California · Nonprofit
COMMUNITY INITIATIVES
COMMUNITY INITIATIVES (California) receives grants from 562 organizations whose IRS filings report $208,865,673 to it, the largest being Silicon Valley Community Foundation ($15,392,848). 273 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $87M
- Funders on record
- 562
- Grants received
- $209M
- Net assets
- $67M
What Community Initiatives does
Mission
Community Initiatives acts as a thought-partner and provides administrative services to nonprofit startups, established initiatives, networks, and collaborations. We sponsor projects for the benefit of communities in service to positive social change.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Program
Community Initiatives partners with more than 170 community-based projects working at the forefront of change. Across issue areas including education, health, environment, arts and culture, social justice, and youth development, these projects are responding to urgent needs, advancing innovative solutions, and strengthening communities every day. From expanding access to education and healthcare to protecting the environment, uplifting local artists, supporting families, and advancing equity, Community Initiatives' projects are deeply embedded in the communities they serve and are driving meaningful, measurable impact.through fiscal sponsorship, Community Initiatives provides the infrastructure, compliance, and operational support that allow these projects to focus on what matters most: their mission. By reducing administrative barriers and strengthening organizational capacity, Community Initiatives helps projects grow sustainably, deepen their reach, and accelerate their impact. To further expand the broader impact within the nonprofit sector, Community Initiatives stewards and manages philanthropic funds that resource and expand this work, enabling even more community-led…
$76,087,160 spentof which $23,835,649 as grants$14,091,337 earned by the program100% of program spending
The program described on its FY2024 Form 990. Program spending in total: $76,087,160.
The organization over time
Each line starts at 100 in 2017, so what you read is the shape rather than the size: 150 means half as much again as 2017, 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 2023 to 2024, from $56M to $74M (+32%).
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: 2017 6% · 2018 4% · 2019 10% · 2020 7% · 2021 17% · 2022 17% · 2023 6% · 2024 7% · 2025 6%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
81% of COMMUNITY INITIATIVES’s revenue is contributions — more donation-reliant than the typical peer (80% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 4 of the last 9 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.
Chief executive
Ruth Williams
CEO
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 99 funders to 195 funders, grant income rose $10M → $31M.
83 of 562 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 36% 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 COMMUNITY INITIATIVES’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 562 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
COMMUNITY INITIATIVES has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 7% of grant income, and it takes 19 funders to reach half.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 19 funders to its left
52% 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 COMMUNITY INITIATIVES.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 11% · 2018 14% · 2019 18% · 2020 18% · 2021 7% · 2022 15% · 2023 11% — broadly stable.
“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
34% of COMMUNITY INITIATIVES's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 49% 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
56% of COMMUNITY INITIATIVES's grant income comes from California funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $75M arriving through sponsors registered in 21 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
COMMUNITY INITIATIVES is better cushioned than half of the 490 philanthropy nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 490 philanthropy nonprofits $10M–$100M, FY2025
Government funding COMMUNITY INITIATIVES receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $871k on record — $756k federal, $115k state.
- Department of Justice$500k
- Department of Agriculture$92k
- Smithsonian Institution$74k
- Department of Commerce$38k
- National Endowment for the Arts$30k
- Department of Health and Human Services$15k
- (PP) STATE AID/POL SUB$115k
Federal grants vs contracts are distinguished; state line items keep their reported category. Matched by name + geography (the BMF), so coverage is partial and precision-first.
Organizations like COMMUNITY INITIATIVES
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
85% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
97%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Footprint & structure
Files a return copy in 37 states
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for COMMUNITY INITIATIVES: 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 COMMUNITY INITIATIVES?
- COMMUNITY INITIATIVES (California) receives grants from 562 organizations whose IRS filings report $208,865,673 to it, the largest being Silicon Valley Community Foundation ($15,392,848). 273 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does COMMUNITY INITIATIVES have?
- IRS filings report 562 organizations giving $208,865,673 in grants to COMMUNITY INITIATIVES, 273 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of COMMUNITY INITIATIVES?
- Silicon Valley Community Foundation is the largest funder on record, with $15,392,848 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like COMMUNITY INITIATIVES 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.
These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2025 (financials across 2017–2025), and the filings of 562 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