FRIENDS & FOUNDATION OF THE SAN FRANCISCO PUBLIC LIBRARY

As filed

Subsection

03

NTEE code

B110

Classification

1000

Street

1630 17TH ST

These codes are the IRS's own and are shown exactly as filed. What each one means is in the Business Master File documentation (opens in a new tab).

Mission and programs · 2024

• Library Support Program:Friends has an annual direct support program that funds various library programs, resources, and equipment. As a community foundation, Friends awards support to the SFPL for innovative, free programs and services that are open to everyone across San Francisco in the areas of: children and teens, neighborhood branches, arts and culture, exhibitions, careers and jobs support, ESL, new immigrant support, technology and media learning, remote outreach (bookmobiles), and special collections and infrastructure support for affinity centers throughout the Main Library. Examples of popular programs that rely almost exclusively on Friends' support are One City One Book, the Summer Stride Reading and STEM Program, Tricycle Music Festival, and the publication of At the Library, a free newsletter of activities at the Main Library and the 27 branches. Friends' funds also support professional development for library staff, including paying for specialized training and conferences and grants to Librarians to pilot new innovative services that if successful, are often expanded system wide. And finally, Friends support includes additional funds for the library to promote free programs among identified groups of high-need residents, including contracting digital marketing expertise. Through Friends, community members express their support and aspirations for the SFPL as: - Persuasive Advocates committed to a strong and responsive library with reliable public funding. - Engaged Champions advancing the SFPL's mission for community literacy and expansive free resources and opportunities for everyone.- Generous investors bridging the funding gap between what the city provides and the cost of additional programs, resources, and services that San Franciscans want and need.

  Expenses $1,421,842 · Grants $902,179

• Community Book Program: Through ongoing efforts to support the library, Friends connects readers with inexpensive and free books. Each year, through its Community Book Program ("CBP"), Friends takes in over one million donated books and media, which it in turn resells to the public through two bookstores, online sales, and a number of specialty book sales (including some of the largest book sales on the West Coast). The SFPL also selectively acquires rare books from Friends that enhance SFPL's collections. Many books are also donated to schools and other non-profit organizations through Friends' CBP. Friends re-engineered what has been known as Books Operations into the Book Program, embracing its activities more accurately and fueling its growth as a valuable community asset that supports SFPL's mission for literacy and literary engagement. The Book Programs' four fundamental goals balance literacy and a national model for environmental responsibility. These goals are to: - Increase access to low-cost books and media through multiple venues of convenience and affordability. - Redirect free books from the traditional market to underserved and low-income children and families.- Promote literary engagement through free literary activities. - Keep more than one million books and media out of landfill and recycling plants each year.

  Expenses $908,068 · Revenue $915,277

• Advocacy Program:Friends continues the tradition of active and vocal support to ensure excellence in library services for all users. Friends' long and successful track record includes its critical role in passing five ballot measures over the last 30 years. Through its advocacy efforts, Friends helped pass a $106 million bond measure to build and refurbish 24 neighborhood branch libraries city-wide (2000, Prop A), championing the Library Preservation Fund, ensuring increased library hours, services and budget (1994, Prop E); spearheading the legislative campaign to build a $109.5 million new Main Library (1988, Prop A) and securing over $9.7 million in state funding. In 2007, Friends helped pass a measure (Prop D) that will bring in over $1.2 billion to the library by renewing the Library Preservation Fund and most recently in 2022, passed the third version of the Library Preservation Fund (Prop F) securing twenty-five years of public funding. We continue to work with elected officials, community groups, and the library administration to ensure a premier library system for San Francisco.

  Expenses $282,205

• Volunteer Program:Friends has a robust volunteer program which helps support the CBP, library and Friends' literary events, and contribute to our library advocacy efforts by educating the public about the Library Preservation Fund as well as promoting patronage of the twenty-eight libraries in San Francisco. In FY 24/25, the program was supported by a total of 165 volunteers who contributed a total of 12,682 volunteer hours valued at $509,055. The Lisa Brown & Daniel Handler Writer's Residency Program:Made possible by the generosity of Daniel Handler and Lisa Brown, the residency is designed to provide five writers with free, adequate, and accessible space in which to produce creative work, and to connect them with the San Francisco Public Library to produce and share their work in the community. The resident authors work in designated artist space (the writers hive) at the Friends office where they have 24-hour unlimited access to the office and all the amenities and supplies of the office. Each resident is connected to a branch library as the resident writer/creator for the purpose of highlighting their talents and engaging with the library patrons.

  Expenses $100,888

As filed on the 2024 return. The filer continues this part on Schedule O, which is not shown here.

Officers and directors · 2024

As listed in Part VII of the 2024 return, in the order the filer printed them. Each return names its own; this is not a roster the organization keeps with us.

Compensation is as filed in Part VII: reportable pay from this organization and from related organizations, other compensation, and hours per week. The total, marked calculated, is our sum of the three dollar columns, with a blank column counted as $0; the form itself has no total. On a Form 990-EZ the columns are Part IV's instead, and on a Form 990-PF Part VIII's — compensation, contributions to benefit plans, and expense account — and the total sums those. A Schedule J breakdown is as filed: base pay, bonus, other, deferred compensation and nontaxable benefits from this organization, with any from related organizations beside each, and the filer's own total. It is shown with the Part VII listing of the same name on the same return. The form gives no key between the two, so that pairing is ours, and is marked matched by us. Earlier years are each on their own filing page.

