Actc Foundation Inc.

Actc Foundation Inc. is a closely held Cutler family foundation operating from Littleton, Colorado since its October 2003 IRS ruling, with $8.96 million in assets (FY2023) and no paid program staff — governance rests entirely with President/Director David Cutler, Vice President Malvin Cutler, Director Veronica Cutler, and Secretary Kathleen Lambert. Multiple independent nonprofit databases (Impala, Grantable, Cause IQ) confirm the foundation does not accept unsolicited proposals and funds by invitation only, corroborated by the platform's own preselected_only flag and the absence of any application deadline, application form URL, or grants page URL in the foundation's IRS-derived record. This is not a foundation running an open RFP cycle — it functions closer to a personal family giving vehicle that channels the Cutlers' philanthropy toward organizations tied to their personal and geographic networks.

The grantee pattern bears this out. Nearly every recipient traces to one of three threads: Central New York roots (Onondaga Community College Foundation and SUNY Oswego both received named "Cutler Scholarship Fund" gifts; East Syracuse Marching Band Boosters received travel support), a Colorado home base (Arapahoe Community College Foundation, Douglas County Sheriff's Office Victim Assistance Unit, Lakewood High School Boosters, Tutti Bambini Foundation), and a smaller New Mexico thread (General Federation of Women's Clubs). Recipients skew toward education (named scholarship endowments), children's and disability services, and public-safety/victim-advocacy programs — consistent with the "Human Services" and "Crime, Legal-Related" NTEE classifications (code I12) attached to the foundation's filing.

For an applicant with no prior relationship to the Cutler family or these specific institutions, the honest strategic read is that cold outreach has a low probability of success. The more productive path is relationship-building: identifying board members, alumni ties, or community connections in the two dominant clusters — Syracuse-area colleges/schools or Denver-metro civic and public-safety institutions — that intersect with the foundation's known giving circle, and pursuing a warm introduction through a current grantee, a shared board member, or a community foundation intermediary rather than a direct letter of inquiry.

Actc Foundation Inc.'s FY2023 Form 990-PF shows $210,500 in direct grants paid to 23 grantees, against $413,947 in total qualifying distributions and $8,958,629 in year-end assets. Across the platform's captured grant history (28 grants spanning the top recipients), total tracked giving is $904,163 at an average grant of $32,292. IRS-reported typical grant size for matched activity: minimum $2,500, maximum $100,000, median $25,000, average $31,416 (n=10).

Grant size is bimodal. At the top: two $100,000 scholarship-endowment commitments — Onondaga Community College Foundation ($200,000 across 2 gifts) and Arapahoe Community College Foundation ($200,000 across 2 gifts, one "in honor of the late John Jordan") — plus a single $100,000 gift to SUNY Oswego for the "Cutler Scholarship Fund." These three recipients alone account for $500,000, or 55%, of the $904,163 in tracked cumulative giving. Below that tier, recurring multi-year support runs $45,000-$95,000: Epilepsy Foundation of Colorado ($94,163/3 grants), Tutti Bambini Foundation ($65,000/3 grants), Douglas County Sheriff's Office Victim Assistance Unit ($60,000/3 grants), Elmcrest Children's Center ($52,500/3 grants), and Soul Saving Station ($45,000/3 grants). The smallest tracked grants — Great Escape Mustang Sanctuary ($7,500) and Lakewood High School Boosters ($5,000) — are one-time gifts under $10,000.

Geographically, giving concentrates in three states matching the officers' personal ties: New York (13 of 28 tracked grants, driven by Central New York education gifts), Colorado (11 of 28, the foundation's home state), and New Mexico (4 of 28, smaller community-service grants).

Five-year trend: total giving/qualifying distributions peaked at $507,567 in 2021 and declined roughly 18% to $413,947 by 2023, while direct grants paid fell from $314,163 (2021) to $210,500 (2023) — a 33% drop — even as assets held in the $8.36M-$10.2M range and net investment income stayed strong ($124,472-$356,658 annually). No new contributions were received in any of the five years reported (2019-2023); the foundation is funded entirely from its existing endowment, meaning grant volume is bounded by investment performance rather than fundraising.

