Iqair Foundation

The Iqair Foundation (now publicly branded "Foundation for Clean Air") is a lean, founder-linked corporate foundation, not a traditional program-officer-staffed grantmaker. All four listed people — Glory Dolphin-Hammes (Executive Director) and directors Carole Curtis, David Gomez, and Ofelia Ceja-Lariviere — are reported at $0 compensation across every filed year, a strong signal this is an in-kind giving vehicle tied to IQAir's air-purification business rather than a cash-grants shop with dedicated program staff. Applicants should adjust expectations accordingly: there is no multi-stage LOI-to-full-proposal-to-site-visit ladder. It is a single online application (the "grantform" page) feeding a points-based eligibility screen and a random drawing, run twice a year.

The grant itself is in-kind, not cash: winning schools receive IQAir air filtration equipment (HealthPro purifiers, HyperHEPA filters, NanoMax HVAC filters, Atem X units in the SCAQMD partnership example) installed and serviced at zero cost for five years. First-time applicants should write their case around health and air-quality impact, not a program budget, and should have a facilities contact ready to coordinate HVAC-integrated installation.

The grantee data — 273 recorded grants worth $12,029,235 since inception, 100% in California — shows the foundation favors public elementary/K-8 schools and small charter operators in specific pollution-burdened corridors: Coachella Valley Unified (agricultural dust, Salton Sea proximity), Oakland Unified (industrial corridor), Hesd/Ecesd in Imperial County (US-Mexico border air quality), and standalone charters like KIPP Bridge Academy. Multi-site districts (Cvusd, Hesd, Ecesd, Ousd) reappear across many cycles with individual site-level awards rather than one blanket district grant — evidence that applying per school site, and reapplying in subsequent cycles if not selected, is the observed path to cumulative funding capture, even though each individual round is a lottery among eligible applicants.

Because geographic focus is stated as "United States, Africa, Latin America" in the foundation's own records, but the entire tracked grant history is California-only, international or non-CA U.S. applicants should treat the Community Air Monitoring Program (not Clean Air for Kids) as their more realistic entry point, and confirm current geographic scope directly with the foundation before applying.

Cumulative recorded giving across 273 tracked grants is $12,029,235, averaging $44,063 per grant — but a tighter, more recent lens from the foundation's own 990-PF grant listing shows a median grant of $25,594 and an average of $46,253, ranging from $11,247 to $264,145 (n=21). The gap between these figures reflects that many top recipients received multiple grants over several cycles rather than one lump sum: Cvusd Mecca Extension, for example, received 9 separate grants totaling $537,551 (~$59,700 average per grant), and the largest bucket, an aggregated "Other School Sites" category, totals $1,731,148 across 7 grants.

Annual total giving has been volatile: $2,682,651 (2019) → $2,690,329 (2020) → a sharp dip to $979,207 (2021) → $3,345,418 (2022) → a peak of $3,785,443 (2023). FY2024's total_giving figure was not yet reported at data pull, though FY2024 revenue was $3,744,340, suggesting a similar order of magnitude is likely. Total assets tell a spend-down story: assets rose from $245,429 (2019) to a peak of $8,569,756 (2022) before falling back to $2,844,703 by 2024 — consistent with an operating foundation (is_operating: true in every reported year) that runs its own charitable equipment-installation program directly rather than passing cash through to other grantmakers, and that distributes roughly in line with what it takes in via contributions each year rather than building a large permanent endowment.

Geographically, funding is 100% California-concentrated in the tracked grantee data despite the foundation's stated Africa/Latin America focus — that international ambition currently appears to run through the separate, non-equipment Community Air Monitoring Program rather than through Clean Air for Kids grant dollars. Distribution is top-heavy: the ten largest recipients alone account for roughly $4.8 million of the $12 million total, meaning first-time single-site applicants should expect a modest individual award (likely in the $11K-$50K range per the typical_grant_size data) even though headline district totals run much higher.

