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Montecito Firefighters Charitable Foundation at a glanceMostly funded, not a grantmaker: see who funds it →

· Public charity

Montecito Firefighters Charitable Foundation

To provide relief to those facing hardship based upon financial or other need, with the primary focus on first responders and their families and all children.

$95k
Granted FY2023
4
Grants FY2023
2
States reached
$10k
Largest
01What it fundsRead
02The needRead
03Its fieldRead
04Through PlinthRead
01What it funds
01100% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2020 to 2023.

Education$132kPublic Safety & Disaster$36kPhilanthropy$30kHuman Services$20kHealth$16kCrime & Legal$10kInternational$3k
02FY2023 · 4 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

How this is measured
The 4 grants below total $19,500, the rows itemized in this filing. The $95,000 headline is the total grant expense on the return; the other $75,500 is giving the schedule does not break out (grants under the $5,000 itemization floor, grants to individuals, grants on other schedules). Every figure below describes the itemized rows only.

By grant size · FY2023

  • Under $10k3 grants · $10k
  • $10k–50k1 grant · $10k
$6,000
Median grant
2
States reached
$595k
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
OXNARD FIREFIGHTERS FOUNDATION$10,000
SCHOLARSHIP FOUNDATION OF SANTA BARBARA$6,000
UBAKA U RWANDA$3,000
SANTA BARBARA COUNTY FIREFIGHTER BENEVOLENT FOUNDATION$500
02The need
03

Does the money reach high-need areas?

Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.

show:

Its human-services grants (FY22–22, $10k) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 100% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

area typical 8%SANTA MARIA CITY FIREFIGHTERS BENEVOLENT FOUNDATION: $10k → 14%0%20%40%50%more need →
grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount
How this is measured
Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty line in the grantee’s ZIP, averaged from the tracts in that ZIP.
How this is measured
US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are delivered. Need from public data (U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA), shown as context about the area, never attributed to the funder’s giving.
03Its field

Closest unfunded matches

The nonprofits that most resemble its grantees but are not funded by it, scored along the direction from the rest of the field toward the portfolio. A resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.

1
Santa Barbara Firefighters Alliance

Donate funds to, or purchase equipment for, the santa barbara city and santa barbara county fire departments in the state of california.

Public Safety & Disaster
2
Santa Barbara Athlete Fund

The primary function of the organization is to provide eligible low-income high school-aged student athletes in Santa Barbara County and Ventura County, California, with grants paid to local athletic facilities in order to provide them…

Recreation & Sports
3
Santa Barbara County Deputy Sheriffs Foundation

The mission of the Santa Barbara Deputy Sheriffs Foundation is to provide critical resources and vital support to improve public safety, officer readiness, and enhance the quality of life for the 450+ men and women who have answered the…

Public Benefit
4
Santa Barbara South Coast Firefighter Foundation Inc

The primary purpose of the south coast firefighter foundation is to support injured/deceased firefighters and their families; educate the community about safety issues; provide community programs and support the carpinteria summerland fire…

Public Safety & Disaster
5
Sebastopol Firefighters Foundation

The specific purpose of the Foundation is to support the Sebastopol Fire Department and its firefighters; the activities and needs of the community of Sebastopol; and in cases of disaster and/or traumatic events, other first responders or…

Public Safety & Disaster
6
San Rafael Fire Foundation

The San Rafael Fire Foundation supports our firefighters and paramedics by funding technology, equipment, training and public outreach beyond what is allocated by the City to maintain our department as a Class-1 Fire Department.

Public Safety & Disaster
7
The L a Fire Department Scholarship Fund
Education
8
Ucsb Charitable Foundation Inc
Philanthropy
9
Cal Fire Benevolent Foundation

This public benefit corporation is organized exclusively to engage in lawful charitable and educational activities supporting the families of firefighters and other firefighting suppression personnel in times of financial need or hardship:…

Human Services
10
Ventura County Fire Dept Benefit Fund

To Provide Assistance to members of the Ventura County Fire Department in time of need

—
11
Salinas Police Foundation

To provide community programs which support law enforcement and crime prevention needs for the community of SalinasTo provide training and equipment for the Police Department of the City of Salinas, California.

