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United Ways of California at a glanceAlso receives grants: funding profile →

· Public charity

United Ways of California

UNITED WAYS OF CALIFORNIA (uwca) improves the health, education and financial results for low income children and families by enhancing and coordinating the community impact work of california's united ways.

$20M
Granted FY2024still arriving
39
Grants FY2024still arriving
1
States reached
$1.7M
Largest
01What it fundsRead
02The needRead
03Its granteesRead
04Its fieldRead
05Through 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, FY2017 to 2024.

Philanthropy$18MHuman Services$4.1MPublic Safety & Disaster$2.1MEmployment$1.9MHealth$277kYouth Development$74kEducation$58kPublic Benefit$45kOther$0
02FY2024 · 39 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

How this is measured
The 39 grants below total $6,614,214, the rows itemized in this filing. The $19,557,594 headline is the total grant expense on the return; the other $12,943,380 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 · FY2024

  • Under $10k1 grant · $7k
  • $10k–50k15 grants · $353k
  • $50k–250k15 grants · $1.9M
  • $250k+8 grants · $4.3M
$79,865
Median grant
1
States reached
$5.4M
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
ICFS$1,651,409
UNITED WAY FRESNO MADERA$646,706
INLAND SOCAL UNITED WAY$457,915
COMMUNITY LINK CAPITAL REGION$387,424
UNITED WAY OF KERN COUNTY$348,800
NORTHERN SANTA BARBARA COUNTY UNITED WAY$301,336
UNITED WAY OF TULARE COUNTY$264,040
UNITED WAY BAY AREA$250,000
UNITED WAY SAN JOAQUIN$233,090
UNITED WAY OF MERCED COUNTY$218,870
UNITED WAY OF GREATER LOS ANGELES$200,000
UNITED WAY OF SANTA CRUZ COUNTY$166,267
GRANTSASSISTNACE LESS THAN 5K$146,550
UNITED WAY OF NORTHERN CALIFORNIA$142,167
ORANGE COUNTY UNITED WAY$130,000
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 (FY20–24, $3.9M) land where the poverty rate runs at 10%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 18% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Its grants skew toward lower-need ZIPs.

area typical 11%LUTHERAN SOCIAL SERVICES OF NORTHERN CALIF: $33k → 9%CALIFORNIA CHILDREN & FAMILIES FDT INC: $48k → 10%COMMUNITY LINK CAPITAL REGION: $387k → 12%LUTHERAN SOCIAL SERVICES OF NORTHERN CALIF: $27k → 9%California Children & Families Fdt Inc: $45k → 10%COMMUNITY LINK CAPITAL REGION: $321k → 12%FIRST 5 ASSOCIATION OF CALIFORNIA: $33k → 10%CALIFORNIA CHILDREN & FAMILIES FDN: $11k → 10%CUMMUNITY LINK CAPITAL REGION: $8k → 12%ICFS: $1.7M → 10%ICFS: $1.4M → 10%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 grantees
repeat funding

Who it funds again

Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.

95%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.
$24M · 30 repeat orgs$1.1M to everyone else

Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +2% since the first grant, against -4% for those funded once.

30 repeat relationships: 24 still active in FY2024, 6 since wound down; 3 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

30
8

Total granted

$24M
$224k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+2%
-4%

Still filing today

97%
100%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2024, 85% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $923k went to new ones.

50%100%’17’18’19’20’21’22’23’24
RenewedFirst-time

Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant

’17’18’19’20’21’22’23’24
PhilanthropyHuman ServicesEmploymentHealthPublic BenefitYouth DevelopmentOther
How this is measured
First-time means a grantee’s first year in the filing window; renewed means funded in an earlier year too. The renewed share climbs naturally as a portfolio matures, so the signal is a year that bucks it (a wave of new grantees). The earliest year is left-censored: relationships that predate the data read as new. Theme is the grantee’s IRS cause.

Backed again, and grew

  • UW
    United Way of Fresno and Madera Counties
    7× · 2017–2023 · $4.3M · revenue +88% · 59% of their budget
  • Interface Children Family Services
    2× · 2023–2024 · $3.0M · revenue +0%
  • UW
    United Way of Merced County
    6× · 2017–2024 · $1.5M · revenue +295% · 30% of their budget

Funded once

  • GI
    Goodwill Industries Sacramento Valley & Northern Nevada Inc
    one grant, 2023 · $94k · revenue -4%
  • TA
    THE ANTI-RECIDIVISM COALITION
    one grant, 2022 · $40k · revenue +9%
  • F5
    First 5 Association of California Inc
    one grant, 2022 · $33k · revenue -3%
How this is measured

Repeat means funded in two or more distinct years. Growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.

04Its 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
United Ways of California

United ways of california (uwca) improves the health, education and financial results for low income children and families by enhancing and coordinating the community impact work of california's united ways.

Community Improvement
2
Central County United Way

Central County United Way connects people, resources and ideas to create a thriving community characterized by productive youth programs, senior services, healthy people and the community in which we live.

