Bengier Foundation

The Bengier Foundation is a small, hands-on family foundation founded in 2004 by Gary and Cynthia Bengier, run entirely by a five-to-six-person family board (Gary as Chairman, Cynthia as President, Brooke Bengier as CFO, Blake Bengier as Secretary, plus David Lydon and Kelci RL Bengier as directors) with zero paid officer compensation reported in any filing year. That structure matters strategically: there is no program-officer layer to court, and the foundation itself says it will 'only fund new ideas if they are especially compelling when compared to our mission' — a signal that off-mission or generic education asks get filtered out fast. With only 27 tracked grants in the available grantee data and total tracked giving around $1.1 million, this is a low-volume, high-selectivity funder, not a high-throughput grants program. The grantee list skews heavily toward organizations the Bengiers have supported repeatedly — 11 of the 14 named grantees received exactly two grants apiece (The Exploratorium, Summer Search, Global Citizen Year, SF State, Santa Fe Institute, Global Glimpse, Mercy High Burlingame, Aim High, Smart Program, Bay Scholars, Genesys Works Bay Area, The Bay School of SF, Boys & Girls Clubs of SF), which points to a relationship-renewal pattern rather than a rotating cohort of new grantees each cycle. First-time applicants should expect the on-ramp to run through direct outreach — email or a warm introduction — rather than a competitive open RFP, even though the foundation's site does host a real application portal for at least one active program (the Opportunity Youth Education Grant). Organizations serving 'bright, hard-working young people with limited means and limited opportunities' in the Bay Area, with a track record and an ask in the $10,000-$200,000 typical range, are the closest fit. Groups outside education/youth-opportunity, or based outside California, face a materially steeper climb — the 27-grant dataset shows only 4 grants (Missouri and New Mexico combined) going outside the state.

Per the foundation's own typical-grant-size data (14 grants sampled), awards range from $10,000 to $200,000 with a median of $15,000 and an average of $34,286 — meaning the distribution is bottom-heavy: most checks are in the $10K-$30K range, with a small number of larger six-figure grants pulling the average up. The fuller 27-grant tracked history (total $1.1 million, average $40,741) shows The Exploratorium as the single largest relationship at $400,000 across two grants (implying $200,000 per grant, matching the typical-size max), followed by Summer Search ($165,000/2 grants), Global Citizen Year ($140,000/2 grants), San Francisco State University Corporation ($105,000/2 grants), and Santa Fe Institute ($90,000/2 grants) — the foundation's one confirmed out-of-state relationship, in NM. Geographically, 23 of 27 tracked grants (85%) went to California organizations, almost entirely Bay Area-based, with Missouri and New Mexico each receiving 2 grants. On the financial side, annual grants_paid has ranged from a low of $455,000 (FY2020) to a high of $1,015,000 (FY2012), with the most recent complete years showing $645,000 (FY2022) and $665,000 (FY2023) — a moderate step down from the foundation's 2012-2015 giving peak (consistently $833K-$1.06M/year) but broadly stable in the $450K-$750K band since 2019. Total assets sit at $7.85 million (FY2024), essentially flat over the past decade ($5.6M in 2013 to $7.85M in 2024), meaning the foundation is not scaling its corpus or its giving materially — applicants should expect roughly the same total grant pool (likely $600K-$750K/year) going forward, spread across a dozen or fewer grants.

These five peers were matched on asset size alone (all within $5,000 of Bengier's $7.85M) and share Bengier's generic IRS 'Philanthropy & Grantmaking' classification, but none publish a website or public program focus in the available data — a common pattern among small family foundations that operate below the transparency threshold larger funders maintain. Bengier stands out from this peer set precisely because it does maintain a public website, a named mission statement, and at least one live application portal, making it comparatively more approachable than same-size peers despite its still-modest, relationship-first grantmaking style.

The most concrete recent signal is a June 23, 2025 grant posting (via Urban Awareness USA's foundation-tracking service) for the foundation's 'Opportunity Youth Education Grant,' offering up to $51,000 on a rolling deadline for programs serving opportunity youth — young people who are educationally or economically disconnected. This is the clearest evidence of active, ongoing grantmaking activity into 2025. Separately, the foundation's own board page now lists six family members and associates — Gary Bengier (Chairman), Cynthia Bengier (President), Brooke Bengier (CFO), Blake Bengier (Secretary), David Lydon, and Kelci RL Bengier (Directors) — a roster that has evidently been refreshed since the last IRS filing on record (which listed Blake Bengier as Director and David Lydon as Secretary, without Kelci RL Bengier). No major leadership departures, new program launches, or public controversies turned up in available search results. The foundation's FY2024 Form 990 shows total assets of $7,845,799 and total revenue of $404,210, but grants-paid and total-giving figures for FY2024 were not yet available in the data reviewed — FY2023 remains the most recent year with complete giving data ($665,000 paid out, $748,416 in total giving). Given the foundation's consistently low public profile (no social media presence identified, no press office), the most actionable recent-activity signal for applicants remains the live 2025 grant posting rather than any broader strategic announcement.

There is no fixed annual deadline — IRS filings list 'NO SPECIFIC DEADLINE' and the foundation is marked as currently accepting applications, but this openness is deceptive: with a dozen or fewer grants awarded per year and a strong pattern of repeat funding to existing relationships (11 of 14 top grantees received multiple grants), unsolicited cold applications face long odds. The single highest-leverage move is securing a warm introduction — through a board member, an existing grantee (e.g., The Exploratorium, Summer Search, Global Citizen Year, Aim High, Genesys Works Bay Area, or Boys & Girls Clubs of San Francisco all have active, multi-year relationships with the foundation and may be willing to make a connection), or direct email contact framed around genuine mission alignment rather than a generic ask. When you do reach out, mirror the foundation's own language: they describe their purpose as helping 'bright, hard-working young people who have limited means and limited opportunities enlarge their expectations of what they can accomplish in life,' and their most recent public grant (the Opportunity Youth Education Grant, up to $51,000, posted June 2025) targets 'opportunity youth' specifically — proposals that explicitly address educational disengagement, dropout prevention, or post-secondary/career pathway access for underserved Bay Area teens and young adults will read as most on-mission. Keep the ask realistic: request in the $10,000-$50,000 range unless you have an existing multi-year relationship, since the $200,000-level grants (their observed ceiling) have gone only to one long-term partner (The Exploratorium). A common mistake is applying from outside California — 85% of tracked grants stayed in-state, and the two out-of-state exceptions (Missouri, New Mexico) both appear to reflect personal or historical board connections rather than open competition. Because there is no professional program staff, expect any response — positive or negative — to come directly from a family board member, and expect the review cycle to be informal and potentially slow; build in patience and avoid aggressive follow-up cadences.