California · Nonprofit
Berkeley Food Network
Berkeley Food Network (California) receives grants from 38 organizations whose IRS filings report $3,040,416 to it, the largest being SUNLIGHT GIVING ($602,000). 24 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 50% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- Revenue FY2025
- $5.6M
- Funders on record
- 38
- Grants received
- $3.0M
- Net assets
- $723k
What Berkeley Food Network does
Mission
The Berkeley Food Network (bfn) works to expand food assistance services to food-insecure berkeley residents. Bfn was founded in 2016 to help establish a foundation of good health from which all berkeley residents can pursue opportunity by providing an innovative, community-centered network of food sourcing and distribution to alleviate the problems of hunger and poor nutrition in berkeley.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Program
Food sourcing -operate a food sourcing program, which includes a robust food recovery program (working with local food businesses to divert healthy, edible food from the landfill) and source food from our regional food bank and local food businesses.food distribution operate a distribution warehouse and onsite food pantry. The pantry programs include partnering with berkeley service organizations at various local sites to distribute food to individuals at convenient locations and times through our mobile pantry program, berkeley unified school district grocery bag distributions, and our warehouse pantry. The hub kitchen program converts recovered food into prepared meals for distribution through our mobile and onsite pantry programs and through partnerships with programs in berkeley serving the homeless. In 2022, over 1,600,000 pounds of food were distributed, and over 35,900 visits were made to the pantry.education and advocacy programs for the local community.
$5,063,609 spent100% of program spending
The program described on its FY2024 Form 990. Program spending in total: $5,063,609.
The organization over time
Each line starts at 100 in 2019, so what you read is the shape rather than the size: 150 means half as much again as 2019, 50 means half. The number beside each label in the key is where it ended. The shaded band is where the middle 50% of its peers' revenue would sit, given their growth.
Balance sheet
Total assets and total liabilities at each year end, in dollars. The largest one-year move in total assets was 2019 to 2020, from $217k to $813k (+274%).
How it's funded, over time
Each bar is one year's revenue split into where it came from, and every bar is the same height — these are shares, not amounts, so a year that raised twice as much looks the same size. Hover a bar for the split.
Government-grant reliance: 2021 1% · 2023 1% · 2024 9% · 2025 10%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
100% of Berkeley Food Network’s revenue is contributions — more reliant on donations than three-quarters of its peers (94% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 3 of the last 7 reported years ran a deficit.
reserve
Leadership and staff
The officers, directors, trustees and key employees listed on each return. Joined and no longer listed compare each filing with the year before, matching people by surname and first initial; a year after a gap, or a roster under three people, has no comparison.
Board chair
Pamela Gray
Board Chair
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2018 → 2023: the base broadened from 2 funders to 20 funders, grant income rose $10k → $580k.
11 of 38 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 50% of grant dollars received. That money is really individual donors directing a sponsor; the institutions to cultivate are the non-DAF funders.
From the IRS filings of Berkeley Food Network’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 38 funders by total. Association, not causation. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.
How concentrated its funding is
Berkeley Food Network has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 20% of grant income, and it takes 3 funders to reach half.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 3 funders to its left
56% of the income these shares are computed over arrives through pass-through sponsors or from payers whose filings do not say what kind of payment it is. Concentration is still measured over all of it, because the money is real; what it does not support is a claim about how many institutions have chosen to fund Berkeley Food Network.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2018 100% · 2019 67% · 2020 30% · 2021 38% · 2022 21% · 2023 19% — diversifying over time.
“Effective funders” = inverse Herfindahl index (1 / Σ shareᵢ²) — the number of equal-sized funders that would give the same concentration. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.
How long its funders stay
59% of Berkeley Food Network's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 63% give in more than one year at all.
Share of funders still giving k years after their first recorded grant, pooled across every acquisition cohort. A funder counts as retained in a year only if it made a grant that year. Measured to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving — a funder cannot be counted as lapsed in a year most filers have not reached.
Where its funders are
50% of Berkeley Food Network's grant income arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors, whose addresses record where the money is held rather than where the donor is. Of the $1.5M that is directly attributable, 97% of it comes from California funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $1.5M arriving through sponsors registered in 9 states is excluded from the map and the split above: a sponsor holds money on a donor’s behalf, so its registered address would place those dollars somewhere no donor need ever have been. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.
Against its field
Berkeley Food Network has grown faster than three-quarters of the 655 food & nutrition nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 655 food & nutrition nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2025
Organizations like Berkeley Food Network
Organizations whose mission and program text most resemble this one, by semantic similarity over every organization in the US filings — the closest peers, and often the clearest route to shared or prospective funders.
In California
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
95% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
100%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Footprint & structure
Files a return copy in 1 state
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for Berkeley Food Network: IRS status (Business Master File, Publication 78, auto-revocation), the OFAC sanctions lists, the Internal Revenue Bulletin, and California registration, with the Rev. Proc. 2018-32 §8.01 reliance elements stated element by element. Generated from the current files at the moment you download it.
Screens are triage, not determinations; a source that cannot be read reports not screened, never clear. Screen this nonprofit · How the screen works · on the API as GET /api/screening/{ein}?format=pdf
Questions and answers
- Who funds Berkeley Food Network?
- Berkeley Food Network (California) receives grants from 38 organizations whose IRS filings report $3,040,416 to it, the largest being SUNLIGHT GIVING ($602,000). 24 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 50% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- How many funders does Berkeley Food Network have?
- IRS filings report 38 organizations giving $3,040,416 in grants to Berkeley Food Network, 24 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of Berkeley Food Network?
- SUNLIGHT GIVING is the largest funder on record, with $602,000 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like Berkeley Food Network find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in California. The funding by cause and by state pages list the largest funders for a given area and how to approach them.
Play a game about who funds Berkeley Food Network →
These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2025 (financials across 2019–2025), and the filings of 38 funders that report grants to it. “On record” means captured in the filings we have parsed — a funder that does not e-file, or whose grant detail is not itemized, will not appear. Filings run roughly 12–24 months behind. Trends on this page end at FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving; later years are shown and marked, and move no figure. Data on this page was exported October 22, 2026. What this page cannot tell you · view filing