Philanthropy
3
United Way of the Crossroads

To mobilize and support a united and resilient crossroads community that creates opportunities for every person to have access to a quality education that leads to a stable job, enough income to support a family through retirement, and…

Philanthropy
4
United Way of the Mid-Willamette Valley

Uniting people and resources to build thriving and resilient communities. We find every dollar we can to address these critical issues, but we are more than fundraisers. Our work is centralized around four focus areas; developing housing…

—
5
United Way of Umatilla & Morrow Counties

United way of umatilla and morrow counties empowers individual givers to support their communities in caring for those in need.

—
6
United Way of Snohomish County

United way of snohomish county improves lives for families in snohomish county by bringing people, resources, and strategy together.

Philanthropy
7
United Way of North Central Iowa

Seeking to build a stronger, more caring community by forming partnerships with businesses, community experts, education & health & human service agencies to achieve targeted outcomes & sustained changes in community conditions which will…

Philanthropy
8
United Way of Bay County

To bring our community together to impact lives. the united way of bay county will produce efficient and effective outcomes for people in our community by assessing gaps in human services and collaborating with community impact partners to…

—
9
United Way of Illinois

Strengthen United Way movement in Illinois

Philanthropy
10
California Consortium for Urban Indian Health

The mission of ccuih is to facilitate shared development resources for our members and to raise public awareness in order to support a health and wellness network that meets the needs of american indians living in urban communities in…

—
11
Central Coast Alliance United for a Sustainable Economy

CAUSE's mission is to build grassroots power to realize social, economic and environmental justice for the people of the Central Coast Region through policy research, leadership development, organizing and advocacy.

Community Improvement
12
United Way of Tucson and Southern Arizona Inc

Our vision is a community where every child receives a high-quality education from birth to career, every adult has the opportunity to thrive financailly and in the workplace, and every older person can retire and age with dignity and…

Philanthropy
How this is measured
The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is United Way of Northern California; the most unlike its peers is California Alliance of Caregivers. 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

42 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. 42 of the 45 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile.

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

10
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
7
Early backer (in before they grew)
42/42
Grantees still filing
21/42
Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

UNITED WAY OF CENTRAL EASTERN CALIFORNIA DBA UNITED WAY OF KERN COUNTY: $2,138,200 · PhilanthropyUNITED WAY OF CENTRAL EASTERN CALIFORNIA DBA UNITED WAY OF KERN CO…UNITED WAY OF TULARE COUNTY: $1,790,342 · PhilanthropyUNITED WAY OF TULARE COUNTYUnited Way of Merced County: $1,543,377 · PhilanthropyUnited Way of Merced CountyNORTHERN SANTA BARBARA COUNTY UNITED WAY: $1,298,344 · PhilanthropyNORTHERN SANTA BARBARA COUNTY UNITED WAYUnited Way of Stanislaus County: $1,178,178 · PhilanthropyUnited Way of Stanislaus CountyUNITED WAY OF NORTHERN CALIFORNIA: $777,599 · PhilanthropyINLAND SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA UNITED WAY: $658,779 · PhilanthropyUNITED WAY OF THE BAY AREA: $656,500 · PhilanthropyUNITED WAY OF MONTEREY COUNTY: $625,407 · PhilanthropyUnited Way of Santa Cruz County: $582,753 · PhilanthropyINLAND EMPIRE UNITED WAY: $562,092 · PhilanthropyUNITED WAY OF SLO COUNTY: $554,873 · PhilanthropyKINGS UNITED WAY: $550,985 · PhilanthropyUNITED WAY WORLDWIDE: $542,760 · Philanthropy+10 more: $2,414,016 · Philanthropy+10 moreUnited Way of Fresno and Madera Counties: $4,293,112 · OtherUnited Way of Fresno and Mad…UNITED WAY OF SAN JOAQUIN COUNTY: $991,389 · OtherUNITED WAY OF SAN JOAQUIN CO…UNITED WAY FRESNO MADERA: $671,706 · OtherUNITED WAY FRESNO MADERAUNITED WAY SAN JOAQUIN: $490,800 · OtherUNITED WAY SAN JOAQUIN+6 more: $336,608 · OtherInterface Children Family Services: $3,027,516 · Human ServicesInterface Childr…Community Link Capital Region: $716,059 · Human ServicesCommunity Link C…+4 more: $238,250 · Human Services+4 moreGoodwill Industries Sacramento Valley & Northern Nevada Inc: $93,885 · EmploymentJohn Burton Advocates for Youth: $73,500 · Youth DevelopmentTHE ANTI-RECIDIVISM COALITION: $40,000 · Crime & LegalCalifornia Alliance of Caregivers: $40,000 · HealthONE LA-IAF: $13,175 · Public Benefit
Philanthropy$15,874,205Other$6,783,615Human Services$3,981,825Employment$93,885Youth Development$73,500Crime & Legal$40,000Health$40,000Public Benefit$13,175

