A L Borg Private Foundation

A L Borg Private Foundation, chartered in New York in August 1990 under EIN 11-2944989, is a closed-circle family foundation, not a competitive grantmaking program. Its board is two people — Morton Borg (President) and Bella Borg (Secretary) — both drawing zero compensation, with no program staff, no communications function, and no discoverable public grants process. The domain on file, alborg.org, resolves to a parked Hostinger hosting page with zero foundation content, itself a strong signal that this funder maintains no institutional web presence or public-facing intake channel.

The foundation's own 990 mission statement is unusually specific for what IRS records classify as general-purpose giving: "DONATION TO SHARI ZEDEK MEDICAL CTR, JERUSALEM, ISRAEL SOCIAL GOOD." That single line explains the giving pattern better than any generic philanthropy description could. Roughly $1.26M of the $2.34M in cumulative tracked disbursements — more than half of everything the foundation has ever given — has gone to one recipient: Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem, recorded across five near-identical entries under different transliterated spellings (Sharei Zadek, Sharir Zadak, Shari Zedek, Shari Zadak). Every other confirmed recipient sits inside a tight, recognizable Modern Orthodox/Yeshiva-world cluster: Yeshiva University and its high school, Rosenbaum Yeshiva of North Jersey, Fuchs Mizrachi School (Beachwood, OH), Congregation Ahavath Chesed, United Hatzolah/Friends of United Hatzolah, Chabad of the West Side, and several Kollel and synagogue funds.

For a prospective applicant, the strategic reality is blunt: this is not an open RFP funder. It is a personal giving vehicle for the Borg family's existing religious, educational, and medical relationships, concentrated in Manhattan's Upper West Side Orthodox community with satellite ties to New Jersey day schools, a Florida Orthodox community, and one Ohio day school. There is no LOI process, no board review cycle, and no site-visit ladder to climb — grants appear to flow through direct personal relationships with Morton and Bella Borg rather than an evaluated pipeline. Organizations with no prior connection to this network should treat A L Borg as a low-probability, relationship-first prospect: the realistic path in is a warm introduction through one of the ~20 recurring grantees, a shared synagogue or board connection, or direct outreach to the registered address rather than a written application.

Financials show steady contraction. Total assets peaked near $6.86M in FY2015 and have declined roughly 43% to $3.92M as of the FY2025 filing (filed May 26, 2026). Annual giving has followed the same downward arc: $998,377 in FY2019, $332,047 in FY2021, $505,035 in FY2023, and — per the most recent 990-PF — just $209,778 in total revenue against roughly $95,000 distributed in FY2025. Grant count has contracted even faster than dollars: from 18 awards in calendar 2022 to only 4 in 2025, per third-party 990 tracking. The foundation receives almost no new contributions in most years (contributions_received was $0 in FY2023, FY2020, and FY2015, among others) and instead runs largely on investment income — net investment income has held remarkably stable in the $196K-$320K band every year since 2011, while grants_paid has swung from $81K to $983K depending on the year, suggesting distributions track specific relationship needs rather than a fixed payout formula.

Across the 71 tracked grant transactions totaling $2,343,900 (average $33,013 per grant), the distribution is heavily right-skewed by the Shaare Zedek relationship. Excluding those five entries (~$1.26M combined), the median individual grant to the remaining roughly 40 recognizable organizations is far smaller — clustered in the $1,000-$25,000 range, with only a handful breaking into six figures cumulatively: Rosenbaum Yeshiva of North Jersey ($194,000 across 4 gifts), Yeshiva University ($128,000), Friends of United Hatzolah ($115,000), and Fuchs Mizrachi School ($105,000-$119,000 across name variants). By recipient state, New York dominates (34 of 71 tracked grants), followed by New Jersey (10), with Florida and Ohio at 5 each — reflecting the Borg family's Manhattan base, New Jersey day-school ties (Rosenbaum Yeshiva, Yavneh Academy), a Florida Orthodox community connection (Young Israel of Bal Harbour, Lubavitch Educational Center of Florida), and a single Ohio outlier (Fuchs Mizrachi School, Beachwood). By program dollar share: roughly 54% Jewish medical/hospital giving (Shaare Zedek), ~30% Jewish day-school/yeshiva education, and the remainder split between Orthodox emergency medical services (Hatzolah chapters), synagogues, and Chabad centers. No giving outside the Jewish communal/religious/educational sphere appears in any year of available data (2011-2025).

