B&M Impact Foundation Inc.

B&M Impact Foundation Inc. is a small, closely held family foundation founded by John Bamforth and Sue Mahony, both first-generation university graduates from working-class English families who turned their own path — reliable access to nutritious food and quality public education — into a giving mission: 'Fueling Generational Health & Wealth.' With $3.3M in assets and roughly $190K–$230K in annual giving, this is not an institution built for open competitive grantmaking; its own IRS filing states it 'only makes contributions to preselected charitable organizations.' There is no grants portal, no RFP, and no published application form (application_instructions is explicitly '__none__' in filings). The realistic path to funding is relational, not transactional: the foundation's 89 recorded grants split cleanly into two buckets — university scholarship support (IU, Purdue, UNC-Chapel Hill, Duke, MIT, Harvard, Notre Dame, and a long tail of other schools, almost always $5,000) and general-purpose gifts to a small, recurring circle of nonprofits (Chordoma Foundation, Wheeler Mission, Summer Stock Stage, Level the Playing Field, Impact Health). First-time applicants should not submit a cold formal proposal; instead, initiate a low-friction email to kelly@bmimpact.org (their listed contact) that clearly ties the organization's work to food security, health equity, or education access, and treats the outreach as relationship-building rather than a grant application. Because the founders personally fundraise for favored grantees (e.g., walking the Camino de Santiago for Bounty & Soul in Western NC), demonstrating founder-level personal connection or geographic proximity to Indianapolis, IN or Chapel Hill/Western NC materially improves odds. Recently added 'impact investing' language and a 2026 intern focused on 'food as medicine' ventures suggest the foundation may be exploring program-related investments alongside traditional grants — worth asking about directly if your organization has an earned-revenue or social-enterprise component.

Across 89 recorded grants totaling $805,750, the average grant is $9,053 and the typical (median) award is $5,000, with the foundation's own reported range running from $750 to $50,000 and a typical-grant median of $5,000 (per filing metadata: min $750, max $50,000, average $9,156, n=24 in the most recent year sampled). The single largest funding relationship is Chordoma Foundation, which received $150,000 across 3 grants (a rare-cancer research nonprofit, likely tied to a personal connection), followed by Unc Eshelman School Of Pharmacy Foundation at $105,000 across 3 grants (note: this recipient and a near-duplicate 'Choroma Foundation' $50,000 entry appear to be data-quality variants of the same two relationships). Below those outliers, giving drops sharply to a long tail of $5,000–$35,000 university and nonprofit gifts — Indiana University ($35,000/4 grants), Ball State ($32,500/3 grants), Wheeler Mission ($30,000/3 grants), Summer Stock Stage ($25,000/3 grants), University of Cincinnati ($20,000/3 grants). Geographically, giving concentrates in Indiana (46 of 89 grants) and North Carolina (20 of 89), consistent with the foundation's stated geographic focus of IN and NC, with smaller footholds in Alabama, California, Kansas, Massachusetts, Ohio, and Tennessee reflecting individual scholars' university choices rather than an institutional program. Total annual giving has trended upward over six years of filings: $148,416 (2019) → $188,175 (2020) → $198,567 (2021) → $231,259 (2022) → $207,250 (2023) → $190,000 (2025), while total assets grew from $2.43M (2019) to $3.32M (2025), driven largely by strong net investment income ($797,936 in 2025 alone). Program breakdown is roughly two-thirds education (university and scholar gifts) and one-third general/health-and-food-security nonprofits, though the foundation does not publish a formal percentage allocation.

B&M Impact Foundation sits in a very tight asset band ($3.32M–$3.32M) with all five peers, a cluster typical of small, single-family or single-donor private foundations filing 990-PFs under the same NTEE 'Philanthropy & Grantmaking' code rather than a direct-service classification. None of the peers have public websites on file, which makes B&M Impact something of an outlier — its functioning public website (bmimpact.org) and founder-driven storytelling (scholar profiles, the Camino fundraiser) give it noticeably more transparency and relationship-building surface area than most peers in this asset class, where outreach typically has to go in cold via a mailing address alone.

The most concrete recent signal is a May 2026 hire: Kelly Collins joined B&M Impact Foundation as an Impact Investing Intern, with her focus described as supporting ventures in 'food as medicine' aimed at combating preventable disease and expanding access to healthier food in local communities — the clearest evidence that the foundation is actively extending beyond pure grantmaking into impact-investing territory in 2026. Separately, co-founders John Bamforth and Sue Mahony personally fundraised in a Camino de Santiago trek (reported total near $60,590 toward a $75,000 goal) benefiting Bounty & Soul, a Western North Carolina food-security and farm-to-health nonprofit — illustrating how personal founder relationships, not formal proposals, drive some of the foundation's largest commitments. The foundation also publicly announced its 2026 scholars cohort via Instagram, continuing an established annual pattern of naming and celebrating new scholarship recipients across a rotating set of partner universities (Duke, Harvard, MIT, UNC-Chapel Hill, Indiana University, NC State, and others). No leadership changes, new formal programs, or public RFPs were identified. Given the foundation's small size and 'preselected only' funding model, its footprint in trade press and philanthropy media is minimal — most signal comes from its own website and social channels rather than third-party coverage, so grant seekers should treat the founders' direct outreach and social posts as the primary source of current priorities.

There is no formal application to submit — B&M Impact Foundation's own filings confirm it funds only preselected organizations, and its website (bmimpact.org) has no grants portal, RFP, deadline, or downloadable form. The single actionable channel is direct email outreach to kelly@bmimpact.org or the contact form at bmimpact.org/contact; treat this as an introduction, not an application. Lead with alignment to the foundation's two core pillars — food access/food-as-medicine and education pathways — and reference their stated mission of 'Fueling Generational Health & Wealth' in your own language rather than generic grant-speak. Keep the ask modest and specific: their median grant is $5,000 and the largest non-outlier gifts top out around $30,000–$35,000, so a request framed as a single scholarship, a program sponsorship, or a defined project (not general operating support at scale) matches their historical pattern. Geographic fit matters: the foundation's heaviest concentration is Indiana (46 of 89 grants, likely tied to its Indianapolis registration) and North Carolina (20 of 89, tied to the founders' Chapel Hill base and Western NC food-security work) — organizations based in or serving those states should say so explicitly and early. Because the founders (Bamforth and Mahony) personally champion causes they fund — evidenced by their own Camino fundraising trek for Bounty & Soul — a warm introduction or a story that a founder can personally connect to will outperform a polished but impersonal cover letter. The newly added 'impact investing' focus (a 2026 intern working on food-as-medicine ventures) suggests the foundation may now be receptive to program-related investment or earned-revenue models, not just traditional grants — worth raising if applicable to your organization. Common mistake to avoid: submitting a full grant proposal packet unsolicited: with no listed program officer beyond a single contact email and a volunteer-level board (compensation reported as $0 for both officers), a long unsolicited proposal is unlikely to be read in full — a brief, personal email is far more likely to get a reply. Best timing is not deadline-driven since none is published; instead, align outreach with their public activity calendar (e.g., before their annual scholars announcement, typically discussed in Q4/Q1, or around fall university semester starts).