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

25%50%75%100%$1.0M$10M$100Mgrantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetUnited Way of Fresno and Madera Counties: $4,293,112 over 7y, 59% of budgetInterface Children Family Services: $3,027,516 over 2y, 8.9% of budgetUNITED WAY OF CENTRAL EASTERN CALIFORNIA DBA UNITED WAY OF KERN COUNTY: $2,138,200 over 7y, 45% of budgetUNITED WAY OF TULARE COUNTY: $1,790,342 over 4y, 63% of budgetUnited Way of Merced County: $1,543,377 over 6y, 30% of budgetNORTHERN SANTA BARBARA COUNTY UNITED WAY: $1,298,344 over 6y, 40% of budgetUnited Way of Stanislaus County: $1,178,178 over 4y, 32% of budgetUNITED WAY OF SAN JOAQUIN COUNTY: $991,389 over 2y, 34% of budgetUNITED WAY OF NORTHERN CALIFORNIA: $777,599 over 6y, 8.5% of budgetCommunity Link Capital Region: $716,059 over 3y, 10% of budgetINLAND SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA UNITED WAY: $658,779 over 5y, 7.4% of budgetUNITED WAY OF THE BAY AREA: $656,500 over 7y, 1.2% of budgetUNITED WAY OF MONTEREY COUNTY: $625,407 over 7y, 2.5% of budgetUnited Way of Santa Cruz County: $582,753 over 5y, 5.3% of budgetINLAND EMPIRE UNITED WAY: $562,092 over 4y, 42% of budgetUNITED WAY OF SLO COUNTY: $554,873 over 5y, 29% of budgetKINGS UNITED WAY: $550,985 over 4y, 42% of budgetUNITED WAY WORLDWIDE: $542,760 over 1y, 1.1% of budgetUNITED WAY OF THE WINE COUNTRY: $525,044 over 6y, 8.9% of budgetORANGE COUNTY'S UNITED WAY: $503,039 over 8y, 0.8% of budgetUNITED WAY INC: $415,000 over 4y, 0.5% of budgetUNITED WAY OF VENTURA COUNTY INC: $281,405 over 8y, 4.7% of budgetUNITED WAY OF SAN DIEGO COUNTY: $270,001 over 3y, 2.0% of budgetUNITED WAY CALIFORNIA CAPITAL REGION: $214,950 over 4y, 0.8% of budgetSOUTHERN CALIFORNIA EDUCATION FUND: $106,350 over 5y, 6.4% of budgetUNITED WAY OF SANTA BARBARA COUNTY INC: $104,865 over 1y, 2.8% of budgetCalifornia Children and Families Foundation Inc: $104,675 over 3y, 2.2% of budgetGoodwill Industries Sacramento Valley & Northern Nevada Inc: $93,885 over 1y, 0.1% of budgetUnited Way of Imperial County: $87,556 over 3y, 6.0% of budgetJohn Burton Advocates for Youth: $73,500 over 3y, 0.9% of budgetLUTHERAN SOCIAL SERVICES OF NORTHERN CALIFORNIA: $60,000 over 2y, 0.2% of budgetLATINO COMMUNITY FOUNDATION: $40,500 over 1y, 0.1% of budgetTHE ANTI-RECIDIVISM COALITION: $40,000 over 1y, 0.2% of budgetCalifornia Alliance of Caregivers: $40,000 over 2y, 9.3% of budgetFirst 5 Association of California Inc: $33,075 over 1y, 2.1% of budgetYuba-Sutter-Colusa United Way: $27,656 over 2y, 3.5% of budgetPeople For Irvine Community Health: $25,000 over 1y, 0.6% of budgetUnited Way of Nevada County: $23,900 over 2y, 14% of budgetONE LA-IAF: $13,175 over 1y, 12% of budgetArrowhead United Way: $7,156 over 1y, 0.3% of budgetUnited Way of the Desert: $7,152 over 1y, 0.4% of budgetCORONA NORCO UNITED WAY: $5,000 over 1y, 1.0% 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.

United Way WorldwideUnited Way California…Kaiser Foundation Hos…Mufg Union Bank Found…AT&T FoundationThe California Wellne…Lumen Clarke M Willia…The California Endowm…Bnsf Railway Foundati…United Way of the Bay…Conrad N Hilton Found…Sierra Health Foundat…
United Way WorldwideVA42.3× affinity27 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: United Way Worldwide · United Way California Capital Region · Kaiser Foundation Hospitals · Mufg Union Bank Foundation Ag · AT&T Foundation · The California Wellness Foundation · Lumen Clarke M Williams Foundation · The California Endowment · Bnsf Railway Foundation · United Way of the Bay Area · Conrad N Hilton Foundation · Sierra Health Foundation Center for Health Program Management

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 United Ways of California funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from United Ways of California. Bigger dots raise more.

2024
’20’21’22’23’24’25
no gov · 00%6%25%56%100%funder's share of their income ↑0%6%13%19%25%share of the org’s income from government →
    no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
    0get no government money at all
    17report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)
    0rely on government for over half their income
    ⤢ axis zoomed · 0–25%
    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.
    05Through Plinth

    Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

    How do I get to United Ways of California?

    Find your warmest path to United Ways of California 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 45 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 2024, released 2024. Filings run roughly 12 to 24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

    Source object · view filing

    Play a game based on United Ways of California’s 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