Grantmakers › District of Columbia
American Council of Engineering
Washington, DC · EIN 52-0745115. Reported 30 grants totalling $2,310,487 to 22 organizations across tax years 2020-2024, on Form 990 Schedule I.
Does this grantmaker accept applications?
Its tax return does not say, and we will not guess. Private foundations file Form 990-PF, which asks outright whether they fund only organizations they select themselves -- 78% say yes, and that one answer is what lets the rest of this site tell you which foundations are worth approaching. Grantmaking charities like this one file a regular Form 990 instead, and the IRS never puts the question to them. Anyone claiming to know the answer from the filing is inventing it.
Three things in the filing do bear on it:
- What kind of organization it is. The IRS has no activity classification on file for this one, so we cannot tell you whether it is a community foundation or a single-institution support fund. The recipient list below is the better guide.
- How spread out its giving is. 22 distinct organizations, with 23% of the dollars going to the largest single recipient. That is genuinely spread out -- the mark of a funder making many independent decisions rather than underwriting one institution.
- How much its list changes. 25% of one year's grantees are funded again the next, across 3 year-to-year transitions. That is below the 56% median for grantmaking charities, and well below the 67% median for private foundations. It describes the organizations it already funds, not whether it would consider a new one.
How big are its grants?
The median reported grant is $50,000. Half of what it reported fell between $30,000 and $100,000; the smallest was $10,000 and the largest $382,079. If you are asking for materially more than the top of that range, you are asking the wrong organization.
1 of those grants was non-cash -- goods, property or services worth $282,079 in total. In-kind giving is real support but it is not a cheque.
Every organization it funded
This is the complete list from its filings, largest first. Recipients are grouped by the EIN the filer reported, not by name, so an organization that was typed differently in two years appears once rather than twice.
| Organization | Location | Total received | Grants | Years funded | Last |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Acec Research Institute | Washington, DC | $532,079 | 2 | 2 | 2021 |
| Acec-Ri American Council of Engineering Companies-Rhode Island | Lincoln, RI | $200,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| American Council of Engineering Companies of North Carolina | Raleigh, NC | $200,000 | 2 | 2 | 2022 |
| American Council of Engineering Companies of South Carolina | Columbia, SC | $180,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| American Council of Engineering Companies of California | Sacramento, CA | $125,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| American Council of Engineering Companies of Illinois | Springfield, IL | $125,000 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| American Council of Engineering Companies of Minnesota | St Paul, MN | $120,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| American Council of Engineering Companies of Louisiana Inc | Baton Rouge, LA | $110,000 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| American Council of Engineering Companies of Arizona | Phoenix, AZ | $93,750 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Acec Michigan Inc | Lansing, MI | $88,000 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| American Council of Engineering Companies of Nj Inc | Trenton, NJ | $81,600 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| American Council of Engineering Companies of Oregon | Portland, OR | $75,000 | 2 | 2 | 2022 |
| American Council of Engineering Companies of Indiana Inc | Indianapolis, IN | $60,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| American Council of Engineering Companies of Ga | Atlanta, GA | $50,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| American Council of Engineering Companies of Washington | University Pl, WA | $50,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| North Dakota Consulting Engineers Council | Bismarck, ND | $50,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| American Council of Engineering Companies of Virginia Inc | Richmond, VA | $45,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| American Council of Engineering Companies of Colorado | Denver, CO | $30,058 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| American Council of Engineering Companies of Oklahoma Inc | Oklahoma City, OK | $30,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| American Council of Engineering Companies of Wisconsin Inc | Madison, WI | $30,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| American Council of Engineering Companies of Kentucky | Frankfort, KY | $25,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| American Council of Engineering Companies of New York Inc | Albany, NY | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
8 of 22 (36%) received money in more than one year over the 5 years we hold. Remember the $5,000 floor: an organization funded every year at $3,000 shows up here as never funded at all.
What kind of organizations it funds
By the activity category the IRS assigns each recipient, for the 2 of 22 recipients we could match to a registered organization. The categories are the IRS's, not ours -- Schedule I reports the recipient's EIN, so this is a lookup rather than a name match.
Giving by year
| Tax year | Grants reported | Total | Median grant |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 4 | $467,079 | $37,500 |
| 2021 | 1 | $150,000 | $150,000 |
| 2022 | 5 | $365,000 | $50,000 |
| 2023 | 7 | $548,000 | $75,000 |
| 2024 | 13 | $780,408 | $50,000 |
Tax years, not calendar years, and the most recent year is usually incomplete -- Form 990 arrives about a year after the year it covers, so a low final year means late paperwork rather than a grantmaker winding down.
Where its money goes
23% of its giving went to organizations in District of Columbia. Community foundations and federated funds are usually the most geographically bounded funders there are -- being outside the footprint is normally disqualifying in a way that a weak programme fit is not.
Down to the city
Get funders for your state and cause by email
We email you funders that gave to organizations in your state and cause, up to five at a time each week and never the same one twice, from their own IRS filings. Free. The weekly email has not started yet.
Unsubscribe in one click from any email. We never sell or share your address. To match on your organization and typical grant size too, keep a private profile.
How to approach this grantmaker
- Look for a published programme first. Unlike most private foundations, organizations of this kind often do run open, deadlined grant cycles with written guidelines. Its own website is the authority on that; this page is the authority on who it has actually paid.
- Check you are its size. The median reported grant is $50,000 -- and because grants under $5,000 need not be reported, it very likely writes smaller cheques than this page can see.
- Check you are in its geography. Its giving concentrates in District of Columbia.
- Read the recipient list for organizations like yours. If nothing on it resembles your work, that is a real answer and a cheap one to get.
Where these numbers come from
Everything above is taken from American Council of Engineering's own Form 990 Schedule I filings, which the IRS publishes in bulk. We used 5 returns (tax years 2020-2024). Grant figures are from its returns. Recipient classifications, the concentration and retention figures and the funders that support the same organizations are our own calculations from them, described in how we build this.
On its most recent return it told the IRS it made grants to 0 section 501(c)(3) organizations and 13 other organizations. That is the filer's own count for one year; the totals above cover every year we hold.
Address of record on the latest return: 1400 L Street Nw 400, Washington, DC, 20005.
EIN 52-0745115 · See the original filings on ProPublica · How we build this
Is something here wrong about your organization? Email [email protected] and we will correct it.