Adelphia Foundation Inc.

Adelphia Foundation Inc. is a small, all-volunteer family foundation based in Atlanta (EIN 81-5036364, founded 2017), run by the Clements family — Thomas Clements (President), Penelope Clements (Secretary), and Madeline and Caliope Clements (Directors), joined by Kate Grinalds (Director). No officer or director has ever drawn compensation, and the organization has no paid staff, no grants webpage, and a placeholder "coming soon" homepage — all strong signals that this is a closed, relationship-driven vehicle rather than a competitive grants program. The database record confirms this directly: `preselected_only` is true, `application_instructions` is blank, and no application form, portal, or deadline exists anywhere in the public record. In practice, Adelphia gives almost exclusively to organizations the family already knows: flagship Atlanta institutions where a Clements has likely studied, served on a board, or donated personally (Emory University, Oglethorpe University, Callanwolde Fine Arts Center, Center for Puppetry Arts, Greater Atlanta Christian School), alongside a handful of personal-interest causes with no obvious Georgia tie (a hospital serving Lake Atitlán, Guatemala; the Drepung Loseling Monastery, a Tibetan Buddhist institution with an Atlanta chapter; World Central Kitchen; UNICEF). First-time applicants with no existing connection to the family should not expect a cold LOI to succeed. The realistic path in is a warm introduction — through a shared board seat, a university development office, or a mutual Atlanta civic/arts contact — followed by an informal conversation rather than a formal proposal. Organizations that do fit the profile (Atlanta-based education, arts, and human-services nonprofits, or causes with a documented personal tie to a family member) should focus outreach on relationship-building over the next 6-12 months rather than submitting an unsolicited application, since none appears to be reviewed on a fixed cycle.

Across the grants the foundation has reported, total historical giving in the database sums to $442,773 across 26 grants to 20 distinct recipients, for an average of $17,030 per grant. The database's own "typical grant size" calculation (10 most recent grants) shows a median of $16,286 and average of $16,378, ranging from a $5,000 floor to a $33,880 ceiling — this is a small-check foundation, not a source of transformative six- or seven-figure gifts. The largest cumulative relationships are with Emory University ($65,000 across 2 grants) and Oglethorpe University ($50,000 across 2 grants), followed by Threshold Community Program and Callanwolde Fine Arts Center at $40,000 each. At the bottom of the range, gifts to Georgia Organics, Lady T's Homeless Ministry, Begin Again Foundation, and Atlanta Recovery Center each total $5,000, and the smallest single grant on record is $3,000 to Drepung Loseling Monastery. Geographically, 19 of the 26 grants (73%) went to Georgia-based organizations, with the remainder scattered across Tennessee (2), Virginia (2), and one each to DC, New York, and Wisconsin — consistent with the foundation's self-reported geographic focus of GA, VA, AL, and WI. Annual grantmaking (Form 990-PF `total_giving`) has ranged from $147,957 (FY2019) to a peak of $278,351 (FY2022), before declining to $214,956 (FY2023); FY2024 figures were not fully reported at time of research. Total assets have fallen steadily from $5,037,342 (FY2019) to $4,050,981 (FY2024) — a 19.6% decline over five years — while net investment income has remained modest ($66,784-$141,782/year), indicating the foundation is drawing down its corpus faster than it is growing it. No repeat multi-year commitments beyond two grants to any single recipient were found, suggesting even favored grantees are re-evaluated rather than placed on automatic renewal.

Adelphia sits in a cluster of similarly sized private foundations (all classified under Philanthropy & Grantmaking, NTEE T22) with total assets clustered tightly around $4.05M — likely foundations formed via a comparable initial funding event around the same period. None of the five closest peers in the database publish a public grants program either, reinforcing that this asset tier ($4-4.5M) typically produces closed, founder-directed giving rather than staffed, competitive grantmaking.

Applying the standard 5% IRS minimum-distribution rule as a rough benchmark, a peer with ~$4.05M in assets would be expected to distribute roughly $200K/year — Adelphia's FY2022-2023 giving ($214,956-$278,351) sits at or slightly above that floor, indicating it is meeting (not exceeding) its statutory obligation rather than giving generously beyond it. Ephesians Foundation is the only peer with a live website and is the one worth researching directly as a possible comparison point for messaging or co-funding.

No original news, press release, annual report, or program announcement from Adelphia Foundation Inc. was found for 2025 or 2026 in this research — the foundation does not appear to issue public communications. The only dated 2025-2026 record located was a routine annual corporate registration filed with the Georgia Secretary of State on November 17, 2025 (filing #22186878), which confirms the entity remains active and in good standing but contains no programmatic content. The foundation's own website, adelphiafoundation.com, currently shows a bare "Website coming soon" placeholder, indicating the family has not yet built out (or has deprioritized) any public-facing presence, even though the domain has apparently been registered for some time. Third-party nonprofit-data aggregators (Cause IQ, ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer, Candid/Foundation Directory, Zeffy, Givebear, Holdings) all carry only IRS Form 990-PF-derived financial and grantee data, most current through FY2023-2024 filings, with no editorial or news content layered on top. Given this near-total lack of a media footprint, grant seekers should treat the foundation as operating well below the radar by design; the most recent "known" activity worth tracking is the FY2024 Form 990-PF (total assets $4,050,981, total revenue $1,030,804), which should be re-checked on ProPublica or Candid once the FY2024/2025 grants list is fully indexed, likely in mid-to-late 2026.

There is no formal application process to optimize for timing around: `application_instructions` is blank, no deadline, form URL, or opportunities page exists, and the foundation is flagged in Granted's own data as preselected-only. Practical guidance therefore centers on relationship access rather than proposal mechanics. First, identify the actual point of connection: the foundation's giving pattern strongly suggests ties to Emory University and Oglethorpe University (repeat, multi-year gifts), Atlanta arts and civic institutions (Callanwolde Fine Arts, Center for Puppetry Arts), and at least one Christian day school (Greater Atlanta Christian) — if your organization has any board, alumni, or donor overlap with the Clements or Grinalds families, that is the channel to use, not a general inquiry email (none is published). Second, keep any ask modest and specific: the observed grant range is $3,000-$65,000 cumulative per recipient, with a $16,286 median single-gift size, so requests should be scoped as a discrete, named need (a program, a scholarship, a piece of equipment) rather than general operating support at scale. Third, expect this to behave like personal giving, not institutional grantmaking — the mix of an Atlanta university, a Guatemalan hospital, and a Tibetan Buddhist monastery in the same portfolio indicates decisions follow the family's personal experiences and travel/faith connections rather than a published theory of change, so proposals framed around institutional metrics and logic models are less likely to resonate than a direct, personal case for why this specific cause matters to a specific person on the board. Fourth, do not expect a fast no or a formal rejection letter — with no published process, silence after an unsolicited approach is the most likely outcome; redirect effort toward warm introductions instead of repeat unsolicited submissions. Finally, monitor adelphiafoundation.com periodically: if the "coming soon" placeholder is ever replaced with real content, that will be the first public signal that the foundation is opening up its process, and worth revisiting this strategy immediately.