Bend Foundation

The Bend Foundation is a small, trustee-run legacy foundation created by Brooks Resources Corporation, Brooks-Scanlon Inc., and their shareholders — it has no paid program staff (officer compensation has been $0 in every filed year) and is governed by a rotating slate of roughly seven trustees, several bearing the Brooks family name (Conley Brooks Jr., Colin Brooks) alongside Kirk Schueler, who is also the CEO of Brooks Resources Corporation. That structure matters strategically: there is no program officer to cultivate over months, no LOI stage, and no site-visit ritual before a full application — it is a direct, twice-yearly online form reviewed by the trustees themselves. First-time applicants should treat this as a "friends and neighbors of Bend" foundation rather than a national or even statewide funder: all 64 tracked grants in its history went to Oregon organizations, and the overwhelming majority to Central Oregon institutions the trustees can see and visit in person (City of Bend, Bend Park and Recreation District, High Desert Museum, Central Oregon Community College). The foundation favors established, visible community institutions over emerging or unknown nonprofits — an aggregator estimate puts the funded rate for brand-new applicants at roughly 12%, and the top of its grantee list is dominated by repeat, multi-year relationships (High Desert Museum received 4 grants totaling $435,000; Bend Habitat for Humanity 4 grants totaling $290,000; the Environmental Center 4 grants totaling $166,000). Because the foundation's own name is tied to public art, projects that visibly credit the funder — plaques, signage, dedication events — align naturally with its stated preference for an "acknowledgment plan" in the application. Organizations without deep Bend roots or a physical presence in the community should not expect to break in on a first attempt; a warm introduction through a current grantee or trustee-adjacent institution (OSU-Cascades, COCC, St. Charles Foundation, the Environmental Center) is a more realistic path than a cold online submission. Given the foundation's modest and shrinking asset base (~$4.0M, down from $5.4M in 2019), it should be approached as a small, supplementary funder for a specific, well-scoped capital or program need — not as a lead funder for a large initiative.

Total giving has ranged widely year to year: $173,068 (2012), climbing to $426,404 (2019), dipping to $416,755 (2020), then rising sharply to $657,788 (2021), $896,540 (2022) — the historical peak — and settling at $868,111 (2023). Grants paid tracks closely: $742,230 (2023), $819,000 (2022), $581,500 (2021). Total assets have fallen from $5,424,120 (2019) to $3,986,199 (2023) and $4,047,422 (2024), and contributions received are negligible in most years ($0-$18,972) — this is a spend-down endowment funded almost entirely by investment income ($85,233-$545,012/year), not fresh donor gifts. Across 64 tracked historical grants totaling $2,747,730, the average award is $42,933, but the foundation's own published typical-grant-size data (n=25, current-era sample) shows a tighter and smaller working range: median $15,000, average $23,260, minimum $5,000, maximum $100,000 — meaning the historical average is skewed upward by a handful of large capital gifts rather than reflecting a typical ask. The single largest relationship on record is the City of Bend's Roundabout Art program at $546,000 across 2 grants — by far the biggest line item and a direct match to the foundation's founding public-art mission. Below that: High Desert Museum ($435,000/4 grants), OSU Foundation ($300,000/3 grants, almost certainly tied to the OSU-Cascades Bend campus), Bend Habitat for Humanity ($290,000/4 grants), Bend Park and Recreation ($273,000/2 grants), Art in Public Places ($169,000/2 grants), and the Environmental Center ($166,000/4 grants). Below the $150,000 tier, funding fans out across dozens of smaller human-services and civic grants in the $5,000-$60,000 range — Partners in Care ($150,000/3), Central Oregon Council on Aging ($60,000/4), Healing Reins ($40,000/2), St. Charles Foundation ($40,000/4), COCC Foundation ($38,000/4), and a long tail of $5,000-$20,000 one-time awards to organizations like Bethlehem Inn, Saving Grace, the Hunger Prevention Coalition, and Deschutes Land Trust. Geographically, 100% of the 64 tracked grants went to Oregon — there is no evidence of giving outside Central Oregon.

No foundation-specific news coverage, leadership changes, or new program announcements were found for the Bend Foundation in 2025 or 2026 — this is consistent with its profile as a small, no-staff, non-publicity-seeking trust rather than an active newsmaker. The most concrete and current fact available is procedural: as of this research (early September 2026), both of the foundation's application pages (/apply and /apply-to-the-bend-foundation) display "this form is no longer available," which lines up with the foundation being between its two 2026 windows (the summer cycle closed July 17, 2026; the next cycle would open around January 5, 2027). The trustee roster on file — Michael Hollern, Conley Brooks Jr., Romy Mortensen, Kirk Schueler, Colin Brooks, William Smith, and Rebecca Johnson — shows no compensation for any officer in any filed year, reinforcing that this remains an all-volunteer, family/corporate-affiliated board with no evidence of a recent leadership turnover. The last confirmed data refresh in the underlying record is July 25, 2026. Applicants should not expect a press-driven signal of the foundation's priorities; the two application windows themselves (Jan 5-Mar 5 and May 18-Jul 17) are the only reliable recurring "event" in its annual calendar, and there is no indication either window's dollar amount or focus area is shifting for 2027.

The Bend Foundation's process is unusually lean for a funder of any size: a three-step online form covering (1) organization details including your 501(c)(3) determination number and current operating budget, (2) contact information, and (3) request details — a project description, expected audience reach, and, notably, an acknowledgment plan describing how the foundation's support will be publicly credited. That last field is not boilerplate: given the foundation's origin in funding public art installations that literally bear donor recognition, proposals that build in a visible, low-cost acknowledgment (a plaque, a program credit, a dedication mention) speak the funder's native language more than proposals that treat recognition as an afterthought. Applicants should size their ask realistically: the foundation's own typical-grant data shows a median award of just $15,000 and an average of $23,260, with a ceiling around $100,000 reserved for its largest, longest-standing civic relationships (the City of Bend's public art program, at $546,000 across two grants, is the outlier, not the norm). A first-time organization requesting six figures is asking well above what the data supports. Do not request general operating support, funding for a conference or single event, scholarship money for individuals, or political-campaign-adjacent activity — the foundation explicitly excludes all of these. Instead, frame the request around a specific, time-bound project or capital need tied to one of the three pillars: public art, cultural/educational enrichment, or environmental preservation/enhancement. Timing matters because the online form itself disappears outside the two windows (January 5-March 5 and May 18-July 17) — submit at or near the opening of a window rather than waiting, since decisions land roughly seven weeks after each window closes (April 30 and August 31) and funds disburse about a month after that. Because there is no program staff, relationship-building runs through visibility in the Central Oregon nonprofit community rather than through cultivating a grants officer — prior or current grantees (High Desert Museum, the Environmental Center, COCC Foundation, Bend Habitat for Humanity) are useful reference points for co-applying institutions or board-level introductions. A common mistake to avoid: treating this as a national or even Oregon-wide funder — 100% of its tracked giving has gone to organizations physically rooted in Bend/Central Oregon, so an application without a clear local presence or benefit is unlikely to advance regardless of mission fit.