Buffalo Renaissance Foundation Inc
Buffalo, NY · EIN 13-3204330. Reported 27 grants totalling $433,219 to 22 organizations across tax years 2021-2025, 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. For Buffalo Renaissance Foundation Inc, the IRS classifies it as a community foundation (NTEE T31Z).
- How spread out its giving is. 22 distinct organizations, with 35% 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. 12% 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 $10,000. Half of what it reported fell between $7,500 and $16,000; the smallest was $5,490 and the largest $95,000. If you are asking for materially more than the top of that range, you are asking the wrong organization.
12 of those grants were non-cash -- goods, property or services worth $168,519 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Resource Council of Wny Inc | Buffalo, NY | $150,145 | 3 | 3 | 2023 |
| Rmhc of Western New York Inc | Buffalo, NY | $39,824 | 2 | 2 | 2025 |
| Family Promise of Wny | $25,000 | 1 | 1 | 2025 | |
| Friends of Little Portion Friary a K a Little Portion Friary | Buffalo, NY | $24,300 | 2 | 2 | 2025 |
| Greater Buffalo Sports Hall of Fame Inc | Buffalo, NY | $21,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| University at Buffalo Foundation Inc | Buffalo, NY | $20,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Buffalo Naval Park Committee Inc | Buffalo, NY | $17,500 | 2 | 2 | 2023 |
| Torn Space Theater Inc | Buffalo, NY | $16,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Zoological Society of Buffalo Inc | Buffalo, NY | $14,260 | 1 | 1 | 2025 |
| Buffalo Yacht Club Foundation Inc | Buffalo, NY | $10,500 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Buffalo Creek Academy Inc | Buffalo, NY | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Gateway-Longview Foundation | Williamsville, NY | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| North Park Theatre of Buffalo Inc | Buffalo, NY | $9,500 | 1 | 1 | 2025 |
| Via Visually Impaired Advancement | Buffalo, NY | $9,200 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| The Service Collaborative of Wny Inc | Buffalo, NY | $9,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Assembly House 150 Inc | Buffalo, NY | $8,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Nativitymiguel Middle School of Buffalo | Buffalo, NY | $7,600 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Tool Library Inc | Buffalo, NY | $7,500 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Jewish Community Center of Greater Buffalo Inc | Getzville, NY | $6,900 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| 716 Squash Inc | Buffalo, NY | $6,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Catholic Academy of West Buffalo | Buffalo, NY | $5,500 | 1 | 1 | 2025 |
| Buffalo String Works Inc | Buffalo, NY | $5,490 | 1 | 1 | 2025 |
4 of 22 (18%) 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 18 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 1 | $95,000 | $95,000 |
| 2022 | 6 | $77,500 | $10,000 |
| 2023 | 5 | $93,645 | $15,000 |
| 2024 | 8 | $92,200 | $8,600 |
| 2025 | 7 | $74,874 | $9,300 |
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
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Funders that support the same organizations
These grantmakers and private foundations gave to organizations this one also funded. Shared grantees are a sign of overlapping priorities and nothing more: they do not show that any of these funders would consider a new organization. Each page says what its filings show.
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 $10,000 -- 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 New York.
- 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.
Related guides
Where these numbers come from
Everything above is taken from Buffalo Renaissance Foundation Inc's own Form 990 Schedule I filings, which the IRS publishes in bulk. We used 5 returns (tax years 2021-2025). 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.
Address of record on the latest return: Po Box 322, Buffalo, NY, 14205.
EIN 13-3204330 · See the original filings on ProPublica · How we build this
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