California · Nonprofit
WHY NOT FOUNDATION
WHY NOT FOUNDATION (California) receives grants from 2 organizations whose IRS filings report $20,000 to it, the largest being MERKIN FAMILY FOUNDATION ($20,000). 0 of them have funded it in more than one year.
Against its field
WHY NOT FOUNDATION has grown faster than half of the 3,857 philanthropy nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 3,857 philanthropy nonprofits $100k–$1M, FY2025
Three funders worth looking at
Grantmakers with no record of funding this organization, ranked by how strongly the co-funder graph and the mission embeddings agree. The evidence is in section 03.
- Shelter Partnership Incshared funderslocal
- Prime Coalition Incportfolio match
- Elton Family Foundationportfolio match
The organization over time
Each line starts at 100 in 2018, so what you read is the shape rather than the size: 150 means half as much again as 2018, 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.
Who funds it, year by year
2020 → 2022: the base held at 1 funder, grant income fell $20k → $0.
From the IRS filings of WHY NOT FOUNDATION’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 1 of 2 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
100% of WHY NOT FOUNDATION's grant income comes from California funders.
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. 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.
Funders to approach
Grantmakers that don’t fund you yet, surfaced two ways: they back organizations that share your funders, or their grantees resemble your mission. The ones both signals agree on come first.
- Shelter Partnership Incshared funderslocalCA · backs 62 organizations that share your funders · funds 335 organizations near you
- Prime Coalition Incportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
- Elton Family Foundationportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
- Craig and Connie Thatcher Foundationportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
- Calfoods Logisticsshared fundersCA · backs 12 organizations that share your funders
- OK Foundationportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
- Bethel Woods Center for the Arts Incportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
- Kenneth Cole Productions Foundationportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
- Richard C Goldstein Private Foundationportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
- The Everybody Wins Foundationportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
- Bickerstaff Family Foundationportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
- The Johnny Damon Foundation Incportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
From the co-funder graph (funders backing at least two comparable organizations, shrunk for grantee count, donor-advised and mega-funds excluded) and the universe embeddings. A research starting point; overlap is association, not a guarantee of fit.
Organizations like WHY NOT FOUNDATION
Nonprofits whose mission and program text most resemble this one, by semantic similarity over the universe of 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.
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for WHY NOT 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. How the screen works · on the API as GET /api/screening/{ein}?format=pdf
Questions and answers
- Who funds WHY NOT FOUNDATION?
- WHY NOT FOUNDATION (California) receives grants from 2 organizations whose IRS filings report $20,000 to it, the largest being MERKIN FAMILY FOUNDATION ($20,000). 0 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does WHY NOT FOUNDATION have?
- IRS filings report 2 organizations giving $20,000 in grants to WHY NOT FOUNDATION.
- Who is the largest funder of WHY NOT FOUNDATION?
- MERKIN FAMILY FOUNDATION is the largest funder on record, with $20,000 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like WHY NOT 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 2018–2025), and the filings of 2funders 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 August 27, 2026. What this page cannot tell you · view filing