Grantmakers › Maine

United Way Inc

Portland, ME · EIN 01-0241767. Reported 447 grants totalling $29.3M to 135 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:

1. What kind of organization it is. For United Way Inc, the IRS classifies it as a federated giving programme -- a United Way, Jewish federation, Community Chest or similar (NTEE T70Z).
2. How spread out its giving is. 135 distinct organizations, with 10% 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.
3. How much its list changes. 81% of one year's grantees are funded again the next, across 4 year-to-year transitions. That is well above the 56% median for grantmaking charities, and above 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 $25,181. Half of what it reported fell between $12,276 and $58,239; the smallest was $5,000 and the largest $1,655,366. 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.

100 of 135 (74%) 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 the money was for

Taken verbatim from the purpose column of its filings, largest first. This is the closest thing to a statement of what it funds, in its own words.

• Catholic Charities Maine $1,655,366 · 2022
  Community Investment, Donor Designations
• The Opportunity Alliance $693,787 · 2020
  Community Investment, Heating Assistance, Donor Designations
• Preble Street $415,221 · 2020
  Community Investment, Donor Designations, COVID-19 Grant
• York County Community Action $150,659 · 2022
  Community Investment, Emergency Heating Assistance, Donor Designations
• United Way of Mid Coast Maine $140,448 · 2023
  Emergency Heating Assistance, Donor Designations
• Kennebec Valley Community Action Program $58,239 · 2022
  Emergency Heating Assistance

What kind of organizations it funds

By the activity category the IRS assigns each recipient, for the 108 of 135 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 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

99% of its giving went to organizations in Maine. 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

Foundations that fund only organizations they pick gave to this one

8 private foundations that told the IRS they contribute only to organizations they select themselves reported 15 grants totalling $133,900 to United Way Inc. That is 22% of the 37 funders we can see giving to it. Those 8 foundations do not take unsolicited requests -- their own returns say so. The IRS classifies this organization as a federated giving programme.

3 of them gave in more than one tax year, which is the only durability signal the filings carry.

What that does not mean. It does not mean an application here reaches that money. A grant from a closed foundation is often a designated gift or a donor-advised fund earmarked by whoever gave it, and has nothing to do with any open programme this organization runs. Neither tax return says which, so neither do we. The list below is who put money in. It is not a route to it.

A linked name has a page of its own. We publish one for a foundation that takes no unsolicited requests only when a real share of its giving goes to organizations that make grants themselves, and that page opens by saying it does not take requests.

Both the count and the total are floors. A foundation appears here only where its return named this organization clearly enough for us to match the name to an EIN, which we manage for about two thirds of 990-PF grant rows. There are more; we cannot name them.

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

1. 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.
2. Check you are its size. The median reported grant is $25,181 -- and because grants under $5,000 need not be reported, it very likely writes smaller cheques than this page can see.
3. Check you are in its geography. Its giving concentrates in Maine.
4. 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 United Way Inc'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 78 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: 550 Forest Avenue 100, Portland, ME, 04101.

EIN 01-0241767 · See the original filings on ProPublica · How we build this

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