Alehsan Foundation Inc.

Alehsan Foundation Inc. is a small, closely-held private foundation ($4,228,744 in assets as of FY2024) run out of Valparaiso, Indiana under a single active director, M Hytham Rifai, with zero officer compensation reported in every year on file back to 2012. Public grant databases (GuideStar, Cause IQ) are explicit that it "makes contributions to preselected charitable organizations" — this is functionally an invitation-only funder, not one that reviews open, unsolicited proposals, despite a generic "accepting applications" flag on some directories. There is no published LOI process, no program officer, no application portal, and no stated deadline in any public filing.

The grantee pattern is the best guide to fit. Of the 12 grants totaling $200,801 tracked for this funder (average $16,733, but skewed by outliers), the largest single relationship is Rahma Worldwide For Aid (formerly Rahma Relief Foundation), which received $125,000 across two general-purpose grants — 62% of tracked dollars. The rest is split between general-purpose support to Islamic educational and civic institutions (Ibn Al-Haitham Endowment Fund $20,000, Reaching Across Borders $15,000, Ibn Sina National College $4,000) and a steady stream of smaller scholarship gifts to universities (Benedictine, Life University, Loma Linda, The World Islamic Sciences and Education University) in the $2,000-$10,000 range. One 2023 grant of $4,461 went directly to a named individual, Iyad and Molina Subei, for refugee aid — evidence the foundation will fund direct family/individual assistance, not just institutions.

First-time applicants should not expect a cold-LOI-to-full-proposal progression here. The realistic path is relational: organizations serving Islamic communities, refugee resettlement, or scholarship access — ideally with an existing tie to the foundation's grantee network (Ibn Al-Haitham Endowment Fund, Avicenna Academy, or similar) — stand the best chance of a warm introduction reaching the director. Given the foundation's modest and declining annual payout, seekers should also calibrate ask size to the $2,000-$25,000 range that dominates its actual giving, reserving larger six-figure asks for organizations that can build the kind of sustained, multi-year relationship Rahma Worldwide appears to have.

Alehsan's grantmaking has contracted over the past decade even as its balance sheet has grown. Grants paid fell from a $192,341-$198,738 band in 2012-2013 to $86,170-$117,240 in total giving by 2022-2023, before financials go blank for 2024 in the primary filing (Cause IQ's independent read of the same FY2024 990-PF reports $86,910 in charitable disbursements). Meanwhile total assets climbed from $2,473,860 (2012) to $4,228,744 (2024) — a 71% increase — driven largely by investment gains (net investment income peaked at $273,039 in 2021, a year total revenue hit $411,774). The result is a payout ratio that has drifted well below the roughly 5% of assets private foundations typically distribute: FY2023's $117,240 in giving against $3,968,842 in assets is about 2.95%.

On the tracked grants themselves (12 grants, $200,801 total, $16,733 average), size varies enormously by purpose. General-purpose grants run largest: Rahma Worldwide For Aid received $62,500 per grant across two awards ($125,000 total), and Ibn Al-Haitham Endowment Fund and Reaching Across Borders received $20,000 and $15,000 respectively in single general-purpose gifts. Scholarship grants are far smaller and more numerous — Benedictine University ($5,000 x2), Life University ($10,000), Loma Linda University ($10,000), and The World Islamic Sciences and Education University ($1,170 x2) — consistent with the DB's typical-grant-size figure of a $5,000 median (range $1,170-$80,000, average $16,376 across 7 recorded grants). Refugee aid is the smallest category by dollar volume but notable for going directly to individuals: $4,461 to Iyad and Molina Subei in one grant.

Geographically, tracked grantees span seven states (IL and MI each received 2 grants; CA, GA, IN, NJ, and TX one each), plus at least one international university grantee (The World Islamic Sciences and Education University). There is no single dominant home-state bias despite the foundation's Indiana address — funding follows institutional and community relationships rather than geography. No program-area breakdown by percentage is available beyond what the purpose tags show: general purposes and scholarships together account for the large majority of both grant count and dollars, with refugee aid a smaller, targeted third category.

