California · Nonprofit
FOREVER BALBOA PARK
FOREVER BALBOA PARK (California) receives grants from 58 organizations whose IRS filings report $7,505,653 to it, the largest being THE SAN DIEGO FOUNDATION ($2,524,725). 29 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 67% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- Revenue FY2025
- $6.8M
- Funders on record
- 58
- Grants received
- $7.5M
- Net assets
- $14M
What Forever Balboa Park does
Mission
To sustain, envision, and enhance Balboa Park for all in partnership with the City of San Diego and in collaboration with other organizations in the Park and the community. Our vision for the Park is to maintain and enhance its stature as a sustainable, world-class destination where all visitors are inspired, engaged, and enriched.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Programs
Park Improvement Projects and Programs:Parkwide Volunteers:The Organization recruits, trains, and retains volunteers to support an array of Park needs, from garden and tree maintenance to visitor experience services. Growing to more than 450 volunteers strong, current programs include: Park Ambassadors, Tree Stewards, Tree Maintenance Volunteers, Garden Stewards, Rose Garden Corps, Tour Guides, Botanical Building Volunteers and Information Desk Volunteers. Volunteers perform vital functions within the Park, and the program is certified by the Points of Light Foundation as an official Service Enterprise organization, one of only 11% nonprofits nationwide.Park Activation:The Organization supports the City's Parks and Recreation Department in placemaking and Park activation endeavors, including parkwide tours, Botanical Building tours, clean-ups, community tree plantings, and provisioning of volunteers for visitor services for December Nights. In addition to events, the Organization works with other Park stakeholders to provide important infrastructure and programming that supports community connection in public spaces. The Organization hosts high school and college level interns,…
$1,411,066 spent43% of program spendingHouse of Hospitality: Historic Facilities, GardensThe Organization maintains and preserves the House of Hospitality, a National Historic Landmark building, providing clean public restrooms, ongoing facility care, and security for tenants and visitors. The Visitors Center is housed in the House of Hospitality, along with the Organizations offices, The Prado Restaurant, a ballroom, meeting rooms, and offices for nonprofit cultural and educational organizations operating within the Park. The House of Hospitality serves visitors numbering over 1,000,000 each year.
$825,817 spent25% of program spendingBalboa Park Visitors Center: Retail Operations and Guest ServicesThe Balboa Park Visitors Center informs, educates, and serves over 600,000 visitors annually. The largest visitor center in the region, the Parks Visitors Center is supported by multilingual staff and volunteers with diverse backgrounds, who are trained to promote parkwide institutions and activities and to provide free and custom tours, maps, and information. The Visitors Center operates a gift store to offset the cost of visitor services and sells essential visitor amenities along with Park multi-museum passes, and zoo tickets.
$754,609 spent$751,275 earned by the program23% of program spendingDorothea Laub Balboa Park CarouselThe Balboa Park Carousel (the Carousel) was constructed in 1910 during the golden age of carousels (c.1880-1920) by the Herschell-Spillman Company of North Tonawanda, New York, and was permanently moved to the Park in 1922. Designated as a Historical Resource, the Carousel is a classic wood carousel of the menagerie type, featuring original hand-painted figures. After acquiring the Carousel in 2017, the Organization has made significant structural and historic restorations of the Carousel itself, and of the historic building in which it is housed. These restorations all adhere to rigorous historic restoration standards and include two new roofs, roof beam structural repairs, repairs to the clerestory windows and frames, and repainting. Additionally, a modern fire suppression system has been incorporated to protect the structure. The Carousel provides more than 100,000 rides annually to visitors of all ages.
$265,315 spent8% of program spending
The 4 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $3,256,807.
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 2021 to 2022, from $7.4M to $11M (+55%).
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: 2019 2% · 2020 5% · 2021 1% · 2022 14% · 2023 7% · 2025 3%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
66% of FOREVER BALBOA PARK’s revenue is contributions — about as donation-reliant as the typical peer (90% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 0 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.
Board chair
Victoria Hamilton
Chair
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 12 funders to 18 funders, grant income rose $453k → $821k.
13 of 58 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 67% 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 FOREVER BALBOA PARK’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 58 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
FOREVER BALBOA PARK has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 34% 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
67% 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 FOREVER BALBOA PARK.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 44% · 2018 68% · 2019 42% · 2020 49% · 2021 48% · 2022 38% · 2023 43% — 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
39% of FOREVER BALBOA PARK's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 50% 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
67% of FOREVER BALBOA PARK'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 $2.5M that is directly attributable, 86% of it comes from California funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $5.0M 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
FOREVER BALBOA PARK runs a healthier operating margin than three-quarters of the 1,211 religion nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 1,211 religion nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2025
Government funding FOREVER BALBOA PARK receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $258k on record.
- Department of the Interior$258k
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 FOREVER BALBOA PARK
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
72% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
65%
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 FOREVER BALBOA PARK: 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 FOREVER BALBOA PARK?
- FOREVER BALBOA PARK (California) receives grants from 58 organizations whose IRS filings report $7,505,653 to it, the largest being THE SAN DIEGO FOUNDATION ($2,524,725). 29 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 67% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- How many funders does FOREVER BALBOA PARK have?
- IRS filings report 58 organizations giving $7,505,653 in grants to FOREVER BALBOA PARK, 29 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of FOREVER BALBOA PARK?
- THE SAN DIEGO FOUNDATION is the largest funder on record, with $2,524,725 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like FOREVER BALBOA PARK 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 Forever Balboa Park →
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 58 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 14, 2026. What this page cannot tell you · view filing