What Part IX-B of a 990-PF tells you
What is Part IX-B on Form 990-PF?
It is the section where a private foundation reports its program-related investments: money it put out as a loan, a loan guarantee, or an equity stake in service of its mission, and not as a grant. The form asks it to describe its two largest by name and amount, then total the rest on line 3. Reading it tells you two things a grant list will not. First, whether this foundation is willing to move money as something other than a gift, which matters if what you need is capital, not program funding. Second, that it is rare: across the more than 129,000+ foundations in Quillify’s index, 1,543 reported anything in Part IX-B on their most recent filing.
Last reviewed August 8, 2026.
How to read it
- Lines 1 and 2 are the two largest, described
- Named, with an amount, and with whether the foundation still held the investment at year end. This is the most specific thing in the whole return about what a foundation is willing to do outside its grant program, and it is written in prose, not in a code.
- Line 3 is everything else, as one number
- All other program-related investments, combined. A foundation with a real program here usually has a schedule attached, and the schedule is where the detail is.
- It has to reconcile
- The total of lines 1 to 3 must equal line 1b of Part XI. If it does not, something in the return is wrong, and that is worth noticing before you rely on any figure in it.
- It covers one filing year
- This is the single most misread thing about the section. A foundation with an empty Part IX-B this year may have made three of these investments last year. A foundation with an entry this year may never make another. It records past activity.
What is actually in it, across every filing
1,543 foundations reported a program-related investment on their latest return. Narrow it to the ones that also accept applications and it is 262 organizations nationally.
The amounts are smaller than the concept suggests. Half of those 1,543 reported under $8,153 for the year. Across all of them the total was around $390 million. Nearly all of that money sits with a handful of very large filers. Those are the foundations worth your week.
From a scan of Part IX-B on every foundation filing in Quillify’s index on August 8, 2026, including foundations that accept no unsolicited applications.
Who should care about this box
Companies. A program-related investment is one of the few routes by which foundation money legitimately reaches a for-profit. If you have been told foundations are closed to you, this is the door that is not quite shut.
Anyone who needs capital. A building, a piece of equipment, a revolving fund, working capital against a contract. Those are awkward asks for a grant and natural ones here.
Anyone competing for a crowded grant. Far fewer organizations ask for one of these than ask for a grant, and a foundation with an entry in this box has already shown it will consider the structure.
Who asks this most
The answer above is the same whoever you are. What Quillify does about it is not.
Related
- Foundation money and for-profit companiesCan a for-profit business receive money from a private foundation?
- Reading a foundation’s tax returnWhat can I learn from a foundation’s 990-PF?
- When the right answer is not a grantWhat is a CDFI, and when should I look at a loan instead of a grant?
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