Smart & Final Charitable Foundation
Commerce, CA · EIN 91-2157561. Reported 64 grants totalling $1,142,851 to 44 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 Smart & Final Charitable Foundation, the IRS classifies it under public safety & disaster relief rather than as a grantmaker (NTEE M20) -- it is an operating charity that also makes grants.
- How spread out its giving is. 44 distinct organizations, with 22% 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 $10,000. Half of what it reported fell between $10,000 and $20,000; the smallest was $6,000 and the largest $100,000. If you are asking for materially more than the top of that range, you are asking the wrong organization.
6 of those grants were non-cash -- goods, property or services worth $40,589 in total. In-kind giving is real support but it is not a cheque.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| City of Hope | Duarte, CA | $247,874 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| The Scga Foundation | Studio City, CA | $130,000 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Olive Crest | Santa Ana, CA | $93,453 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| Scholastic Book Fair | Cincinatti, OH | $73,195 | 3 | 3 | 2024 |
| American Heart Association Inc | Dallas, TX | $44,200 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| American National Red Cross | Washington, DC | $30,075 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Caterinas Club | Anaheim, CA | $30,008 | 3 | 3 | 2024 |
| Western Association of Food Chains Inc | Yorba Linda, CA | $30,000 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Oneoc | Santa Ana, CA | $27,000 | 3 | 3 | 2024 |
| Tustin Public School Foundation | Tustin, CA | $25,000 | 2 | 2 | 2022 |
| Prince of Peace Episcopal Church | Woodland Hls, CA | $23,000 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Make a Wish Foundation of Greater Los Angeles | Los Angeles, CA | $22,296 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Boy Scouts of America | Orange, CA | $22,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Food Finders Inc | Los Alamitos, CA | $20,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Orange County Rescue Mission Inc | Tustin, CA | $20,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Pat Tillman Foundation | Chicago, IL | $20,000 | 2 | 2 | 2023 |
| Cystic Fibrosis Foundation | Bethesda, MD | $16,500 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Yorba Linda Sunrise Rotary Club Foundation | Yorba Linda, CA | $16,500 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Little League Baseball Inc | Rch Cucamonga, CA | $15,250 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Western Association of Food Chains Inc | Lakewood, CA | $15,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Vantagepoint Church | Eastvale, CA | $12,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Los Angeles Fire Department Foundation | Los Angeles, CA | $11,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Altamed Foundation | Commerce, CA | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| American Cancer Society Inc | Santa Fe Springs, CA | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Bay Compassion | Concord, CA | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Camp Del Corazon | N Hollywood, CA | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Cerritos College Foundation | Norwalk, CA | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Common Threads | Austin, TX | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Farmlink Project | Los Angeles, CA | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Project Angel Food | Los Angeles, CA | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| South County Outreach | Irvine, CA | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Southern California Food & Beverage | Irvine, CA | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| St Annes Family Services | Los Angeles, CA | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| The California Conference for Equality and Justice Inc | Long Beach, CA | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| The Santa Monica College Foundation | Santa Monica, CA | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| The Shade Tree Incorporated | Las Vegas, NV | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| United Way California Capital Region | Sacramento, CA | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| California Grocers Association Educational Foundation | Sacramento, CA | $8,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Natasha Watley Foundation | Los Angeles, CA | $8,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Phoenix Childrens' Hospital | Phoenix, AZ | $7,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Young Warriors | Los Angeles, CA | $7,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| One Thousand Cranes Foundation a Birds Eye View | Los Angeles, CA | $6,500 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| America Scores La | Los Angeles, CA | $6,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Cystic Fibrosis Pipeline to a Cure | Santa Ana, CA | $6,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
13 of 44 (30%) 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 kind of organizations it funds
By each recipient's own IRS classification, for the 31 of 44 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 | $195,888 | $10,037 |
| 2022 | 11 | $189,609 | $10,008 |
| 2023 | 10 | $237,359 | $12,500 |
| 2024 | 33 | $519,995 | $10,000 |
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
82% 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 $10,000 -- 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 Smart & Final Charitable Foundation'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 31 section 501(c)(3) organizations and 1 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: 600 Citadel Drive, Commerce, CA, 90040.
EIN 91-2157561 · See the original filings on ProPublica · How we build this
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