Bearden Foundation

The Bearden Foundation is a tiny, closely held family foundation run entirely by three unpaid directors — Dennis Bearden, Barry Bearden, and William Hall (also VP/Secretary/Treasurer) — out of Sugar Land, Texas. With only $5.47M in assets and roughly $150K-$200K in annual grants paid, this is not an institutional funder with program officers or a formal RFP process; it behaves more like a family giving vehicle with strong ties to specific universities and a handful of Texas/Arkansas causes. The dominant use case is undergraduate scholarships (paid directly to universities on behalf of named students), not general operating or program grants — of the top 50 grantees, the large majority carry the purpose tag SCHOLARSHIP, led by University of Arkansas ($79,475 across 5 grants), University of Houston ($77,000/5 grants), and Texas A&M ($53,478/5 grants). The secondary category is small annual DONATIONs to a fixed roster of causes — Camp For All ($45,000/5 grants), Razorback Foundation ($45,000/4 grants), The Nature Conservancy and World Wildlife Fund ($17,500 each/5 grants), and the Houston SPCA ($17,500/5 grants) — that read as loyalty gifts repeated every filing year rather than open competitions. First-time applicants with no prior relationship to the Bearden family, the University of Arkansas/Houston/Texas A&M network, or Fort Smith/Sugar Land, TX communities should treat this as a long-shot cold application. The foundation states it accepts unsolicited proposals and has a formal scholarship instruction packet (essay, financial summary, two non-relative recommendation letters, extracurricular list), which suggests individual students can apply directly, but the near-total repetition of the same ~40-50 institutional and individual names year over year across a decade of 990 filings indicates funding is overwhelmingly directed to renewing relationships, not discovering new ones.

Total grants across the visible grantee history: $747,513 over 149 grants, averaging $5,017 per grant. The foundation's own reported typical-grant-size data (from 31 recent disbursements) shows a median of $5,000, mean of $5,237, and a wide range from $50 to $15,200 — confirming this is a small-check funder, not a source of transformative program grants. Annual giving has held remarkably steady: $207,817 (2013), $194,690 (2014), $173,990 (2018), $178,694 (2019), $168,933 (2020), $203,754 (2021), and $179,503 (2022) — a roughly $170K-$210K band with no clear upward or downward trend across a decade. Total assets have grown modestly from $1.03M (2010) to $5.47M (2022), driven mainly by two lump-sum contributions ($2M in 2012, $2.005M in 2020) rather than organic asset appreciation; net investment income (the actual funding source for grants) runs $45K-$193K/year. Geographically, the state breakdown skews heavily Texas: 94 of 149 tracked grants (63%) went to Texas recipients, with Arkansas a distant second at 13 grants (9%), and single-digit counts spread across DC, MA, ME, MO, NE, NH, UT, and VA — mostly reflecting where named scholarship recipients attend out-of-state colleges (Bowdoin $28,500, Dartmouth $26,763). By purpose, scholarships to universities and individual students make up the clear majority of dollars (roughly 60-65% based on the top-50 list), with the remainder split between wildlife/conservation donations (Nature Conservancy, WWF, Texas Parks and Wildlife, Coastal Conservation Association) and local Texas community causes (Fort Smith Boys and Girls Club, Deepwater Elementary, volunteer fire departments in Rocksprings, Lamar, and Benjamin, TX).

All five NTEE-matched peers sit within roughly $2,000 of Bearden's $5.47M asset base — this is a deliberately curated comparison set of near-identically-sized small family foundations, none of which (including a pro sports team charity) publish itemized giving data or open applications in public sources. What differentiates Bearden Foundation within this tier is that it has an unusually transparent, if narrow, scholarship instruction packet and a documented June 30 annual deadline — most peers in this asset class give exclusively through founder/director networks with no discoverable process at all, making Bearden comparatively more accessible despite its small check size.

No foundation-specific news coverage, press releases, or leadership changes were found for the Bearden Foundation in 2025-2026 — this is expected for a three-person, unpaid-director family foundation with no communications staff or public-facing program office. The most recent verified financial data point is fiscal year 2022 ($179,503 total giving, $4.6M assets); a third-party 990 aggregator (Impala.digital) separately reports 2024 giving of approximately $119,400 across roughly 20-30 grantees, led again by University of Houston and Texas A&M, suggesting continuity of the same giving pattern into 2024 albeit at a somewhat lower total than the 2018-2022 average. Notably, the website address on file for this foundation, beardenfoundation.org, does not belong to this organization — it resolves to the unrelated Romare Bearden Foundation, a New York arts nonprofit honoring painter Romare Bearden, which is actively running 2025-2026 programming (a 35th-anniversary Conjur gala/mask auction through October 2025, and a Cinque Artists Talk series continuing into spring 2026). Applicants should not mistake that organization's news or programs for this foundation's activity; there is no evidence the Sugar Land, TX Bearden Foundation maintains any public website of its own.

Because this is a family-run scholarship fund rather than an institutional grantmaker, success depends far more on fit with existing patterns than on proposal polish. Practical guidance: (1) The IRS-listed deadline is June 30 of each year — plan for a rolling or annual-cycle review tied to the academic calendar, and submit well before that date since there is no indication of a formal notification timeline. (2) The foundation explicitly requires four items for scholarship applicants: a personal essay on reasons for and objectives of attending the specific institution, a summary of anticipated income and expenses for the scholarship year, two written recommendations from instructors who are not relatives, and a list of extracurricular/civic/volunteer/work experience — prepare all four before contacting the foundation, as informal inquiries without this packet are unlikely to get traction. (3) A minimum GPA is a stated restriction; students should self-screen against this before applying rather than assuming a borderline transcript will be considered. (4) Target schools matter: the foundation has repeatedly funded students/programs at University of Arkansas, University of Houston, Texas A&M, University of Nebraska, Missouri State, Texas State, Bowdoin College, and Dartmouth — an applicant attending one of these institutions, or from Fort Smith, AR or the greater Houston area, is applying into a demonstrated pattern rather than cold. (5) Do not confuse the DBA-adjacent domain beardenfoundation.org with this funder when researching — that site belongs to the Romare Bearden Foundation of NYC and using its language or references in an application would be an immediate red flag to reviewers. (6) For non-scholarship community/conservation requests, note the same handful of organizations (Camp For All, Nature Conservancy, WWF, Houston SPCA, local TX volunteer fire departments) recur every filing year at nearly identical amounts, implying these are standing annual commitments rather than open competitive slots — new organizations in this category should expect a multi-year relationship-building runway, not a single successful ask. (7) Contact is listed only as '% William W Hall' at the foundation's Sugar Land, TX (77498) address with phone (281) 568-4185 — there is no email on file, so a written letter or phone call is the only documented outreach channel.