The five peer foundations sit within a remarkably tight asset band ($2.84-$2.85 million) essentially identical to Iqair Foundation's, but our data bundle does not include their annual giving, program focus detail, or application posture beyond the shared "Philanthropy & Grantmaking" NTEE classification — most lack a public website. This makes Iqair Foundation/Foundation for Clean Air a standout in the peer set on transparency and accessibility alone: it publishes a defined program (Clean Air for Kids), fixed twice-yearly deadlines, explicit eligibility criteria, and an open online application — none of which is evident for the comparably-sized family foundations above, several of which likely give only to pre-identified or relationship-based recipients rather than accepting unsolicited applications.

The most significant recent development is a rebrand: the organization now presents publicly as "Foundation for Clean Air" at foundationforcleanair.org, with the legacy iqairfoundation.org domain now 301-redirecting to the new site as of this research (September 2026). Applicants relying on older bookmarks, IRS filings, or the "Iqair Foundation" name should confirm they are working from the current site and application form.

The largest concrete program activity identified in this research is from May 2024: a partnership with South Coast AQMD made $1.2 million available to install air filtration at 184 private K-12 schools, preschools, and daycare facilities across underserved Southern California communities, with an installation event at School of Santa Isabel on March 6, 2024. Equipment deployed included HealthPro air purifiers, HyperHEPA filter replacements, NanoMax HVAC filters, and Atem X purifiers, alongside an outdoor AirVisual monitor — illustrative of what a typical award package looks like in practice.

Leadership has remained stable and unpaid: Glory Dolphin-Hammes continues to serve as Executive Director across all reported filing years, with directors Carole Curtis, David Gomez, and Ofelia Ceja-Lariviere. Search results referenced the passing of IQAir founder Klaus Hammes, described as the company's visionary founder, but this research could not confirm a specific date or locate a primary-source announcement — it should be treated as unverified pending direct confirmation.

No dedicated 2025 or 2026-dated press releases, new program launches, or large individual grant announcements were located in this search pass; the most recent traceable program news is from 2024, and FY2024 grants-paid figures were not yet available in the foundation's own filings at the time of data collection.

There are exactly two entry points per year — apply by November 30 for a January 15 award decision, or by May 31 for a July 15 award decision — and there is no rolling or off-cycle exception, so missing a deadline means waiting roughly six months for the next window.

Remember this is an in-kind equipment and service grant, not a cash award: winners receive air filtration hardware installed and maintained at zero cost for five years. Frame your application around health and air-quality impact rather than a program budget, and be ready to coordinate HVAC-integrated installation logistics (the foundation's typical package includes HEPA/HyperHEPA purifiers, NanoMax HVAC filters, and outdoor AirVisual monitoring units).

Eligibility runs on a point-based threshold across three factors — (1) being a public school or a charity serving pre-school/elementary-age children, (2) being located in a socioeconomically disadvantaged community, and (3) having a neighborhood impacted by air pollution. You do not need a perfect score on all three; clearing the combined threshold is what qualifies you for the random drawing. Strengthen the pollution-burden case with locally specific evidence — CalEnviroScreen percentile, proximity to a freeway/agricultural operation/industrial corridor, or local AQI monitoring data — since that criterion is evidence-dependent, not self-declared.

The single biggest controllable risk is an incomplete application: the foundation's own instructions ask applicants to fill out the form "as completely as possible," and incompleteness is the most likely reason a qualified applicant never reaches the drawing. Because winners past the threshold are chosen at random, polish and completeness reduce your risk of disqualification but do not improve your odds relative to other eligible applicants once you're in the pool — so the real strategic lever is repeat application. The grantee data shows multi-site districts (Cvusd, Hesd, Ecesd, Ousd) capturing awards across many cycles by submitting per-site applications rather than one district-wide ask; single-site applicants who aren't selected should plan to reapply the following cycle.

A lower-barrier relationship-building option exists alongside the lottery: the foundation separately recruits "Hosts" for its Community Air Monitoring Program, where schools, nonprofits, or government agencies host an outdoor air-quality monitor and publish data to the platform within 30 days. This is not gated by the same lottery and can build a track record with the foundation ahead of a future Clean Air for Kids application. Given the unpaid, four-person leadership team, outreach should go through the general contact/application channel rather than assuming a large program-officer staff is available for individualized pre-application conversations.