Crime & Legal
12
Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Benevolent Posse

Support the santa barbara county sheriff's department

Crime & Legal
How this is measured
The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Santa Barbara Foundation; the most unlike its peers is Villa La Paz. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
04the grantee network

15 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.

Each grant beside the grantee’s revenue from every source, year by year.

How this is measured

Counted here: distinct organizations funded across 2017 to 2025, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover.

Each grantee is resolved to its own IRS returns. Association, dated; never a causal claim.

0
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
3
Early backer (in before they grew)
15/15
Grantees still filing
8/15
Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

SCHOLARSHIP FOUNDATION OF SANTA BARBARA: $132,000 · OtherSCHOLARSHIP FOUNDATION OF SANTA BARBARA+2 more: $6,000 · OtherSANTA BARBARA FOUNDATION: $30,000 · PhilanthropySANTA BARBARA FOUNDATIO…SANTA BARBARA CITY FIREFIGHTERS CHARITABLE FUND INC: $10,000 · PhilanthropySANTA BARBARA CITY FIRE…GALS GIVE BACK INC: $10,000 · PhilanthropyGALS GIVE BACK INCGWENDOLYN STRONG FOUNDATION: $12,500 · HealthOxnard Firefighters Foundation Inc: $10,000 · Public Safety & DisasterVentura Fire Foundation Inc: $2,000 · Public Safety & DisasterSANTA BARBARA CTY FIREFIGHTERS BEN FND: $500 · Public Safety & DisasterSANTA MARIA FIREFIGHTERS BENEVOLENT FOUNDATION: $10,000 · Human ServicesVILLA LA PAZ: $10,000 · InternationalSANTA BARBARA POLICE FOUNDATION: $5,000 · Crime & LegalCALM INC: $5,000 · Crime & LegalGIRLS INCORPORATED OF CARPINTERIA: $3,243 · Youth Development
Other$138,000Philanthropy$50,000Health$12,500Public Safety & Disaster$12,500Human Services$10,000International$10,000Crime & Legal$10,000Youth Development$3,243

Each grantee by its size and the funder’s share of it; top left is load-bearing

25%50%75%100%$100k$1.0M$10M$100Mgrantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetSCHOLARSHIP FOUNDATION OF SANTA BARBARA: $132,000 over 4y, 1.1% of budgetSANTA BARBARA FOUNDATION: $30,000 over 1y, 0.1% of budgetGWENDOLYN STRONG FOUNDATION: $12,500 over 1y, 1.9% of budgetSANTA MARIA FIREFIGHTERS BENEVOLENT FOUNDATION: $10,000 over 1y, 16% of budgetSANTA BARBARA CITY FIREFIGHTERS CHARITABLE FUND INC: $10,000 over 1y, 23% of budgetOxnard Firefighters Foundation Inc: $10,000 over 1y, 5.4% of budgetGALS GIVE BACK INC: $10,000 over 1y, 7.6% of budgetVILLA LA PAZ: $10,000 over 1y, 2.4% of budgetSANTA BARBARA POLICE FOUNDATION: $5,000 over 1y, 1.2% of budgetCALM INC: $5,000 over 1y, 0.1% of budgetGIRLS INCORPORATED OF CARPINTERIA: $3,243 over 1y, 0.3% of budgetVentura Fire Foundation Inc: $2,000 over 1y, 1.2% of budgetSANTA BARBARA CTY FIREFIGHTERS BEN FND: $500 over 1y, 0.4% of budget
Grantee by grantee: a decade per organization, before and after funding

A decade per grantee: revenue shaded, grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.

Co-funders

Grantmakers whose grantees overlap with this funder’s far more than size alone predicts. Closer means stronger alignment; arcs show where they also fund each other. Here they form a tightly interlocked group: most of these funders back each other's grantees too.

