California · Nonprofit
SAMARITAN HOUSE
SAMARITAN HOUSE (California) receives grants from 172 organizations whose IRS filings report $55,207,390 to it, the largest being Silicon Valley Community Foundation ($13,670,143). 97 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 51% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- Revenue FY2025
- $36M
- Funders on record
- 172
- Grants received
- $55M
- Net assets
- $35M
What Samaritan House does
Mission
Fighting poverty. Lifting lives. We mobilize the resources of our community to help those among us who are in need. Our dedicated professional staff and volunteers work together to provide food, access to shelter, healthcare, and a broad range of supportive services. We preserve dignity, promote self-sufficiency, and provide hope.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Programs
Client and food services: in fy25, we served 32,140 clients with safety net services, including emergency financial assistance, food, shelter, and healthcare. We filed 304 total tax returns last year, resulting in $286,084 in federal/state refunds. Thirteen savers improved their financial literacy and opened their first savings account. Our food services program provided 4+ million pounds of food, including 623,381 bags of groceries, collectively totaling more than 5.2 million meals to 13,379 families (25,856 individuals). Food costs offset an average of almost $2,000 per household, valued at $26,584,424. Samaritan House served 2,400 families, including more than 5,547 children, through our 2025 holiday program. Kids closet distributed 31,584 items of new and slightly used clothing to kids and teens, as well as 187,000 diapers to babies and toddlers in need. The back-to-school program distributed 3,200 new backpacks filled with grade-appropriate supplies, ensuring that children started the school year on track and focused on learning. We also launched an innovative supplemental income pilot program, lift (lifeline to ignite financial transformation). With educational guidance,…
$13,800,772 spent$76,515 earned by the program45% of program spendingShelter services: our expanded shelter services program is an integral component of san mateo county's housing crisis resolution system offering short-term, emergency housing with supportive services to swiftly transition clients into permanent housing. Services encompass nutrition; intensive case management; housing location services; counseling; medical, dental, and behavioral health care; educational programming; linkages to federal, state, and local benefits; employment assistance/job training; legal services; life skills training; substance abuse treatment services; and supportive services. In fy25, a total of 72,054 nights of shelter were provided to 858 unduplicated individuals across all three of our shelter locations: safe harbor shelter, pacific emergency shelter, and el camino house.
$6,102,381 spent20% of program spendingFree medical and dental clinics: the free clinics of san mateo and redwood city are the only free clinics in san mateo county, providing medical, dental, vision, and mental health services at no cost to medically underserved residents. Clinic patients are uninsured and unable to afford outof-pocket healthcare costs, such as premiums, copays, or deductibles of coverage. In fy25, the clinics served more than 11,425 patient visits with the help of 129 volunteer health professionals. Both clinics rely on a volunteer-based model of service, including volunteer medical professionals, such as physicians, nurses, dentists, nurse practioners, interpreters, and other clinical and administrative staff, to operate the clinics. Volunteers contributed 5,204 volunteer hours during the year. Launched in 2016, Samaritan House's food pharmacy program was the first in california. At each of our two clinic locations, patients with diabetes fill "prescriptions" for free nutritious food. Through this program, we distributed 24,698 bags of nutritious food. Providing primary and preventive care to the medically underserved and uninsured not only benefits those receiving the care but also accrues benefits…
$4,959,621 spent$40,129 earned by the program16% of program spendingHomelessness prevention services: homelessness prevention services target families in crisis and at imminent risk of becoming unhoused. The program provides rental and deposit assistance, utility assistance, transportation, and other critical needs in order for families to stablize their housing situation. Samaritan House currently serves as the county's contracted emergency financial assistance (efa) administrative entity and the fiscal sponsor for the san francisco chronicle's season of sharing (sos) fund, coordinating a rental/emergency assistance program on behalf of the core services agency network (seven core service agencies), which provides one-time emergency assistance to low income, eligible families. In fy25, we distributed over $4.95m in direct emergency financial assistance, including rent, utilities, and other critical needs to 1,761 families (4,755 individuals) who were at risk of homelessness, providing an average of $2,811 in financial assistance per household.
$3,909,023 spentof which $395,277 as grants13% of program spendingCoordinated entry system:since 2017, Samaritan House has been under contract with san mateo county human services agency (hsa) center on homelessness as the operator of the county's coordinated entry system (ces), closely partnering with numerous government agencies, core service agencies, homeless outreach providers, domestic violence providers, correctional facilities, medical facilities, and other identified providers to deliver services. The ces referral network now includes an impressive 18 agencies. In fy25, ces served 3,451 individuals countywide.ces aims for functional zero homelessness integrating a coordinated framework centered on housing crisis resolution, including preventing homelessness through diversion, as well as a standardized process for accessing homeless services for individuals and households experiencing homelessness. The program leverages unhoused clients' resources and resiliency to secure housing arrangements with a shelter placement as the last resort. This strategy prevents homelessness for people seeking shelter by helping them identify immediate alternate housing arrangements and, if necessary, connect them with services and financial assistance to…
$1,560,791 spent5% of program spendingWorker resource center:managed by Samaritan House and funded by the city of san mateo, the worker resource center (wrc) opened in 2003, providing skilled workers access fair-wage employment while gaining skills, language support, and connections that support advancement and income stability. Wraparound supportsincluding financial coaching, emergency financial assistance, food support, case management, and navigation of public benefitshelp individuals overcome obstacles such as housing instability, food insecurity, and health-related disruptions that often prevent workers from sustaining employment. In fy25, wrc workers earned a collective income valued at $720,185.
$364,614 spent1% of program spending
The 6 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $30,697,202.
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.
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 $18M to $28M (+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: 2017 29% · 2018 28% · 2019 37% · 2020 23% · 2021 36% · 2022 35% · 2023 44% · 2024 41% · 2025 43%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 3 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
Laura Bent
Chief executive officer
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 40 funders to 69 funders, grant income rose $2.1M → $7.7M.
32 of 172 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 51% 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 SAMARITAN HOUSE’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 172 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
SAMARITAN HOUSE has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 25% of grant income, and it takes 4 funders to reach half.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 4 funders to its left
76% 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 SAMARITAN HOUSE.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 32% · 2018 28% · 2019 44% · 2020 54% · 2021 23% · 2022 16% · 2023 17% — 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
51% of SAMARITAN HOUSE's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 56% 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
51% of SAMARITAN HOUSE'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 $27M that is directly attributable, 95% of it comes from California funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $28M arriving through sponsors registered in 17 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.
Government funding SAMARITAN HOUSE receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $107k on record.
- Department of Housing and Urban Development$107k
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 SAMARITAN HOUSE
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
86% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
95%
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 SAMARITAN HOUSE: 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 SAMARITAN HOUSE?
- SAMARITAN HOUSE (California) receives grants from 172 organizations whose IRS filings report $55,207,390 to it, the largest being Silicon Valley Community Foundation ($13,670,143). 97 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 51% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- How many funders does SAMARITAN HOUSE have?
- IRS filings report 172 organizations giving $55,207,390 in grants to SAMARITAN HOUSE, 97 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of SAMARITAN HOUSE?
- Silicon Valley Community Foundation is the largest funder on record, with $13,670,143 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like SAMARITAN HOUSE 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 Samaritan House →
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 172 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