GrantmakersCalifornia

The John Paul Stevens Foundation

Berkeley, CA · EIN 27-2556295. Reported 48 grants totalling $1,329,250 to 38 organizations across tax years 2021-2024, on Form 990 Schedule I.

38organizations funded
$28,000median reported grant
$1,329,250granted, 2021-2024
15%of grantees funded again the next year
6%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 The John Paul Stevens Foundation, the IRS classifies it under education rather than as a grantmaker (NTEE B82) -- it is an operating charity that also makes grants.
  2. How spread out its giving is. 38 distinct organizations, with 6% 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. 15% of one year's grantees are funded again the next, across 2 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 $28,000. Half of what it reported fell between $15,000 and $39,000; the smallest was $5,750 and the largest $54,000. 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.
$5,000 - $10,000
8 grants
$10,000 - $25,000
12 grants
$25,000 - $50,000
27 grants
$50,000 - $100,000
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
District of Columbia School of Law FoundationWashington, DC$76,000222023
Florida Agricultural & Mechanical Univ Foundation IncTallahassee, FL$76,000222023
Howard UniversityWashington, DC$76,000222023
North Carolina Central University Foundation IncDurham, NC$76,000222023
Washington UniversitySt Louis, MO$67,500332024
Emory UniversityAtlanta, GA$54,000112022
Southern University System FoundationBaton Rouge, LA$48,000112024
Texas Southern University FoundationHouston, TX$48,000112023
Fordham UniversityBronx, NY$46,500112022
Indiana UniversityBloomington, IN$42,000112022
Regents of the University of MichiganAnn Arbor, MI$39,000112022
Regents of Univ of Ca DavisDavis, CA$39,000112022
Regents of University of MnMinneapolis, MN$39,000112022
The UCLA FoundationLos Angeles, CA$39,000112022
University of Oklahoma Foundation IncNorman, OK$39,000112022
University of Washington FoundationSeattle, WA$39,000112022
Board of the University of AlabamaTuscaloosa, AL$36,000112022
University of Idaho Foundation IncMoscow, ID$36,000112022
University of Illinois FoundationChampaign, IL$36,000112022
University of PittsburghPittsburgh, PA$36,000112022
Willamette UniversitySalem, OR$36,000112022
Texas Southern UniversityHouston, TX$34,000112022
University of FloridaGainesville, FL$30,000112022
Southern Univ at ShreveportShreveport, LA$28,000112022
Brady Center to Prevent Gun ViolenceWashington, DC$26,000222024
Capital Appeals ProjectNew Orleans, LA$26,000222024
Georgia State University Foundation IncAtlanta, GA$24,000222024
Seattle UniversitySeattle, WA$24,000222023
University of Mississippi FoundationOxford, MS$18,000112022
Campbell UniversityBuies Creek, NC$15,000112024
Georgetown UniversityWashington, DC$15,000112023
University of Virginia Law School FoundationCharlottesvle, VA$15,000112023
Regents of the University of California at BerkeleyRiverside, CA$12,000112024
The Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior UniversityStanford, CA$10,000112024
President and Fellows of Harvard CollegeCambridge, MA$7,500112024
Trustees of Columbia UniversityNew York, NY$7,500112024
University of Georgia FoundationAthens, GA$7,500112024
University of ChicagoChicago, IL$5,750112024

9 of 38 (24%) 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.

What kind of organizations it funds

By each recipient's own IRS classification, for the 29 of 38 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.

Education
26 orgs
Crime & Legal
2 orgs
Health Care
1 org

Giving by year

Tax yearGrants reportedTotalMedian grant
20211$22,500$22,500
202226$874,500$36,000
20239$288,000$48,000
202412$144,250$7,500

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

15% of its giving went to organizations in District of Columbia. 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.

District of Columbia
$193K
Florida
$106K
Louisiana
$102K
California
$100K
North Carolina
$91K
Georgia
$86K
Texas
$82K
Missouri
$68K

Down to the city

Washington, DC
$193K
Houston, TX
$82K
Atlanta, GA
$78K
Tallahassee, FL
$76K
Durham, NC
$76K
St Louis, MO
$68K

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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 recipientsAmerican Online Giving Foundation Inc14 shared recipientsThe Blackbaud Giving Fund13 shared recipientsDonor Advised Charitable Giving Inc12 shared recipientsCharities Aid Foundation America12 shared recipientsMorgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc11 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 $28,000 -- 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 District of Columbia.
  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 District of ColumbiaEvery funder in this group, ranked

Where these numbers come from

Everything above is taken from The John Paul Stevens 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 12 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: 127 University Ave, Berkeley, CA, 94710.

EIN 27-2556295 · 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.