Alehsan sits in an asset-matched peer set of small private foundations all clustered near $4.23M in total assets and all classified under the same "Philanthropy & Grantmaking" NTEE category — a group that tends to be closely-held, family-run, and largely invisible to public grantseekers (none of the five peers below has a listed website in this dataset).

What distinguishes Alehsan within this peer group is that it actually has an identifiable, if narrow, program focus (Islamic institutional support, refugee aid, and scholarships) and a public paper trail of specific grantees — most of its near-identical-asset peers disclose no website or programmatic identity at all in public data, making Alehsan comparatively more approachable despite its closed process. All six foundations are far below the scale (and administrative capacity) needed to run a formal application program, so grantseekers should expect the same relationship-first dynamic across this entire peer tier, not just at Alehsan.

The clearest recent-activity signal is administrative rather than programmatic: Alehsan's FY2024 Form 990-PF (year ended December 31, 2024) was received by the IRS on November 17, 2025, reporting total assets of $4,228,744, total revenue of $361,772, and $86,910 in charitable disbursements — consistent with, though slightly below, the $87K-$161K range of the prior four years. Within that filing, a $23,500 general-purpose grant to the Ibn Al-Haitham Endowment Fund in December 2024 stands out as the largest single disclosed grant in the most recent cycle.

On the funding-received side, 2025 brought the foundation $53,000 from Avicenna Academy and $2,000 from the Ibn Al-Haitham Endowment Fund — both organizations that also appear in Alehsan's own giving history, underscoring a small, mutually-reinforcing network of Islamic educational and charitable institutions rather than a foundation raising funds from the general public.

No leadership announcements, new program launches, or press coverage were found for 2025-2026; this foundation does not appear to issue press releases or maintain an active news presence. The one meaningful research finding worth flagging to grant seekers: the website commonly associated with the name "Alehsan Foundation" (alehsanfoundation.org) actually belongs to an unrelated Piscataway/New Brunswick, NJ volunteer charity (EIN 87-0957987, founded 2021) serving the homeless — not this Valparaiso, IN grantmaking foundation (EIN 35-2089667). Beyond the annual 990-PF cadence, the most recent substantive activity remains Troy Barron's exit from the board around 2021, leaving M Hytham Rifai as sole reported director.

There is no open application process to optimize for — treat this funder as relationship-driven, not proposal-driven. Public aggregators (GuideStar, Cause IQ) confirm Alehsan "makes contributions to preselected charitable organizations," and no LOI portal, deadline, or program officer is listed anywhere in its filings or on any verified web presence. Do not rely on alehsanfoundation.org — that domain belongs to a different, unrelated New Jersey nonprofit; sending an application there will reach the wrong organization entirely.

Because the foundation's own filings list "% Jay Zabel & Associates Ltd" as its administrative contact, any written inquiry should go through the foundation's registered address (199 Amhurst Pl, Valparaiso, IN 46385) or by phone at (219) 756-2900, and should be short, factual, and framed as a relationship request rather than a full proposal — this is not a grants department equipped to process narrative applications.

Alignment language matters more than polish here. The grantee list is dominated by Islamic educational institutions (Ibn Al-Haitham Endowment Fund, Ibn Sina National College, The World Islamic Sciences and Education University), refugee/humanitarian relief (Rahma Worldwide For Aid, at $125,000 the single largest tracked relationship), and scholarship support at mainstream universities (Benedictine, Life University, Loma Linda). Organizations working in these three lanes — and especially those able to demonstrate a connection to the existing grantee network — should lead with that alignment explicitly rather than a generic capacity-building pitch.

Calibrate the ask. The realistic grant range is $1,170-$25,000 for most relationships; the $62,500-per-grant Rahma Worldwide relationship appears to be a multi-year, deepened partnership rather than a typical first gift, so new relationships should not open with a six-figure request. Because annual giving has been trending down (from roughly $200K/year a decade ago to under $120K in FY2023) while assets have grown, total available grant dollars are limited and increasingly concentrated — a second or third ask, after a track record is established, is likely to be more productive than a large opening request. The most common mistake would be treating this like a foundation with a public RFP cycle: cold, unsolicited full proposals sent to a generic address are unlikely to be reviewed at all given the preselected-grantee model this funder operates under.