Baer Foundation

The Baer Foundation is a small, unstaffed family foundation established in 1951 by E. John Brandeis in Omaha, Nebraska, and passed down to Alan & Marcia Baer and now to third- and fourth-generation family members Theodore (Ted) Baer, President; Kathy Baer, Vice President/Secretary; and Zac Baer, Board Member. There is no program staff, no online grants portal, and no multi-stage review process — this is genuinely a family operation, with Kathy Baer (compensated roughly $81,000-$83,000 annually across the last several years of filings) apparently handling most administration while Ted and Zac serve without compensation.

Important correction for applicants: several third-party databases and even some scraped summaries conflate this foundation with the unrelated Sidney R. Baer, Jr. Foundation of Clayton, Missouri, which funds schizophrenia and bipolar-disorder programs in New York, Boston, and St. Louis through a two-step Letter-of-Intent-to-full-application process. That process, mission, and program taxonomy do NOT apply to the Omaha Baer Foundation (EIN 47-6032560) profiled here — the two organizations simply share a name.

In practice, the Omaha Baer Foundation favors community-rooted, general-purpose giving: it supports academic, athletic, recreational, and social programs; medical, health, and human services; religious organizations; arts and culture; and civic projects. Its 90 tracked grants span everything from the University of Nebraska Foundation and Food Bank for the Heartland to parish churches, youth bowling associations, and dachshund rescue groups — a pattern consistent with a board that funds causes reflecting personal interests and long-standing community ties rather than a defined strategic program. First-time applicants should not expect a formal cultivation arc (LOI, site visit, multi-year pledge); a well-targeted, concise letter matched to the foundation's typical grant size and geographic focus is the realistic path to funding.

Grants paid (per Form 990-PF) have ranged from $135,000 (FY2020, a pandemic-year dip) to $255,255 (FY2014) over the last decade, with FY2023 at $178,950, FY2022 at $161,040, and FY2021 at $219,918. Web-sourced 2025 data (54 grants totaling $215,200) sits comfortably within this historical band, suggesting stable — not growing — annual output. Total assets, however, have declined roughly 44% over eleven years, from $4,950,559 (FY2013) to $2,748,334 (FY2024), with essentially no new outside contributions recorded in most years; the foundation is largely drawing down principal and investment gains rather than replenishing its corpus.

Across the tracked grantee list (90 grants, $339,990 total, average $3,778), the median award is $2,000 and the typical range runs $500 to roughly $10,000, with a small number of anchor gifts reaching $20,000-$47,400 (University of Nebraska Foundation, University of Nebraska Medical Center Foundation, Valley Hope Association Foundation). Every one of the top 50 grantees is coded 'GENERAL OPERATIONS' — there is no evidence of restricted program grants, capital campaigns, or multi-year commitments in the disclosed data.

Geographically, 83 of 90 grants (92%) go to Nebraska organizations, almost all in the Omaha metro area; the remaining handful scatter to California (2), Texas (2), Iowa (1), Illinois (1), and Kansas (1), likely reflecting personal or alumni ties of board members rather than a deliberate expansion strategy. By cause, the grantee list clusters into: health and human services (Food Bank for the Heartland, Valley Hope, Alzheimer's Association, Community Alliance, Youth Emergency Services); arts and culture (Durham Museum, Film Streams, Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Kaneko, Omaha Performing Arts); faith-based institutions (Christ the King Church, Kountze Memorial Lutheran Church, St. Wenceslaus); education (University of Nebraska Foundation and Medical Center Foundation, Marian High School, Madonna School); and a distinctive recreational niche — several bowling associations (Lincoln Bowling Association, Iowa Western Bowling Foundation, Nebraska Youth Bowling Partnership) — that points to a personal interest of a board member rather than a stated program area.

Because the DB record listed no matched peer set, this comparison uses publicly reported figures for other Omaha-area private foundations, spanning a wide size range to place Baer in context. Baer sits at the very small end of the Omaha philanthropic landscape — its $2.75M asset base and roughly $180,000-$215,000 in annual grants are a small fraction of the city's largest family foundations.

Baer's per-grant sizes (median $2,000) are one to two orders of magnitude smaller than Weitz's ($50K median) or Lozier's, and it operates with no visible staff, unlike the larger funders. Applicants should treat Baer as a modest, supplemental funding source — ideal for small general-operating asks from Nebraska nonprofits, not a lead funder for major initiatives the way Sherwood or Lozier can be.

The most current disclosed activity is the 2025 grants year: 54 awards totaling $215,200, aggregated from Form 990-PF data by third-party trackers (Instrumentl, CauseIQ). The largest identified 2025 award was $46,200 to the University of Nebraska Foundation, with $20,000 to Valley Hope Association Foundation — both notably larger than the foundation's typical $2,000-median grant, consistent with the pattern of a few large anchor gifts alongside many smaller community awards seen in the 2018-2023 filings.

No leadership changes surfaced in this research: the same three officers — Theodore Baer (President), Kathy Baer (Vice President/Secretary), and Zac Baer (Board Member) — appear across every filing year reviewed (2018 through the most recent disclosed data), with Kathy Baer's compensation holding steady in the $81,000-$87,000 range annually.

No press releases, program announcements, or news coverage of the Omaha Baer Foundation were found for 2025-2026, which is typical for a foundation of this size with no communications staff and a single-page website. The one piece of 'news' worth flagging to applicants is not about this foundation's activity at all, but a naming collision: multiple grant databases and AI-generated summaries have merged this foundation's profile with the unrelated Sidney R. Baer, Jr. Foundation (Clayton, Missouri), a mental-health-focused funder with a completely different mission, geography, and application process. Grant seekers should rely on baerfoundationomaha.com, not baerfoundation.com, for accurate guidance.

Start by discarding any guidance that references a Foundant online portal, a Letter-of-Intent window between November 1 and March 1, or a program focus on schizophrenia and bipolar disorder — those describe the separate, unrelated Sidney R. Baer, Jr. Foundation. The real Omaha Baer Foundation (baerfoundationomaha.com) uses a single-step process: submit a request by letter or email, addressed to the foundation at 9730 Ascot Drive, Omaha, NE 68114-3846, with no formal application form required.

Include, at minimum: your organization's legal name, a concise statement of purpose for the requested funds, your federal tax-exempt ID number, the specific dollar amount requested, and complete contact details (name, address, phone, email). Requests must be submitted no later than May 31 each year — there is only one annual deadline, not a two-stage cycle.

Because every one of the foundation's top 50 disclosed grants is coded 'general operations,' frame your request as general operating support rather than a restricted program or capital ask — this funder does not appear to fund capital campaigns or multi-year pledges based on available data. Calibrate your ask to reality: the median award is $2,000, and most grants fall between $500 and $10,000; only a few anchor institutions (e.g., University of Nebraska Foundation) receive $20,000-plus. Requesting far above this range without a strong pre-existing relationship is unlikely to succeed.

Geographic fit matters enormously — 92% of tracked grants go to Nebraska organizations, mostly in Omaha. Non-Nebraska organizations should not treat this as a realistic primary funding source. Within Nebraska, the grantee list suggests receptiveness to health and human-services agencies, arts and cultural institutions, faith-based organizations (particularly Catholic parishes and schools), and youth/recreational programs. Several grantees appear to receive support in consecutive years, so if funded, a polite, brief renewal letter the following spring is a reasonable next step — but do not assume automatic renewal. Given the lack of staff, keep correspondence professional, short, and specific; elaborate proposal packets, budgets, or outcome frameworks are unlikely to be necessary or reviewed in depth.