United Way of Lancaster County
Lancaster, PA · EIN 23-1352093. Reported 114 grants totalling $15.0M to 65 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. For United Way of Lancaster County, by its IRS classification it raises and distributes funds for arts & culture (NTEE A12).
- How spread out its giving is. 65 distinct organizations, with 26% 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. 55% 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 $30,000. Half of what it reported fell between $15,000 and $50,000; the smallest was $5,000 and the largest $1,704,521. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nurse Family Partnership | Denver, CO | $3,951,543 | 3 | 3 | 2022 |
| Donor Designated Pledges | $3,807,976 | 5 | 5 | 2024 | |
| Lancaster General Health | Lancaster, PA | $3,193,390 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Lancaster General Hospital | Lancaster, PA | $500,000 | 2 | 2 | 2021 |
| Lanco Cares Rapid Response Grants (including 25 Grantees Over 5000) | $247,444 | 1 | 1 | 2020 | |
| Lancaster County Housing & Redevelopment Authorities | Lancaster, PA | $212,384 | 3 | 3 | 2024 |
| Uw Emergency Funding (including 4 Grantees Over 5000) | $182,500 | 1 | 1 | 2020 | |
| Bright Side Opportunities Corporation | Lancaster, PA | $151,500 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| United Churches of Elizabethtown | Elizabethtown, PA | $143,896 | 3 | 2 | 2022 |
| Lancaster County Food Hub | Lancaster, PA | $134,172 | 2 | 2 | 2023 |
| Assets Lancaster | Lancaster, PA | $129,000 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Lancaster Emergency Medical Services Association | Lancaster, PA | $116,285 | 2 | 2 | 2023 |
| Tenfold | Lancaster, PA | $115,252 | 3 | 3 | 2024 |
| Arbor Place | Lancaster, PA | $110,000 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| Pennsylvania Furniture Mission | Columbia, PA | $110,000 | 2 | 2 | 2023 |
| Parish Resource Center Inc | Lancaster, PA | $100,000 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| Luthercare | Lititz, PA | $94,199 | 2 | 2 | 2022 |
| Loft Community Partnership | Millersville, PA | $90,000 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Union Community Care | Lancaster, PA | $83,000 | 2 | 2 | 2022 |
| Elizabethtown Community Housing & Outreach Services | Elizabethtown, PA | $82,250 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Swan Scaling Walls a Note at a Time | Downingtown, PA | $80,000 | 2 | 2 | 2022 |
| Columbia Presbyterian Church | Columbia, PA | $76,750 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| The Factory Ministries | Paradise, PA | $72,856 | 3 | 3 | 2024 |
| Lancaster-Lebanon Education Foundation | Lancaster, PA | $70,000 | 2 | 2 | 2022 |
| Valley Youth House Committee | Bethlehem, PA | $60,125 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Community Service Group | Mountville, PA | $58,828 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Community Action Partnership | Lancaster, PA | $58,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Meals on Wheels | Lancaster, PA | $55,000 | 2 | 2 | 2022 |
| Milagro House | Lancaster, PA | $55,000 | 3 | 3 | 2023 |
| Common Wheel | Lancaster, PA | $50,000 | 2 | 2 | 2023 |
| Girls on the Run of Lancaster | Landisville, PA | $50,000 | 2 | 2 | 2022 |
| Patients R Waiting Inc | Lititz, PA | $50,000 | 2 | 2 | 2023 |
| Ephrata Area Social Services | Ephrata, PA | $47,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Homefields | Millersville, PA | $46,480 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Let's Go 1-2-3 | Paradise, PA | $41,891 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Lancaster Recreation Commission | Lancaster, PA | $37,000 | 2 | 2 | 2022 |
| Lancaster Family YMCA | Lancaster, PA | $35,000 | 2 | 2 | 2021 |
| Lodge Life Services | Lancaster, PA | $34,725 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Franklin & Marshall College | Lancaster, PA | $30,550 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Arch Street Center Inc | Lancaster, PA | $30,000 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Halfway Environment for Alcoholics Recovering Inc | Lancaster, PA | $30,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Boys & Girls Club of Lancaster | Lancaster, PA | $25,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Communications Essentials LLC | Bausman, PA | $25,000 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Edible Classroom | Columbia, PA | $25,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Lancaster Lgbtq Coalition | Lancaster, PA | $25,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Music for Everyone | Lancaster, PA | $25,000 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Lancaster Moravian Church | Lancaster, PA | $22,275 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| CASA of Lancaster County Inc | Lancaster, PA | $20,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Goodwill Keystone Area | Harrisburg, PA | $20,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Crossnet | New Holland, PA | $18,500 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Bench Mark Program | Lancaster, PA | $17,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Advantage Lancaster | Lancaster, PA | $15,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| African American Cultural Alliance Inc | Lancaster, PA | $15,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Horizons at Lancaster Country Day School | Lancaster, PA | $15,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Lancaster Area Habitat for Humanity Inc | Lancaster, PA | $15,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Good Samaritan Services | Lebanon, PA | $14,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Anchor Lancaster | Lancaster, PA | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Community Action Partnership of Lancaster County Inc | Lancaster, PA | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Solanco Neighborhood Ministries | Quarryville, PA | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Spanish American Civic Association for Equality | Lancaster, PA | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| YWCA Lancaster | Lancaster, PA | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Midpenn Legal Services Inc | Harrisburg, PA | $9,997 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Lancaster Redevelopment Fund | Lancaster, PA | $8,340 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Wellspan Health | York, PA | $7,370 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Spanish American Civic Association for Equality Inc | Lancaster, PA | $6,400 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
34 of 65 (52%) 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.
- Nurse Family Partnership
COUMMUNITY IMPACT GRANT/UNITED WAY MATCH - Lancaster County Housing & Redevelopment Authorities
JOINT FUNDING & ADMIN EFSP - Lancaster County Food Hub
LEVEL UP & LAUNCH & LANC CO MY HOME - Luthercare
SCHOLARSHIPS & LEVEL UP & LAUNCH - Loft Community Partnership
LEVEL UP & LAUNCH, JOINT FUNDING, KELLOGGS SUMMER HUNGER - Assets
LEVEL UP & LAUNCH, WOMEN UNITED
What kind of organizations it funds
By the activity category the IRS assigns each recipient, for the 35 of 65 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 | 7 | $2,525,524 | $247,444 |
| 2021 | 20 | $2,532,272 | $30,000 |
| 2022 | 28 | $3,052,012 | $32,500 |
| 2023 | 30 | $3,244,428 | $30,000 |
| 2024 | 29 | $3,648,642 | $18,500 |
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
63% of its giving went to organizations in Pennsylvania. 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.
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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 $30,000 -- 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 Pennsylvania.
- 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 United Way of Lancaster County'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 28 section 501(c)(3) organizations and 1 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: 1910 Harrington Drive a, Lancaster, PA, 17601.
EIN 23-1352093 · See the original filings on ProPublica · How we build this
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