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California · Nonprofit

HUMBOLDT AREA FOUNDATION

HUMBOLDT AREA FOUNDATION (California) receives grants from 70 organizations whose IRS filings report $49,461,644 to it, the largest being THE WILLIAM & FLORA HEWLETT FOUNDATION ($11,344,483). 36 of them have funded it in more than one year. HUMBOLDT AREA FOUNDATION administers funds for other donors, so those contributions arrive into funds it holds rather than supporting a program it runs itself.

Revenue FY2025
$19M
Funders on record
70
Grants received
$49M
Net assets
$150M
36/70 repeat funders

Hosts funds for others

HUMBOLDT AREA FOUNDATION administers funds on behalf of other donors. The grants recorded as coming in are contributions into those funds, so they count custody rather than support for a programHUMBOLDT AREA FOUNDATION runs itself. This page therefore states the flows and does not draw the comparisons it would draw for an operating charity: concentration, funder retention, grant dependency and the peer field are all left out, because each of them would read a vehicle as if it were a program.

Paid out

$48M

Recipients

469

Contributions on record

$50M

Donors on record

72

Payments out are 0.96x the contributions on record, so most of what arrives moves on within the period covered here.

01The organization over time

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.

100 = 20172017 Revenue 100 ($7.6M) Expenses 100 ($7.1M) Net assets 100 ($90M)2018 Revenue 168 ($13M) Expenses 119 ($8.5M) Net assets 110 ($99M)2019 Revenue 140 ($11M) Expenses 130 ($9.3M) Net assets 112 ($101M)2020 Revenue 171 ($13M) Expenses 141 ($10M) Net assets 115 ($103M)2021 Revenue 175 ($13M) Expenses 169 ($12M) Net assets 147 ($132M)2022 Revenue 254 ($19M) Expenses 197 ($14M) Net assets 127 ($114M)2023 Revenue 198 ($15M) Expenses 218 ($16M) Net assets 135 ($122M)2024 Revenue 302 ($23M) Expenses 235 ($17M) Net assets 156 ($141M)2025 Revenue 257 ($19M) Expenses 288 ($21M) Net assets 167 ($150M)
'17'18'19'20'21'22'23'24'25
Revenue (257)Expenses (288)Net assets (167)

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 $134M to $172M (+29%).

$110M
$120M
$132M
$134M
$172M
$149M
$160M
$184M
$196M
'17'18'19'20'21'22'23'24'25
Total assetsTotal liabilities

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.

2017
2018
2019
2020
2021
2022
2023
2024
2025
ContributionsProgram revenueInvestmentOther

Surplus & reserves

Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 2 of the last 9 reported years ran a deficit.

$410k
’17
$4.1M
’18
$1.3M
’19
$2.8M
’20
$1.2M
’21
$5.1M
’22
−$603k
’23
$6.0M
’24
−$1.1M
’25
5.6
months of
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

Sara Dronkers

CEO

As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.

The chief executive listed changed between the FY2019 and FY2020, and between the FY2024 and FY2025 filings.

'17'18'19'20'21'22'23'24'25
Listed141412181816202323
Joined·+0+2+6+4+1+6+4+2
No longer listed·04043212
02Who funds it

Who funds it, year by year

2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 16 funders to 29 funders, grant income rose $2.0M → $17M.

23 of 70 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 9% of grant dollars received. That money is really individual donors directing a sponsor; the institutions to cultivate are the non-DAF funders.

Left out of every figure on this page: $496k from one payer (the payer shares this organization's board, largest Humboldt Health Foundation); $162k from one payer (the same organization on both sides, largest Humboldt Area Foundation). These are real filings, and they are not money HUMBOLDT AREA FOUNDATION raised.

From the IRS filings of HUMBOLDT AREA FOUNDATION’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 70 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.

Where its funders are

90% of HUMBOLDT AREA FOUNDATION's grant income comes from California funders.

WA
MN
IL
NY
OR
NJ
CA
MO
MD
DE
TN
DC
TX
FL

In-state vs out-of-state, by year

’17
’18
’19
’20
’21
’22
’23
California out of state home

Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $4.4M arriving through sponsors registered in 11 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.

03Its place in the field
04Profile & governance

Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.

Where the money goes

85% of spending goes to programs.

Program 85%Management 8%Fundraising 8%

Governance

12
board members
100%
independent
✓Conflict-of-interest policy✓Whistleblower policy✓Document retention✓Board reviewed the 990✓Audited financials

Public support

59%

Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.

Footprint & structure

Files a return copy in 2 states

OR
CA

Part of a family of 2 related entities

  • Leavey Ranch LLC · disregarded
  • Humboldt Health Foundation · exempt

Screen this organization

A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for HUMBOLDT AREA FOUNDATION: 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.

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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 HUMBOLDT AREA FOUNDATION?
HUMBOLDT AREA FOUNDATION (California) receives grants from 70 organizations whose IRS filings report $49,461,644 to it, the largest being THE WILLIAM & FLORA HEWLETT FOUNDATION ($11,344,483). 36 of them have funded it in more than one year. HUMBOLDT AREA FOUNDATION administers funds for other donors, so those contributions arrive into funds it holds rather than supporting a program it runs itself.
How many funders does HUMBOLDT AREA FOUNDATION have?
IRS filings report 70 organizations giving $49,461,644 in grants to HUMBOLDT AREA FOUNDATION, 36 of which have funded it in more than one year.
Who is the largest funder of HUMBOLDT AREA FOUNDATION?
THE WILLIAM & FLORA HEWLETT FOUNDATION is the largest funder on record, with $11,344,483 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
How can an organization like HUMBOLDT AREA FOUNDATION 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 70 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