Visitor Development Fund Inc
Portland, OR · EIN 93-1305252. Reported 37 grants totalling $7,783,020 to 33 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:
- What kind of organization it is. For Visitor Development Fund Inc, the IRS classifies it under community improvement rather than as a grantmaker (NTEE S46) -- it is an operating charity that also makes grants.
- How spread out its giving is. 33 distinct organizations, with 82% 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. 25% 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 $17,960. Half of what it reported fell between $10,000 and $75,000; the smallest was $5,103 and the largest $3,038,676. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Merc | Portland, OR | $6,407,845 | 3 | 3 | 2023 |
| Emerald X Inc | San Juan Capistrano, CA | $367,544 | 2 | 2 | 2023 |
| National Association of Sports Commissions | West Chester, OH | $175,000 | 2 | 2 | 2023 |
| National Education Association of the United States | Washington, DC | $101,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages Inc | Alexandria, VA | $78,500 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Conferencedirect | Folsom, CA | $76,071 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Rip City Mgmt LLC | Portland, OR | $75,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| The Mission Productions Lp | Los Angeles, CA | $75,000 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Emc Communications | Santa Cruz, CA | $72,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| USA Artistic Swimming | Colorado Springs, CO | $45,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| American Association of Immunologists Inc | Rockville, MD | $25,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Brooksee LLC | Pleasant Grove, UT | $25,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| American Society of Health-System Pharmacists | Bethesda, MD | $20,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| International AIDS Society USA | San Francisco, CA | $20,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Lavacon Inc | Long Beach, CA | $20,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Navex Global Inc | Lake Oswego, OR | $17,960 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| American Society of Echocardiography Incorporated | Durham, NC | $16,500 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Future Business Leaders of America- Phi Beta Lambda Inc | Owasso, OK | $15,900 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| The American Society for Neurochemistry | Newton Highlands, MA | $15,880 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| National Association of State Directors of Migrant Education | Washington, DC | $15,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Rose City Rollers | Portland, OR | $15,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Vancouver Whitecaps Fc Lp | Vancouver, British Colu | $15,000 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics | Philadelphia, PA | $14,460 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| League of Oregon Cities | Salem, OR | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| International Law Students Association | Washington, DC | $9,820 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Society for American Archaeology | Washington, DC | $9,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Unitarian Universalist Association | Boston, MA | $8,802 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| International City County Management Association | Washington, DC | $7,361 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Hoopsource Grassroots LLC | Clackamas, OR | $7,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Nacada the Global Community for Academic Advising Inc | Manhattan, KS | $6,021 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| International Nanny Association | Homer Glen, IL | $5,980 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Peo Sisterhood International Chapter | Des Moines, IA | $5,273 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| American Library Association | Chicago, IL | $5,103 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
3 of 33 (9%) 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.
- Merc
SUPPORT FOR CONVENTION AND MEETINGS - Sports Events and Tourism Association
SYMPOSIUM SPONSORSHIP - 2024 HOST FEE - Tesol International Association
SCHOLARSHIPSFOR NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL ATTENDEES AND SPONSORSHIP OF CLOSING RECEPTION - Rip City Mgmt LLC
PK85 PHIL KNIGHT INVITATIONAL - USA Artistic Swimming
VISITOR DEVELOPMENT FUND GRANT - The American Association of Immunologists
SIGNING BONUS FOR AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF IMMUNOLOGISTS, INC.
What kind of organizations it funds
By each recipient's own IRS classification, for the 14 of 33 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 3 | $100,000 | $15,000 |
| 2021 | 4 | $824,249 | $50,000 |
| 2022 | 5 | $2,823,154 | $75,000 |
| 2023 | 25 | $4,035,617 | $16,500 |
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
84% of its giving went to organizations in Oregon. 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 $17,960 -- 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 Oregon.
- 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.
Where these numbers come from
Everything above is taken from Visitor Development Fund Inc'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 15 section 501(c)(3) organizations and 10 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: 100 Sw Main St 1100, Portland, OR, 97204.
EIN 93-1305252 · See the original filings on ProPublica · How we build this
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