Hutton Foundation Dba…Santa Barbara Foundat…Ann Jackson Family Fo…Junior League of Sant…Paypal Charitable Giv…The Bank of America C…Donor Advised Charita…American Online Givin…Fidelity Investments …Amazonsmile Foundation
Hutton Foundation Dba Hutton Parker FoundationCA17.7× affinity6 shared granteesties to 9 of 9Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Hutton Foundation Dba Hutton Parker Foundation · Santa Barbara Foundation · Ann Jackson Family Foundation · Junior League of Santa Barbara · Paypal Charitable Giving Fund · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Amazonsmile Foundation

How this is measured
Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. Overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.

How much its grantees rely on government

Each dot is one organization Montecito Firefighters Charitable Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Montecito Firefighters Charitable Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2024
’20’21’22’23’24’25
no gov · 10%2%6%14%25%funder's share of their income ↑0%25%50%75%100%share of the org’s income from government →
    no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
    1get no government money at all
    2report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)
    0rely on government for over half their income
    typical government reliance, FY20–25
    How this is measured
    Government income is each org’s traced federal awards (USASpending grants and contracts) plus state payments (open checkbooks) as a share of its total revenue (IRS Form 990); the self-reported government-grant line (990 line 1e) is carried for cross-check: a grantee that reports government grants we could not trace to a source is left off the chart rather than shown as receiving none. An association, not a claim that a grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first, a floor rather than a census; state records exist for 9 states, so a grantee outside them shows no state figure (dimmed) rather than a false zero. Federal award amounts are obligations, which can span years, so a single-year share is indicative. 990 filings lag 12 to 24 months.
    04Through Plinth

    Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

    How do I get to Montecito Firefighters Charitable Foundation?

    Find your warmest path to Montecito Firefighters Charitable Foundation through trustees and officers whose names appear on both boards. Search for your organization and Plinth traces the shortest route it can evidence.

    Each link is a name appearing on two organizations’ public IRS 990 filings, matched on that name and, where the filings support it, on location. A same-state match has geographic support, which is a second matching feature rather than confirmation that the two are one person; a cross-state one is the likeliest to be two people who share a name. Every hop shows its tier, low-confidence and distant paths are held back rather than guessed, and it is worth confirming the person before you use the introduction.

    On method. Every financial figure here is read from IRS e-file XML, the funder’s own 990/990-PF, and from the multi-year returns of the 15 grantees we resolved, each linked to its source. Grantee outcomes are each organization’s own program-service reporting (Form 990, Part III), read as association with funding, never as caused by it. Low-confidence name matches are suppressed rather than guessed. How we build these →

    How this is measured
    Each figure carries one of six labels. Filed is what the funder reported on its return. Official is another government record about an organization, such as a federal award or a charity register, joined by name where no shared identifier exists. Resolved is an identity we worked out where the filing named a recipient without an EIN, kept only above a measured confidence threshold. Computed is arithmetic over those, like themes, portfolio clusters and co-funder strength. Context is a statistic about a place rather than about an organization, which is what the need overlay is: it describes the area a grantee’s address sits in, not where its work lands. Inferred is drawn by a model from text, like the partnerships read out of public news and organization websites. Each is labeled where it appears.

    Generated from the IRS Form 990 e-file return for fiscal year 2023, released 2023. Filings run roughly 12 to 24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

    Possibly out of date. A more recent filing (FY2024) is on record and reports $54k of grant expense, but none of it to a named recipient. On a Form 990 that can mean grants abroad, filed by region only (Schedule F), grants under $5,000, which are not itemized, or a schedule referenced as an attachment the e-file does not carry. The figures above are therefore from FY2023, the most recent year this funder named its grantees.

    Source object · view filing

    Play a game based on Montecito Firefighters’ filings →

    More from the funding graph

    The unnamed billions
    grants reported with no recipient in the public record
    The regranting layer
    51% of grant dollars land in the regranting layer
    The DAF merry-go-round
    $9.7B circulates between donor-advised funds
    The endowment market
    who holds foundation money, and what just moved
    The camps
    funders cluster by geography, not ideology
    By state
    where grant money is based, and what stays home