California · Nonprofit
Friends and Foundation of the San Francisco Public Library
Friends and Foundation of the San Francisco Public Library (California) receives grants from 47 organizations whose IRS filings report $4,975,189 to it, the largest being THE SAN FRANCISCO FOUNDATION ($1,493,605). 26 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 81% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- Revenue FY2025
- $4.9M
- Funders on record
- 47
- Grants received
- $5.0M
- Net assets
- $12M
What Friends and Foundation of the San Francisco Public Library does
Mission
See Schedule OFriends supports the free public libraries of San Francisco. We provide funding and conduct advocacy and outreach to ensure that all people have equal access to the information, resources and support that our libraries provide. Friends believes that libraries are anchors for thriving neighborhoods, and that an excellent library system is critical to the health of our city.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Programs
Library Support Program:Friends has an annual direct support program that funds various library programs, resources, and equipment. As a community foundation, Friends awards support to the SFPL for innovative, free programs and services that are open to everyone across San Francisco in the areas of: children and teens, neighborhood branches, arts and culture, exhibitions, careers and jobs support, ESL, new immigrant support, technology and media learning, remote outreach (bookmobiles), and special collections and infrastructure support for affinity centers throughout the Main Library. Examples of popular programs that rely almost exclusively on Friends' support are One City One Book, the Summer Stride Reading and STEM Program, Tricycle Music Festival, and the publication of At the Library, a free newsletter of activities at the Main Library and the 27 branches. Friends' funds also support professional development for library staff, including paying for specialized training and conferences and grants to Librarians to pilot new innovative services that if successful, are often expanded system wide. And finally, Friends support includes additional funds for the library to promote…
$1,421,842 spentof which $902,179 as grants52% of program spendingCommunity Book Program: Through ongoing efforts to support the library, Friends connects readers with inexpensive and free books. Each year, through its Community Book Program ("CBP"), Friends takes in over one million donated books and media, which it in turn resells to the public through two bookstores, online sales, and a number of specialty book sales (including some of the largest book sales on the West Coast). The SFPL also selectively acquires rare books from Friends that enhance SFPL's collections. Many books are also donated to schools and other non-profit organizations through Friends' CBP. Friends re-engineered what has been known as Books Operations into the Book Program, embracing its activities more accurately and fueling its growth as a valuable community asset that supports SFPL's mission for literacy and literary engagement. The Book Programs' four fundamental goals balance literacy and a national model for environmental responsibility. These goals are to: - Increase access to low-cost books and media through multiple venues of convenience and affordability. - Redirect free books from the traditional market to underserved and low-income children and families.-…
$908,068 spent$915,277 earned by the program33% of program spendingAdvocacy Program:Friends continues the tradition of active and vocal support to ensure excellence in library services for all users. Friends' long and successful track record includes its critical role in passing five ballot measures over the last 30 years. Through its advocacy efforts, Friends helped pass a $106 million bond measure to build and refurbish 24 neighborhood branch libraries city-wide (2000, Prop A), championing the Library Preservation Fund, ensuring increased library hours, services and budget (1994, Prop E); spearheading the legislative campaign to build a $109.5 million new Main Library (1988, Prop A) and securing over $9.7 million in state funding. In 2007, Friends helped pass a measure (Prop D) that will bring in over $1.2 billion to the library by renewing the Library Preservation Fund and most recently in 2022, passed the third version of the Library Preservation Fund (Prop F) securing twenty-five years of public funding. We continue to work with elected officials, community groups, and the library administration to ensure a premier library system for San Francisco.
$282,205 spent10% of program spendingVolunteer Program:Friends has a robust volunteer program which helps support the CBP, library and Friends' literary events, and contribute to our library advocacy efforts by educating the public about the Library Preservation Fund as well as promoting patronage of the twenty-eight libraries in San Francisco. In FY 24/25, the program was supported by a total of 165 volunteers who contributed a total of 12,682 volunteer hours valued at $509,055. The Lisa Brown & Daniel Handler Writer's Residency Program:Made possible by the generosity of Daniel Handler and Lisa Brown, the residency is designed to provide five writers with free, adequate, and accessible space in which to produce creative work, and to connect them with the San Francisco Public Library to produce and share their work in the community. The resident authors work in designated artist space (the writers hive) at the Friends office where they have 24-hour unlimited access to the office and all the amenities and supplies of the office. Each resident is connected to a branch library as the resident writer/creator for the purpose of highlighting their talents and engaging with the library patrons.
$100,888 spent4% of program spending
The 4 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $2,713,003.
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 2020 to 2021, from $7.4M to $10M (+36%).
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 1% · 2018 1% · 2019 1% · 2020 1% · 2022 0% · 2023 0% · 2024 1% · 2025 0%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
75% of Friends and Foundation of the San Francisco Public Library’s revenue is contributions — more donation-reliant than the typical peer (48% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 5 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
Emily Ford Dirks
Executive Director (start 5/24)
Board chair
Rebecca Charnas-Grant
Chair
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 12 funders to 25 funders, grant income rose $223k → $869k.
15 of 47 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 81% 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 Friends and Foundation of the San Francisco Public Library’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 47 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
Friends and Foundation of the San Francisco Public Library leans on a few funders — its largest provides 30% of grant income and the top three 64%; half comes from just 2 funders.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 2 funders to its left
81% 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 Friends and Foundation of the San Francisco Public Library.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 57% · 2018 43% · 2019 46% · 2020 30% · 2021 28% · 2022 28% · 2023 26% — 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
43% of Friends and Foundation of the San Francisco Public Library's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 55% 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
81% of Friends and Foundation of the San Francisco Public Library'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 $950k that is directly attributable, 90% of it comes from California funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $4.0M 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
Friends and Foundation of the San Francisco Public Library runs a healthier operating margin than three-quarters of the 9,398 education nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 9,398 education nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2025
Organizations like Friends and Foundation of the San Francisco Public Library
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
77% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
90%
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 Friends and Foundation of the San Francisco Public Library: 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 Friends and Foundation of the San Francisco Public Library?
- Friends and Foundation of the San Francisco Public Library (California) receives grants from 47 organizations whose IRS filings report $4,975,189 to it, the largest being THE SAN FRANCISCO FOUNDATION ($1,493,605). 26 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 81% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- How many funders does Friends and Foundation of the San Francisco Public Library have?
- IRS filings report 47 organizations giving $4,975,189 in grants to Friends and Foundation of the San Francisco Public Library, 26 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of Friends and Foundation of the San Francisco Public Library?
- THE SAN FRANCISCO FOUNDATION is the largest funder on record, with $1,493,605 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like Friends and Foundation of the San Francisco Public Library 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 47 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