Grantmakers › New York

United Way of New York City

New York, NY · EIN 13-2617681. Reported 864 grants totalling $164.0M to 438 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:

1. What kind of organization it is. For United Way of New York City, the IRS classifies it as a federated giving programme -- a United Way, Jewish federation, Community Chest or similar (NTEE T700).
2. How spread out its giving is. 438 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.
3. How much its list changes. 51% 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 $50,000. Half of what it reported fell between $15,800 and $114,204; the smallest was $5,087 and the largest $9,488,890. If you are asking for materially more than the top of that range, you are asking the wrong organization.

Every organization it funded

All 438 recipients appear in its filings; the 250 largest are listed here. Years funded is the number of separate tax years in which the organization received money -- the clearest signal of who this grantmaker actually has a relationship with.

194 of 438 (44%) 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.

• Driscoll Foods $9,488,890 · 2023
  HUNGER PREVENTION NUTRITION ASSISTANCE PROGRAM (HPNAP), EMERGENCY FOOD AND SHELTER PROGRAM (EFSP), AND NOURISH NY ARE UWNYCS LARGEST PROGRAMS TO PROVIDE NUTRITIOUS FOOD TO PANTRIES AND SOUP KITCHENS IN NEW YORK CITY. HPNAP AND EFSP HAVE BEEN CORNERSTONE PROGRAMS OF UWNYC FOR 40 YEARS.
• Justice Innovation Inc $7,943,289 · 2023
  ATLAS IS COMPRISED OF THREE PROGRAMS: ATLAS FUNCTIONAL FAMILY THERAPY, ATLAS INNOVATION FUND, AND ATLAS HOPE (HEALING, OPPORTUNITY, PROGRESS, EMPOWERMENT). ADDITIONALLY, UWNYC PROVIDES CAPACITY BUILDING SERVICES TO ALL PARTNERS. THE MISSION OF ATLAS IS TO ENHANCE PUBLIC SAFETY BY PROVIDING VOLUNTARY, NON-COURT MANDATED PROGRAMS THROUGH COMMUNITY-BASED ORGANIZATIONS AND PLACE-BASED STRATEGIES IN NEIGHBORHOODS THAT HAVE HISTORICALLY BORNE THE BRUNT OF VIOLENCE AND OVER-ENFORCEMENT
• Empass Medical Services Pa $2,273,025 · 2023
  PREVENTATIVE ACCESS CARE PROGRAM-UWNYC RECENTLY ESTABLISHED A PARTNERSHIP WITH MOBILE HEALTH PROVIDER VIP STARNETWORK AND THE NEW YORK STATE DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH TO CREATE POP-UP PREVENTATIVE CARE PROGRAMS WITH COMMUNITY-BASED ORGANIZATIONS AND PROVIDE COMPREHENSIVE MEDICAL SCREENINGS, EMPOWERING VULNERABLE NEW YORKERS TO TAKE CONTROL OF THEIR HEALTH THROUGH FREE HEALTHCARE SERVICES.
• Rising Ground Inc $2,187,594 · 2022
  ATLAS/ONS - LED BY UWNYC AND ONS, ATLAS WILL WORK IN COLLABORATION WITH UWNYCS EXTENSIVE LIST OF COMMUNITY BASED ORGANIZATIONS (CBO) TO PROVIDE A SUITE OF SERVICES INCLUDING MENTORSHIPS FAMILY THERAPY, COGNITIVE BEHAVIORAL THERAPY, OPPORTUNITIES FOR EMPLOYMENT AND EDUCATION, AND ADDITIONAL RESOURCES AND SUPPORTS TO INDIVIDUALS AWAITING TRIAL WHO CHOOSE TO PARTICIPATE IN THE PROGRAM. AT THE SAME TIME, ATLAS IMPROVES THE VITALITY AND SAFETY OF A COMMUNITY BY STRENGTHENING LOCAL ORGANIZATIONS AND ELEVATING COMMUNITY-DRIVEN PUBLIC SAFETY.
• New York Community Learning School Initiative $1,454,722 · 2020
  ATTENDANCE IMPROVEMENT DROPOUT PREVENTION SERVICES (AIDP)-UWNYC AND THE NEW YORK CITY DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION (NYCDOE) HAVE COLLABORATED TO PROVIDE ATTENDANCE IMPROVEMENT AND DROPOUT PREVENTION (AIDP) SERVICES IN NEW YORK CITYS LOWEST PERFORMING PUBLIC SCHOOLS. GRADUATE PREPARE SUCCEED (GPS)-HELPS STUDENTS ATTEND SCHOOL, ATTAIN ACADEMIC SUCCESS, AND GRADUATE FROM HIGH SCHOOL THROUGH TARGETED COUNSELING, ACADEMIC SUPPORT, FAMILY ENGAGEMENT, AND ATTENDANCE IMPROVEMENT SERVICES.
• Leadership Council for Healthy Communities $1,211,145 · 2021
  CHOOSE HEALTHY LIFE - CHL HAS BROUGHT TOGETHER LOCAL UNITED WAY AGENCIES UNDER THE UWNYC, WHICH SERVES AS ITS IMPLEMENTATION PARTNER. THE CHURCHES AND THE AGENCIES WORK COLLABORATIVELY WITH LOCAL HEALTH DEPARTMENTS, HOSPITALS, AND COMMUNITY-BASED ORGANIZATIONS TO ENSURE ACCESS TO MUCH-NEEDED HEALTH SERVICES

What kind of organizations it funds

By each recipient's own IRS classification, for the 240 of 438 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 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

64% of its giving went to organizations in New York. 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.

Down to the city

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

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 $50,000 -- 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 New York.
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

Where these numbers come from

Everything above is taken from United Way of New York City'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 133 section 501(c)(3) organizations and 52 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: 205 East 42ND Street, New York, NY, 10017.

EIN 13-2617681 · See the original filings on ProPublica · How we build this

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