No named peer foundations were returned in the platform's comparison dataset for A L Borg, and web searches surfaced only unrelated same-surname foundations — Borg Foundation Inc. of Delavan, WI (EIN 36-6047046) and the Guenter Borg Foundation of Philadelphia, PA — that share no connection beyond a coincidental name match, worth flagging so applicants don't confuse them. In lieu of confirmed named peers, the table below benchmarks A L Borg against typical archetypes at comparable asset scale, drawn from general small-family-foundation sector patterns:

A L Borg sits at the small end of even the "single-family foundation" archetype, and its behavior — no website content, two unpaid family officers, a fixed and recurring grantee roster, and a sharply declining payout trend — is far closer to the closed religious/communal family foundation pattern than to any open-application funder. Unlike a federation donor-advised fund or community foundation, there is no published cycle, no committee review, and no indication the foundation has ever funded an organization outside its existing personal network.

No press coverage, news announcements, or public statements from A L Borg Private Foundation were found in web searches — expected for a two-person, no-staff family vehicle with a parked-domain website. The most verifiable recent activity comes from its own IRS filings: a 990-PF for fiscal year 2025 was filed May 26, 2026, reporting $209,778 in total revenue, $112,761 in total expenses (roughly $95,000, or 84%, charitable disbursement), and closing net assets of $3,917,796. That is a sharp step down from FY2024, when the foundation reported $711,830 in revenue and $495,170 in expenses — meaning both giving and asset base contracted meaningfully in the most recent filing year. Third-party 990 aggregation also shows grant count falling from 18 awards in 2022 to just 4 in 2025, the steepest contraction across the foundation's available filing history (2011-2025).

No leadership changes are evident — Morton Borg (President) and Bella Borg (Secretary) appear consistently across the filing history with no compensation reported in any year. No new program announcements, geographic expansion, or shift away from the Jewish medical/educational/religious concentration described above were found in any source consulted. Given the funding trajectory, prospective applicants should read the 2025 contraction as a signal that this foundation is entering a lower-giving phase, not one poised to expand its grantee roster or open a public application channel.

Because there is no published application process — the platform record lists application_instructions as "__none__" and there is no application_form_url, deadline, or portal anywhere — a formal cold application is not a realistic path here. Treat A L Borg less like a grants program and more like a major-donor relationship to cultivate. Concrete, funder-specific guidance:

• Verify the funder before pursuing it. The listed website (alborg.org) is a parked hosting page with zero foundation content — do not rely on it for contact information or guidelines, and be wary of any third party claiming to represent an "official" A L Borg grants process. The only verified address is 220 Riverside Blvd, Apt 3M, New York, NY 10069.
• Lead with the Shaare Zedek connection if you have one. More than half of all lifetime giving has gone to Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem — an institutional tie to Shaare Zedek, Israeli medical causes, or the Modern Orthodox New York donor community that supports it is the strongest entry point.
• Fit the existing profile tightly. Every confirmed grantee is a Jewish day school, yeshiva, synagogue, Chabad center, Hatzolah (Orthodox volunteer EMS) chapter, or Israeli medical institution. An organization outside that profile — regardless of merit — has essentially no track record of being funded here.
• Use warm introductions, not written applications. With two unpaid family officers and no program staff, requests are almost certainly reviewed personally rather than by any committee. A referral from an existing grantee (Yeshiva University, Rosenbaum Yeshiva of North Jersey, Congregation Ahavath Chesed, United Hatzolah, Chabad of the West Side) or a shared synagogue/community connection is far more likely to work than a cold letter.
• Expect modest, not transformational, asks. Excluding the Shaare Zedek anchor relationship, most individual awards fall between $1,000 and $25,000. Scale requests accordingly — a large ask from a first-time, unconnected applicant is very unlikely to land, especially given the declining payout trend (down to just 4 grants in 2025).
• Do not time an approach to a published deadline — none exists. Relationship-based family foundations like this typically respond whenever the family chooses, often around the Jewish calendar (High Holidays, Passover) or year-end tax planning.
• Do not expect a site visit, formal report-back requirement, or multi-year pledge structure — none of that infrastructure is evident in the filings.