Actc sits mid-pack by asset size among this Human Services peer set, which spans $6.38M to $11.00M — none of these are large institutional funders, and most cluster in the same small-family-foundation tier. Candor Foundation Inc. is the only peer with a discoverable public website, suggesting most of this cohort, Actc included, operate as closely-held family foundations without formal grants infrastructure rather than as institutional grantmakers running open cycles. Applicants without an existing relationship to any of these six foundations should expect comparable odds across the group; the more efficient use of research time is identifying which, if any, share board members, alumni ties, or geographic overlap with the applicant's own network.

No primary-source news, leadership announcements, or press coverage was found for Actc Foundation Inc. in 2025-2026 — searches for recent grants and announcements returned only generic nonprofit-database listings (Impala, Grantable, Cause IQ, ProPublica, GreatNonprofits) rather than press releases, and this foundation does not appear to issue public statements. The most recent Form 990-PF data available across these aggregators is fiscal year 2023 (filed November 2024), showing $210,500 in grants to 23 grantees and a net operating loss of $275,581 against $138,366 in total revenue.

No leadership changes are evident across the filings reviewed: David Cutler (President/Director), Malvin Cutler (Vice President), Veronica Cutler (Director), and Kathleen Lambert (Secretary) have held their roles consistently. Officer compensation has varied by year — Lambert and Malvin Cutler drew $36,000-$45,900 individually in 2020-2022 — while the most recent individual-level entries on file show $0 compensation, alongside an aggregate officer_compensation line of $87,204 for FY2023; this discrepancy likely reflects a reporting-period or aggregation artifact in the underlying filing rather than a new pay structure, and is worth independent verification against the primary 990-PF before citing.

The website on file for this foundation (actc.org) resolves to the Almaden Cycle Touring Club, an unrelated Northern California bicycling club — Actc Foundation Inc. does not appear to maintain any public website. Grant seekers should treat the foundation's digital footprint as limited to IRS filings and third-party nonprofit-database aggregations rather than any owned online presence, and should not expect a grants page, newsletter, or social media account to monitor for updates.

Actc Foundation Inc. does not accept unsolicited proposals, so conventional "application tips" — forms, deadlines, LOI templates — do not apply here. The operative strategy is relationship access, not proposal craft.

• Do not submit a cold inquiry to the foundation's listed phone number ((303) 748-9582) or its IRS-filed contact, "% Catherine Lovell." Third-party trackers (Impala, Grantable) and the platform's own preselected_only flag consistently confirm this foundation has no open-door application process.
• Map the foundation's known giving circle before any outreach: Central New York higher education (Onondaga Community College, SUNY Oswego, East Syracuse-area schools) and Colorado civic/public-safety institutions (Arapahoe Community College, Douglas County Sheriff's Office, Lakewood-area schools, Tutti Bambini Foundation). Organizations sitting in one of these two geographic/institutional clusters have materially better odds of an organic introduction than organizations outside them.
• Look for a warm connector: a shared board member, a Syracuse-area or Denver-metro alumni tie, or a current grantee — Epilepsy Foundation of Colorado, Family Tree Inc., Clear Path for Veterans, or the community college foundations at Onondaga/Arapahoe — who might make an introduction. A four-person, all-volunteer family foundation of this size typically funds organizations its officers know directly.
• If your organization can support a named-scholarship-fund model, consider a personalized or memorial-giving angle: the foundation has twice funded named endowments (the "Cutler Scholarship Fund" at SUNY Oswego, and a fund honoring "the late John Jordan" at Arapahoe Community College Foundation), suggesting this format resonates with the family's giving style more than general operating requests.
• Expect grant sizes of $5,000-$100,000 if funded, with $25,000 the historical median, and expect multi-year relationships (2-3 sequential gifts) rather than one-time awards — the top 8 tracked recipients account for the large majority of the foundation's $904,163 in cumulative giving, indicating a preference for depth with a small, stable grantee roster over roster expansion.
• Do not expect a public grants page, RFP calendar, or online portal to check for updates — none exists, and building one is unlikely given the foundation's all-volunteer governance structure.