As the nation navigates uncharted territory, the San Francisco Foundation recognizes the urgency of remaining true to our North Star. For months, we have been preparing for multiple scenarios while continuing to prioritize support for BIPOC-led organizations and the provision of long-term, flexible funding.
In the spirit of transparency and accountability, we’re sharing key findings from our annual analysis of our Equity Grantmaking data for the fiscal year 2024.¹ This data helps us to assess our progress, identify areas for growth, and ensure that we are effectively serving Bay Area communities. We hope that by posting this data on our website, we can encourage other funders to do the same and promote a more equitable and impactful philanthropic sector.
Snapshot of Fiscal Year 2024 Grantmaking
- Dollars granted: Between July 2023 and June 2024, SFF made $40.5 million in programmatic grants to create a racially just and inclusive Bay Area.
- Grant size: SFF issued 569 grants to 452 different grantee partners, including 15 individuals, with an average grant size just over $71K.
- Communities served: 97% of FY24 grantees serve majority BIPOC communities.²
- Leadership: 82% of the Executive Directors or Co-Executive Directors of the organizations we funded identified as Black, Indigenous, or a person of color.³
- Strategies: In a year where SFF backed two significant housing measures – a Bay Area regional bond and a statewide measure designed to unlock more public dollars for affordable housing – affordable housing received the greatest share of our programmatic funding.
- Location: Centrally located Bay Area counties continued to receive the majority of funding (Alameda, San Francisco, and Contra Costa).
Some areas of strength:
- SFF is “all in on housing.” Consistent with our commitment to ensuring that all Bay Area residents can afford to live in neighborhoods where they feel they belong, we are devoting substantial resources to housing. In FY24, affordable housing preservation and production, tenant protections, and homelessness prevention received the greatest share of Equity funding, at slightly over $7 million.
- A majority of CI grantees are BIPOC-led. Similar to FY23, most of the FY24 funding (64%) went to BIPOC-led organizations.⁴
- Virtually all CI grantees serve majority BIPOC communities. Most of our Equity grantees (97%) serve communities where BIPOC people are the majority. In the FY24 fiscal year, the largest share of funding went to organizations serving the Latinx community.
Some areas for growth:
- Average grant size dipped: While we’ve maintained the overall dollar amount dedicated to multi-year grants (43% in FY24 compared to 44% in FY23), the number of multi-year grants decreased from 23% to 15%. Several factors contributed to this decrease:
- As we refine our strategies and transition to a new three-year impact plan, we have made smaller grants to phase out support for some grantees.
- Our election year grantmaking strategies included numerous intentionally small grants to promote engagement and turnout.
We are evaluating our grantee portfolio to determine whether and how we can make larger grants to fewer organizations, and if that will improve community outcomes.
- Larger organizations continue to receive larger grants: Organizations with annual budgets between $500,000 and $1M received grants averaging $94k, while organizations with budgets between $1M and $5M received grants averaging $132k and those with budgets above $5M averaged $186k.
We will continue to strive to increase the grant size to smaller organizations. We recognize that smaller organizations play crucial roles in their communities and can be more nimble than larger organizations.
Conclusion
SFF is committed to advancing equity and justice through our grantmaking. We recognize the challenges and opportunities ahead as we navigate a complex and rapidly changing landscape. By staying true to our North Star, prioritizing support for BIPOC-led organizations, and deepening our commitment to power-building, we are confident that we can achieve deeper and more lasting impact in the communities we serve.
