San Diego Regional Fire & Emergency
San Diego, CA · EIN 33-0386687. Reported 118 grants totalling $4,102,487 to 52 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. 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. 52 distinct organizations, with 11% 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. 63% of one year's grantees are funded again the next, across 4 year-to-year transitions. That is about the 56% median for grantmaking charities -- lower than 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 $12,000. Half of what it reported fell between $7,800 and $22,447; the smallest was $5,000 and the largest $469,169. If you are asking for materially more than the top of that range, you are asking the wrong organization.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Patriot Group | Roseville, CA | $469,169 | 1 | 1 | 2025 |
| San Miguel Fire District | Spring Valley, CA | $401,940 | 1 | 1 | 2025 |
| San Diego Central Fire Zone | Alpine, CA | $393,207 | 1 | 1 | 2025 |
| Santee Fire Dept | Santee, CA | $386,119 | 1 | 1 | 2025 |
| Josephine County Foundation | Murphy, OR | $310,000 | 3 | 3 | 2023 |
| Resource Conservation Foundation of Greater San Diego County | Lakeside, CA | $205,627 | 19 | 4 | 2025 |
| San Diego County Fire Distric | San Diego, CA | $191,882 | 1 | 1 | 2025 |
| Alpine Fire District | Alpine, CA | $140,020 | 2 | 2 | 2025 |
| Imperial Beach Fire Dept | Imperial Beach, CA | $119,360 | 3 | 3 | 2025 |
| Bonitasunnyside Fire District | Bonita, CA | $118,540 | 3 | 3 | 2025 |
| Chula Vista Fire Dept | Chula Vista, CA | $109,663 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Palomar Comm College | San Marcos, CA | $78,734 | 4 | 4 | 2025 |
| Imperial Beach City Fire | Imperial Beach, CA | $73,221 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Poway Fire Dept | Poway, CA | $68,040 | 3 | 3 | 2025 |
| Encinitas Fire Dept | Encinitas, CA | $67,874 | 2 | 2 | 2023 |
| Southwest Comm College | Chula Vista, CA | $65,200 | 4 | 4 | 2025 |
| Escondido Fire Dept | Escondido, CA | $63,455 | 3 | 3 | 2025 |
| Rancho Sante Fe Fire District | Rancho Santa Fe, CA | $52,396 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Palomar Mountain Fire Safe Council Foundation | Palomar Mtn, CA | $49,500 | 4 | 4 | 2025 |
| Fallbrook Fire Safe Council | Fallbrook, CA | $49,000 | 4 | 4 | 2025 |
| Kensington Fire Safe | San Diego, CA | $48,177 | 3 | 3 | 2025 |
| National City Fire Dept | National City, CA | $48,150 | 2 | 2 | 2023 |
| Wynola Water District | Santa Ysabel, CA | $42,181 | 3 | 3 | 2025 |
| Potrero Tecate Fsc | Potrero, CA | $40,042 | 2 | 2 | 2025 |
| Oceanside Fire Dept | Oceanside, CA | $39,642 | 2 | 2 | 2023 |
| Alvarado Community Asso | San Diego, CA | $35,500 | 3 | 3 | 2025 |
| Escondido Fire Safe Council | Escondido, CA | $32,269 | 3 | 3 | 2025 |
| Escondido City Fire | Escondido, CA | $29,666 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Poway Neighborhood Emergency Corps | Poway, CA | $27,000 | 4 | 4 | 2025 |
| Mt Laguna Fire Safe Council | Mount Laguna, CA | $26,775 | 4 | 4 | 2025 |
| Eucalyptus Hills Fsc | Lakeside, CA | $25,650 | 2 | 2 | 2025 |
| Imperial County | El Centro, CA | $25,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| City of La Mesa Fire Dept | La Mesa, CA | $21,478 | 1 | 1 | 2025 |
| City of El Cajon Fire Dept | El Cajon, CA | $21,248 | 1 | 1 | 2025 |
| La Jolla Indian Reservation Fire De | Pauma Valley, CA | $20,550 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Pauma Valley Tribal Fire | Pauma Valley, CA | $20,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| North County Fire District | Fallbrook, CA | $18,713 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Backcountry Communities Thriving | Julian, CA | $18,007 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Crest Fsc | El Cajon, CA | $17,383 | 2 | 2 | 2025 |
| Jamut Fsc | Jamul, CA | $15,922 | 1 | 1 | 2025 |
| Alpine Viejas Fire Safe Council | Alpine, CA | $15,300 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Health Sciences High School | San Diego, CA | $12,670 | 2 | 2 | 2023 |
| Valley Center Fsc | Valley Center, CA | $12,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| San Marcos Fire Dept | San Marcos, CA | $11,314 | 1 | 1 | 2025 |
| Fire Safe Council of San Diego County | Lakeside, CA | $10,535 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Borrego Springs Fire Distraic | Borrego Springs, CA | $10,099 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| East County Media | La Mesa, CA | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2025 |
| Cuyamaca Woods Fire Safe Council Inc | Julian, CA | $8,530 | 1 | 1 | 2025 |
| Bonita-Sunnyside Fire Distric | Bonita, CA | $7,789 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Chula Vista Fsc | Chula Vista, CA | $6,550 | 1 | 1 | 2025 |
| Deer Springs Fire District | Escondido, CA | $6,400 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Orange County Emt | Lake Forest, CA | $5,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
28 of 52 (54%) 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 12 of 52 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 | 9 | $278,975 | $20,000 |
| 2022 | 20 | $381,511 | $12,000 |
| 2023 | 26 | $549,278 | $10,430 |
| 2024 | 25 | $512,128 | $11,821 |
| 2025 | 38 | $2,380,595 | $15,000 |
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
92% of its giving went to organizations in California. 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
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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 $12,000 -- 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 California.
- 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 San Diego Regional Fire & Emergency'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.
On its most recent return it told the IRS it made grants to 38 section 501(c)(3) organizations and 0 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: 2508 Historic Decatur Road Ste 160, San Diego, CA, 92106.
EIN 33-0386687 · See the original filings on ProPublica · How we build this
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