California · Nonprofit
SANTA BARBARA FOUNDATION
SANTA BARBARA FOUNDATION (California) receives grants from 227 organizations whose IRS filings report $147,642,965 to it, the largest being DECHOMAI FOUNDATION INC ($72,342,078). 103 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 70% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly. SANTA BARBARA FOUNDATION administers funds for other donors, so those contributions arrive into funds it holds rather than supporting a program it runs itself.
- Revenue FY2024
- $122M
- Funders on record
- 227
- Grants received
- $148M
- Net assets
- $470M
Hosts funds for others
SANTA BARBARA 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 programSANTA BARBARA 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
$231M
Recipients
1,115
Contributions on record
$150M
Donors on record
229
Payments out are 1.54x the contributions on record, so most of what arrives moves on within the period covered here.
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 2017 to 2018, from $424M to $373M (−12%).
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: 2020 1% · 2021 2% · 2022 2% · 2023 2% · 2024 1%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 2 of the last 8 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
Jacqueline Carrera
President & CEO
Board chair
Matt Rowe
Chair
As listed on its FY2024 Form 990.
The chief executive listed changed between the FY2019 and FY2020 filings.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 43 funders to 75 funders, grant income rose $1.6M → $3.3M.
31 of 227 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 70% 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: $1.5M from one payer (the same organization on both sides, largest Santa Barbara Foundation); $1.0M from 2 payers (the payer shares this organization's board, largest Wyatt Family Foundation). These are real filings, and they are not money SANTA BARBARA FOUNDATION raised.
From the IRS filings of SANTA BARBARA FOUNDATION’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 227 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
70% of SANTA BARBARA FOUNDATION'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 $45M that is directly attributable, 58% of it comes from California funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $103M 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.
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
95% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
82%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Footprint & structure
Files a return copy in 1 state
Part of a family of 6 related entities
- 1111 Chapala Street LLC · disregarded
- 300 East Islay Street LLC · disregarded
- Sbf Properties LLC · disregarded
- Highland Santa Barbara Foundation Inc · exempt
- Eric and Kelly Schwartz Charitable Trust · exempt
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for SANTA BARBARA 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.
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 SANTA BARBARA FOUNDATION?
- SANTA BARBARA FOUNDATION (California) receives grants from 227 organizations whose IRS filings report $147,642,965 to it, the largest being DECHOMAI FOUNDATION INC ($72,342,078). 103 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 70% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly. SANTA BARBARA 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 SANTA BARBARA FOUNDATION have?
- IRS filings report 227 organizations giving $147,642,965 in grants to SANTA BARBARA FOUNDATION, 103 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of SANTA BARBARA FOUNDATION?
- DECHOMAI FOUNDATION INC is the largest funder on record, with $72,342,078 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like SANTA BARBARA 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 FY2024 (financials across 2017–2024), and the filings of 227 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