Baptist Gardens

Grant seekers should recalibrate expectations before pursuing Baptist Gardens: the IRS records it as a private foundation (foundation code 04, EIN 95-2657733), but its actual identity and cash flow are those of a healthcare operating nonprofit. Its stated mission, both on its own site and in its 990-PF program description, is to "operate DaVita dialysis centers serving seniors, where the majority of the clients are on Medicare," across four leased clinic locations in Ridgeland SC, St. Petersburg FL, Dublin GA, and Jonesboro GA — not to run a competitive grants program. Total reportable "giving" figures in its financials ($435K-$1.18M historically) are dominated by internal program-service spending on those clinics, not third-party grants; the actual cash grants paid out in the same years were $0 to $5,500 annually, a rounding error against $5.3M in total assets. The eight sampled grantee transactions total just $13,272, averaging $1,659 each, and every identifiable recipient is either a Baptist church (Liberty Baptist Church, $5,772 across two gifts), an international missions organization (Vincent International Ministries, $5,000), or a South Carolina conservation nonprofit (South Carolina Waterfowl Association, $2,500 combined across two listings that are likely the same organization with a data-entry variant). There is no evidence — on the website, in search results, or in the filings — of an open call for proposals, a letter-of-intent process, or a board grants committee reviewing unsolicited applications. Leadership (President Kent Dalton, VP John Mark Larson, Secretary David Larson, Treasurer Gary Crew, Director John Ivins) draws modest compensation ($36,000-$58,200 per officer per year) consistent with a small family/community-affiliated board rather than a professional grantmaking staff. Realistically, this looks like relationship-based, insider-directed giving to churches and causes personally connected to the board — not a funder that unaffiliated nonprofits should build a cultivation strategy around. Organizations without a pre-existing relationship to this board should treat Baptist Gardens as a very low-probability, low-dollar prospect and prioritize funders with a documented, public grants process instead.

Grants paid (the actual disbursed-grants line, distinct from total program expenses) has been erratic and small across all six years on file: $500 (2019), $3,386 (2020), $0 (2021), $500 (2022), $5,500 (2023), and not yet reported for 2024. There is no multi-year growth trend — the pattern is closer to occasional, discretionary gift-giving than a budgeted grants program. Against that, "total giving" as reported in the financials ($1.18M in 2019 down to $435K-$589K in 2020-2023) is two to three orders of magnitude larger than grants paid, confirming that figure captures the cost of running the DaVita dialysis operations (program expenses were $315,129 in the most recent program-level breakdown) rather than charitable grants to outside organizations. In the available grantee sample (8 transactions, $13,272 total, average $1,659, median roughly $1,250), gift sizes ranged from $500 (South Carolina Waterfowl Association, single gift) to $5,772 (Liberty Baptist Church, across two gifts) — a narrow band with no grant approaching five or six figures. Geographically, matched grantees cluster in the Southeast where the dialysis clinics operate: South Carolina (5 of 8, 62.5%), Georgia (2 of 8, 25%), and Florida (1 of 8, 12.5%) — notably not California, despite the Long Beach headquarters address. By purpose, all eight sampled grants are coded simply "GENERAL CONTRIBUTION" with no program-area breakdown available, which itself signals unrestricted, relationship-driven giving rather than a defined focus area like education, health equity, or arts funding. Total assets have declined steadily from $8.4M (2019) to $5.3M (2024), a roughly 37% contraction over five years, while total revenue has fluctuated between $221K and $702K depending on investment income and program receipts in a given year — officer compensation alone ($160K-$217K annually across all listed officers combined) has at times exceeded the entire grants-paid line by 30-400x. Grant seekers should not expect this funder's giving capacity to scale with its balance sheet; the grants line has stayed flat-to-negligible even as assets shrank.

No peer foundations were returned in the underlying database match for Baptist Gardens, so this comparison relies on foundations of a broadly similar type — small, faith-affiliated private foundations tied to an operating healthcare or housing business rather than open competitive grantmakers. None of these are confirmed formal "peers" in the same geography or field; they are included to give scale context only.

Baptist Gardens sits far below even a typical small faith-affiliated operating foundation on actual grant dollars deployed — its $0-$5,500 annual grants-paid range is roughly two orders of magnitude below what similarly asset-sized foundations typically distribute, because nearly all of its financial activity funds its own dialysis clinics rather than outside grantees. Unlike the community health conversion and community foundation comparators, it has no published guidelines, no online application, and no evidence of a formal review cycle, making it structurally closer to a family/board-directed giving vehicle than to any of the organized philanthropic peer types listed above.

No dated news coverage, press releases, or grant announcements specific to this organization (EIN 95-2657733, Long Beach CA) were found for 2025 or 2026 in web search results; the search results were dominated by unrelated organizations sharing the "Baptist Gardens" name, most prominently a National Church Residences-operated senior apartment community in Atlanta/Roswell, Georgia, which is a separate legal entity with no connection to this foundation. The most concrete recent-activity signal comes from the 990-PF program description itself: between the fiscal year captured in the current database record and the prior filing, Baptist Gardens' DaVita dialysis center footprint grew from three locations (Ridgeland SC, Dublin GA, Jonesboro GA) to four, adding a St. Petersburg, Florida clinic — indicating the organization is actively expanding its core healthcare-operating business rather than its grantmaking. Total assets have continued a multi-year decline, from $5,757,415 (FY2023) to $5,336,158 (FY2024), while total revenue rose year over year to $594,199 (FY2024) from $263,085 (FY2023). No leadership changes were identified; President Kent Dalton and the same small slate of officers (John Mark Larson, David Larson, Gary Crew, John Ivins) appear consistently across the filing years reviewed, with compensation levels essentially flat. Grant seekers should treat the absence of news coverage as itself informative: this is not an organization that publicizes grantmaking, issues press releases about funded projects, or maintains an active grants-related media presence.

There is no formal, publicly accessible application process for Baptist Gardens, and prospective applicants should not invest significant time preparing a formal LOI or proposal package expecting a competitive review. The website (baptistgardens.org) is a single informational page describing the organization's HUD-affiliated senior housing and dialysis-clinic operations; it contains no grants page, no guidelines, no deadlines, and no online form. The only public contact points are a general email (info@baptistgardens.org) and phone line ((562) 304-2816 / (562) 304-2817) at the Long Beach, CA headquarters. Given the pattern in the 990-PF data — eight sampled grants, all coded "GENERAL CONTRIBUTION," going to a Baptist church, an international missions organization, and a South Carolina conservation nonprofit, clustered in the Southeast states where the dialysis clinics physically operate — the realistic path to funding is a warm, personal relationship with a board member or officer (Kent Dalton, John Mark Larson, David Larson, Gary Crew, or John Ivins) rather than a cold proposal. Organizations local to Ridgeland SC, Dublin GA, Jonesboro GA, or St. Petersburg FL — especially Baptist congregations, faith-based missions groups, or conservation/community organizations already active in those communities — have the closest fit to the observed giving pattern and may have the best chance of a response to a brief, direct email introducing their work and asking whether Baptist Gardens is open to a small general-support gift. A common mistake would be treating this like a standard private foundation with published funding priorities: there are none on record, the "accepting applications" flag in aggregator databases should not be read as an invitation to submit an unsolicited formal proposal, and grant sizes have never exceeded roughly $5,800 to a single recipient in the years reviewed, so seekers with budget needs above a few thousand dollars should look elsewhere. If reaching out, keep any inquiry short, mention geographic and mission alignment with the dialysis-clinic communities specifically, and avoid grant-writing formality that this funder's actual giving pattern does not support.