The San Bruno Community Foundation
San Bruno, CA · EIN 36-4777648. Reported 94 grants totalling $50.3M to 47 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 The San Bruno Community Foundation, the IRS classifies it as a community foundation (NTEE T31).
- How spread out its giving is. 47 distinct organizations, with 97% of the dollars going to the largest single recipient. That is extreme concentration. A grantmaker sending three quarters of its money to one organization is in practice a support fund for that organization, whatever its classification says, and an unsolicited request is very unlikely to go anywhere.
- How much its list changes. 59% of one year's grantees are funded again the next, across 3 year-to-year transitions. That is about the 57% median for grantmaking charities -- noticeably lower than the 67% private foundations manage. Organizations like this one rotate more of their list each year, which is where an opening for a newcomer tends to be.
How big are its grants?
The median reported grant is $15,000. Half of what it reported fell between $10,000 and $20,000; the smallest was $5,500 and the largest $40.5M. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| City of San Bruno | San Bruno, CA | $48.6M | 6 | 4 | 2024 |
| San Bruno Education Foundation | San Bruno, CA | $551,500 | 5 | 4 | 2024 |
| Cora Community Overcoming Relationship Abuse | San Mateo, CA | $85,000 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| Art in Action | Redwood City, CA | $56,000 | 3 | 3 | 2023 |
| The Via Heart Project | San Francisco, CA | $53,900 | 3 | 3 | 2024 |
| Lifemoves | Santa Clara, CA | $52,500 | 3 | 3 | 2023 |
| Tanforan Assembly Center Memorial Committee | Albany, CA | $50,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Latino Commision on Alcohol & Drug Abuse Services of San Mateo Cnty | San Bruno, CA | $45,000 | 3 | 3 | 2024 |
| Music for Minors Inc | San Mateo, CA | $45,000 | 3 | 3 | 2024 |
| Sonrisas Dental Health Inc | San Mateo, CA | $45,000 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| Each Green Corner | San Carlos, CA | $42,500 | 3 | 3 | 2024 |
| Capuchino High School Alumni Association | San Bruno, CA | $41,000 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Mindful Life Project | Richmond, CA | $40,000 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Second Harvest of Silicon Valley | San Jose, CA | $40,000 | 3 | 3 | 2024 |
| Starvista | San Carlos, CA | $39,000 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| CASA of San Mateo County | Redwood City, CA | $37,500 | 3 | 3 | 2023 |
| San Bruno Lions Foundation | San Bruno, CA | $36,525 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| Legal Aid Society of San Mateo Co | Redwood City, CA | $35,000 | 3 | 3 | 2024 |
| San Bruno Park School District | San Bruno, CA | $35,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Society of St Vincent De Paul Particular Council of San Mateo | San Mateo, CA | $30,000 | 2 | 2 | 2022 |
| Edgewood Center for Children and Families | San Francisco, CA | $25,000 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Partners and Advocates for Remarkable Children and Adults | Burlingame, CA | $25,000 | 2 | 2 | 2022 |
| Peninsula Volunteers Inc | Menlo Park, CA | $25,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| San Mateo County Community College District | San Mateo, CA | $20,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Young Mens Christian Association of San Francisco | San Francisco, CA | $18,700 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Upward Scholars | Redwood City, CA | $17,500 | 2 | 2 | 2023 |
| Junior Achievement USA | Walnut Creek, CA | $16,500 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| American Youth Soccer Organization | Torrance, CA | $15,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Circus Bella | San Francisco, CA | $15,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| San Bruno Community Gardens Inc | San Bruno, CA | $15,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| San Mateo County Community College District Financing Corporation | San Mateo, CA | $15,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| San Mateo Union High School District | San Mateo, CA | $15,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Renaissance Entrepreneurship Center | San Francisco, CA | $12,500 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Wings Learning Center Inc | San Bruno, CA | $12,500 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Mid-Peninsula Boys & Girls Club | San Mateo, CA | $11,275 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Catalino Tapia Scholarship Foundation | San Carlos, CA | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| San Bruno Improvement Group Inc | San Bruno, CA | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Society of St Vincent De Paul Particular Council | San Mateo, CA | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| San Bruno Amateur Radio Club | San Bruno, CA | $9,500 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Bay Area Jazz Mobile | San Bruno, CA | $7,500 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Piefest Limited | S San Fran, CA | $7,100 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Spindrift School of Performing Arts Inc | Pacifica, CA | $7,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Mission Hospice & Home Care Inc | San Mateo, CA | $6,500 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| City of South San Francisco | South San Francisco, CA | $6,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Lowen Soccer Club | San Bruno, CA | $6,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Parkside Boosters | San Bruno, CA | $6,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Center for Excellence in Nonprofits | Redwood City, CA | $5,500 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
23 of 47 (49%) 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.
- City of San Bruno
REDUCING IMPACT OF DRUGS ON FAMILIES, RECREATION AND AQUATIC CENTER (RAC-8) CONSTRUCTION, COMMUNITY DAY 2022, SBFD COVID-19 TESTS - San Bruno Education Foundation
SBPSD COMMUNITY PRIDE PROJECTS, MUSIC EDUCATION STRATEGIC INITIATIVE - San Bruno Park School District
SCHOOL FIELD TRIPS & ASSEMBLIES - Capuchino High School Alumni Association
CAPUCHINO ROBOTICS CLUB, MUSIC EDUCATION STRATEGIC INITIATIVE - Cora (community Overcoming Relationship Abuse)
CRISIS SUPPORT SERVICES FOR DV VICTIMS/SURVIVORS - Via Heart Project
PENINSULA HEART SAFE PROGRAM
What kind of organizations it funds
By each recipient's own IRS classification, for the 36 of 47 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 | 22 | $41.1M | $15,000 |
| 2022 | 24 | $2,357,000 | $15,000 |
| 2023 | 23 | $630,000 | $12,500 |
| 2024 | 25 | $6,187,200 | $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
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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 $15,000 -- 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 The San Bruno Community 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 28 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: 901 Sneath Lane 209, San Bruno, CA, 94066.
EIN 36-4777648 · See the original filings on ProPublica · How we build this
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