It’s only April, but over $71.3M has been granted to local organizations in 2016

Philly has more than its fair share of social issues, but which are receiving the most grant dollars?

Efforts to alleviate homelessness and boost education in the Philadelphia area are a top priority for funders so far this year, according to a list we compiled of public and philanthropic grants made to Philadelphia-area organizations and services since January of this year — a total of at least $71,306,000.

We broke the list into six issue areas: homelessness, education, arts and culture, health, civics and community development. Here are three key takeaways:

• Education programming has seen the highest volume of grant activity.
• So far, community development is the least-funded issue area.
• The largest grants have come from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, William Penn Foundation and Pew Charitable Trusts (plus late philanthropist Daniel W. Dietrich).

Pew and the Spruce Foundation have launched multi-issue grant initiatives funding multiple organizations this year (Pew granted $8.5 million to organizations fighting childhood poverty over three years and Spruce granted $20,000 to four local nonprofits) and those grants have been split up and categorized.

Know of any grants we missed? Send us an email at philly@generocity.org.

Homelessness ($28,000,000)

• This is the top-funded issue area thanks to a massive $28 million federal grant to Philadelphia’s Office of Supportive Housing from HUD.

Education ($19,494,000)

• The Philadelphia chapter of venture philanthropy organization GreenLight Fund granted $600,000 to literacy nonprofit Parent-Child Home Program.
• Spruce granted $5,000 to Philadelphia Wooden Boat Factory.
• Three early childcare organizations received $631,000 from Pew.
• Pew also granted $2,998,000 to 17 out-of-school education organizations.
• William Penn Foundation allocated $15,000,000 to the Fund for Quality, an second-iteration initiative helmed by Reinvestment Fund.
• Comcast Foundation granted $45,000 to the Opportunities Industrialization Center.
• Samuel S. Fels Fund granted $185,000 to 12 organizations.
• A plane ($30,000) was granted to to Springside Chestnut Hill Academy from Florida-based Bede Family Foundation.

Arts and Culture ($16,860,000)

• Spruce granted $5,000 to Portside Arts Center.
• Spruce also granted $5,000 to Girls Rock Philly.
• Presser Foundation has granted $700,000 to 38 music nonprofits (though they are within a 100-mile radius and stretch outside the Philadelphia region).
• Opera Philadelphia has received $2,500,000 from the Knight Foundation for an opera festival.
• The Please Touch Museum received $3,650,000 from William Penn, the Neubauer Family Foundation, Hamilton Family Foundation and others to keep its doors open.
• The Philadelphia Museum of Art received a $10,000,000 donation from late philanthropist Daniel W. Dietrich.

Health ($5,539,000)

• Spruce granted $5,000 to Greener Partners.
• Twelve prevention and intervention organizations received $2,278,000 from Pew.
• Pew also granted $1,856,000 to nine behavioral health organizations.
• University of Pennsylvania‘s Prevention Research Center received a $1,400,000 grant from the Center for Disease Control for their work in Philadelphia’s Promise Zone.

Civics  ($938,000)

• Knight granted $35,000 to civic tech project Visible Contracts.
• Historic Germantown received $78,000 in grants from its donor-supported Sustaining Our Cities Fund.
• Pew granted $825,000 to four public benefit access organizations.

Community Development ($475,000)

• University City District‘s social enterprise Green City Works received $300,000 from the Job Opportunity Investment Network.
• Fels donated $135,000 to eight community development organizations.
• Drexel University‘s Digital-On-Ramps program received $40,000 the Fossil Foundation.