California · Nonprofit
THE SAN FRANCISCO FOUNDATION
THE SAN FRANCISCO FOUNDATION (California) receives grants from 153 organizations whose IRS filings report $417,679,826 to it, the largest being CRANKSTART FOUNDATION ($78,301,000). 77 of them have funded it in more than one year. THE SAN FRANCISCO FOUNDATION administers funds for other donors, so those contributions arrive into funds it holds rather than supporting a program it runs itself.
- Revenue FY2025
- $359M
- Funders on record
- 153
- Grants received
- $418M
- Net assets
- $1.8B
Hosts funds for others
THE SAN FRANCISCO 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 programTHE SAN FRANCISCO 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
$1.6B
Recipients
4,261
Contributions on record
$447M
Donors on record
163
Payments out run 3.7x the contributions on record, which says the incoming side is incomplete rather than that the vehicle is unusually busy: most donors to a fund like this are individuals, who file no return for us to read.
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 2020 to 2021, from $1.5B to $1.9B (+25%).
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: 2022 0% · 2023 3%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
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
Fred Blackwell
CEO
Board chair
Robert Friedman
Chair
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 29 funders to 50 funders, grant income rose $4.5M → $59M.
23 of 153 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 32% 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: $30M from 10 payers (the payer shares this organization's board, largest Silicon Valley Community Foundation); $260k from one payer (the same organization on both sides, largest The San Francisco Foundation). These are real filings, and they are not money THE SAN FRANCISCO FOUNDATION raised.
From the IRS filings of THE SAN FRANCISCO FOUNDATION’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 153 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
89% of THE SAN FRANCISCO FOUNDATION's grant income comes from California funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $133M arriving through sponsors registered in 15 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
74%
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 1 related entity
- Charitable Remainder Unitrust (13) · corp_trust
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for THE SAN FRANCISCO 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 THE SAN FRANCISCO FOUNDATION?
- THE SAN FRANCISCO FOUNDATION (California) receives grants from 153 organizations whose IRS filings report $417,679,826 to it, the largest being CRANKSTART FOUNDATION ($78,301,000). 77 of them have funded it in more than one year. THE SAN FRANCISCO 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 THE SAN FRANCISCO FOUNDATION have?
- IRS filings report 153 organizations giving $417,679,826 in grants to THE SAN FRANCISCO FOUNDATION, 77 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of THE SAN FRANCISCO FOUNDATION?
- CRANKSTART FOUNDATION is the largest funder on record, with $78,301,000 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like THE SAN FRANCISCO 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 153 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