Funders › California

California Foundations Making Grants of $5,000 - $25,000

These 221 foundations are based in California and reported a median grant between $5,000 and $25,000 on their most recent Form 990-PF filing. A typical grant is not a promise about any single gift -- some of a foundation's grants are smaller than its median, some are larger -- but it is a reasonable signal for whether an application here fits the size of your ask.

A median grant in this range covers a meaningful program cost without asking for the multi-year commitment a capital campaign needs. A lot of general-operating and single-program requests land in this range.

Ordered by number of organizations funded, not by dollars -- the same convention as every list on this site. Funding more organizations means more turnover in who gets a grant each year, which is a reasonable proxy for how often a list like this one changes -- it is not a signal that any specific foundation is open to a new, unsolicited applicant.

Other grant sizes in California

Grantmaking Charities report their grants differently, so their median grants are not directly comparable to the ones on this page -- Schedule I only requires listing recipients paid over $5,000, so a Schedule I filer's median runs higher than a private foundation's would for the same underlying giving. See grantmaking charities in the same range anyway.