GrantmakersCalifornia

Powerpac Foundation

San Francisco, CA · EIN 26-2215714. Reported 22 grants totalling $1,348,000 to 22 organizations across tax years 2020-2024, on Form 990 Schedule I.

22organizations funded
$30,000median reported grant
$1,348,000granted, 2020-2024
19%of dollars to its largest recipient

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 Powerpac Foundation, the IRS classifies it under civil rights rather than as a grantmaker (NTEE R40) -- it is an operating charity that also makes grants.
  2. How spread out its giving is. 22 distinct organizations, with 19% 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 big are its grants?

The median reported grant is $30,000. Half of what it reported fell between $25,000 and $100,000; the smallest was $10,000 and the largest $250,000. If you are asking for materially more than the top of that range, you are asking the wrong organization.

Schedule I only reports grants over $5,000. Form 990 requires a charity to list recipients it paid more than that and lets it omit the rest, so every grant-size figure on this page describes the grants it reported, not all of them. Its real median is lower and its real recipient count is higher. This is also why these numbers cannot be compared with the private-foundation figures elsewhere on this site -- Form 990-PF has no reporting floor, so the two are different populations rather than two samples of one.
$10,000 - $25,000
1 grant
$25,000 - $50,000
13 grants
$50,000 - $100,000
2 grants
$100,000 - $250,000
5 grants
$250,000 Or More
1 grant

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.

OrganizationLocationTotal receivedGrantsYears fundedLast
Unite Here Education and Support FundNew York, NY$250,000112020
Gamma Boule Foundation IncBaltimore, MD$200,000112020
CASA IncHyattsville, MD$100,000112020
Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift FundBoston, MA$100,000112020
Keys Empowers IncBaltimore, MD$100,000112020
St James P E ChurchBaltimore, MD$100,000112020
Chinatown Community Development Center IncSan Francisco, CA$73,000112023
Brightline Defense ProjectSan Francisco, CA$65,000112023
Community Housing Development Corporation of North RichmondRichmond, CA$30,000112024
East Bay Asian Local Dev CorpOakland, CA$30,000112024
Mission Economic Development AgencySan Francisco, CA$30,000112024
Spanish-Speaking Unity Council of Alameda County IncOakland, CA$30,000112024
Tenderloin Neighborhood Development CorporationSan Francisco, CA$30,000112024
Arizona Center for EmpowermentPhoenix, AZ$25,000112024
Asian Pacific Environmental NetworkOakland, CA$25,000112020
Communities for a New California Education FundGranite Bay, CA$25,000112020
Community Coalition for Substance Abuse Prevention & TreatmentLos Angeles, CA$25,000112020
Equality Alliance of San Diego CountySan Diego, CA$25,000112020
Evolve MentoringRaleigh, NC$25,000112020
Strategic Concepts in Organizing and Policy EducationLos Angeles, CA$25,000112020
Working Partnerships USASan Jose, CA$25,000112020
Center on Civic EngagementWashington, DC$10,000112024

0 of 22 (0%) received money in more than one year over the 3 years we hold. Remember the $5,000 floor: an organization funded every year at $3,000 shows up here as never funded at all.

It also reported 1 group of grants to individuals -- scholarships, emergency assistance and similar. Schedule I reports these by category with a headcount and never by name, so there is nothing here we could publish about the recipients even if we wanted to.

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.

What kind of organizations it funds

By each recipient's own IRS classification, for the 18 of 22 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.

Community Improvement
4 orgs
Civil Rights
4 orgs
Education
3 orgs
Human Services
2 orgs
Housing & Shelter
2 orgs
Environment
1 org
Health Care
1 org

Giving by year

Tax yearGrants reportedTotalMedian grant
202013$1,025,000$25,000
20232$138,000$69,000
20247$185,000$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

37% of its giving went to organizations in Maryland. 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.

Maryland
$500K
California
$438K
New York
$250K
Massachusetts
$100K
Arizona
$25K
North Carolina
$25K
District of Columbia
$10K

Down to the city

Baltimore, MD
$400K
New York, NY
$250K
San Francisco, CA
$198K
Hyattsville, MD
$100K
Boston, MA
$100K
Oakland, CA
$85K

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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.

Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund15 shared recipientsThe San Francisco Foundation14 shared recipientsSilicon Valley Community Foundation11 shared recipientsAmalgamated Charitable Foundation Inc10 shared recipientsDonor Advised Charitable Giving Inc10 shared recipientsTides Foundation9 shared recipients

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 $30,000 -- 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 Maryland.
  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

Foundations funding education in CaliforniaEvery funder in this group, rankedFoundations funding human services in CaliforniaEvery funder in this group, rankedFoundations funding civil rights in New YorkEvery funder in this group, rankedFoundations funding education in New YorkEvery funder in this group, ranked

Where these numbers come from

Everything above is taken from Powerpac Foundation's own Form 990 Schedule I filings, which the IRS publishes in bulk. We used 5 returns (tax years 2020-2024). Nothing here is scraped, inferred or estimated.

On its most recent return it told the IRS it made grants to 7 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: 268 Bush St Unit 3737, San Francisco, CA, 94104.

EIN 26-2215714 · See the original filings on ProPublica · How we build this

This is history, not an open call. Form 990 is published about a year after the tax year it covers. Nothing on this page is a deadline. It is a record of who this organization has actually funded, which is the best available predictor of who it will fund next.

Is something here wrong about your organization? Email [email protected] and we will correct it.