Filings

• 2024

  Revenue

  $4,861,318

  Expenses

  $3,542,110

  Contributions

  $3,653,224

  Grants paid

  $902,179

• 2023

  Revenue

  $3,344,781

  Expenses

  $3,616,539

  Contributions

  $2,194,983

  Grants paid

  $915,032

• 2022

  Revenue

  $5,378,258

  Expenses

  $3,964,708

  Contributions

  $4,705,877

  Grants paid

  $706,158

The four totals the IRS asks for on Part I of the Form 990, as filed. A dash means the figure was not present on the return — not that it was zero.

Other returns filed

• 2021 · 990

  Revenue

  $3,006,314

  Expenses

  $3,091,175

  Assets (EOY)

  $7,992,031

• 2020 · 990

  Revenue

  $3,121,864

  Expenses

  $3,050,841

  Assets (EOY)

  $10,027,176

• 2019 · 990

  Revenue

  $3,213,162

  Expenses

  $3,636,643

  Assets (EOY)

  $7,398,385

• 2018 · 990

  Revenue

  $3,756,168

  Expenses

  $4,027,200

  Assets (EOY)

  $7,104,701

• 2017 · 990

  Revenue

  $2,976,213

  Expenses

  $3,450,561

  Assets (EOY)

  $7,301,042

• 2017 · 990

  Revenue

  $2,976,213

  Expenses

  $3,450,561

  Assets (EOY)

  $7,301,042

• 2016 · 990

  Revenue

  $3,482,012

  Expenses

  $3,450,177

  Assets (EOY)

  $7,727,486

• 2016 · 990

  Revenue

  $3,482,012

  Expenses

  $3,450,177

  Assets (EOY)

  $7,727,486

• 2015 · 990

  Revenue

  $3,074,888

  Expenses

  $3,457,054

  Assets (EOY)

  $7,558,048

• 2014 · 990

  Revenue

  $3,580,235

  Expenses

  $4,057,199

  Assets (EOY)

  $7,858,669

Nonprofiteer parses Forms 990, 990-EZ and 990-PF, in a window of recent tax years. These returns are recorded from the IRS e-file index, so their figures were extracted by that index rather than read from the return here — treat them as a different source from the filings above, not as more of the same record. A dash means the index carries no figure; Form 990-T listings carry none at all. Showing the 10 most recent; the API carries the rest.

Grants made

• San Francisco Public Library

  $915,032

  2023 · Support San Francisco Public Library and the surrounding community members.

• San Francisco Public Library

  $902,179

  2024 · Support San Francisco Public Library and the surrounding community members.

• San Francisco Public Library

  $706,158

  2022 · Support San Francisco Public Library and the surrounding community members.

Where these grants went next →

Grants received

• DONOR ADVISED CHARITABLE GIVING

  $225,317

  2022 · EDUCATION

• DONOR ADVISED CHARITABLE GIVING

  $222,305

  2024 · EDUCATION

• SAN FRANCISCO FOUNDATION

  $201,234

  2023 · FOR GENERAL SUPPORT. IN SUPPORT OF THE FIVE-YEAR CAMPAIGN. FOR PROJECT READ. FOR GENERAL SUPPORT. FOR FUNDING THE PURCHASE AND INSTALLATION OF NEW FURNITURE FOR THE CHINATOWN AND MISSION LIBRARIES.

• SAN FRANCISCO FOUNDATION

  $186,938

  2022 · ADVISED - FOR GENERAL SUPPORT. ADVISED - FOR GENERAL OPERATING SUPPORT. ADVISED - IN SUPPORT OF THE FIVE-YEAR CAMPAIGN.

• SAN FRANCISCO FOUNDATION

  $176,264

  2024 · FOR GENERAL AND PROJECT SUPPORT

• FIDELITY INVESTMENTS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND

  $153,137

  2024 · For grant recipient's exempt purposes

• DONOR ADVISED CHARITABLE GIVING

  $93,699

  2023 · EDUCATION

• FIDELITY INVESTMENTS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND

  $87,775

  2022 · For grant recipient's exempt purposes

• FIDELITY INVESTMENTS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND

  $79,073

  2023 · For grant recipient's exempt purposes

• AMERICAN ONLINE GIVING FOUNDATION INC

  $52,886

  2023 · GENERAL SUPPORT

The 10 largest by cash amount. The API serves every itemized grant.

Related organizations

From Schedule R Part II, where a filer lists the tax-exempt organizations it is related to by control. It does not record shared board members or money.

California fundraising campaigns

Campaigns run by paid fundraisers, commercial coventurers and thrift stores naming this organization, as California published them. Both figures are as filed, and what the first one counts depends on the campaign type — a coventurer or a thrift store files its own sales rather than money collected for the charity. The 990 reports this only as a yearly total, never per campaign.

• CAR DONATION SERVICES INC

  $2,000 raised

  2024 · CF Vehicle Donation Program

  $604 to charity

• CAR DONATION SERVICES INC

  $3,500 raised

  2023 · CF Vehicle Donation Program

  $1,848 to charity

• CAR DONATION SERVICES INC

  $15,222 raised

  2022 · CF Vehicle Donation Program

  $8,411 to charity

• CAR DONATION SERVICES INC

  $0 raised

  2021 · CF Vehicle Donation Program

  $0 to charity

• CAR DONATION SERVICES INC

  $3,100 raised

  2020 · CF Vehicle Donation Program

  $1,435 to charity

Amounts are as filed and do not add up: a commercial coventurer reports one promotion's whole gross once for each charity that shared in it. A campaign may also name more than one registered charity, in which case it appears on each.

Other IRS files