT - Envision Dallas
PRODUCTIVITY, TRAINING AND COMPENSATION - Ifb Solutions
PRODUCTIVITY, TRAINING AND COMPLIANCE - Cincinnati Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired
PRODUCTIVITY, TRAINING, COMPLIANCE AND MENTORING - Georgia Industries for the Blind
PRODUCTIVITY, TRAINING, AND COMPLIANCE
What kind of organizations it funds
By each recipient's own IRS classification, for the 29 of 45 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 | 29 | $930,903 | $38,655 |
| 2021 | 16 | $1,141,769 | $41,906 |
| 2022 | 25 | $1,001,246 | $32,001 |
| 2023 | 17 | $417,893 | $30,000 |
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
29% of its giving went to organizations in Virginia. 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 $31,750 -- 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 Virginia.
- 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 National Industries for the Blind'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.
On its most recent return it told the IRS it made grants to 17 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: 3000 Potomac Avenue, Alexandria, VA, 22305.
EIN 13-5596799 · See the original filings on ProPublica · How we build this
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