Beta Foundation

Important caution first: the website on file (beta.org) and mission text describing fraternity chapter grants belong to the Beta Theta Pi Foundation (Oxford, OH, EIN 80-0296934) — a different organization. The foundation this report is actually about, EIN 83-1731278, is a small private foundation registered in Lewes, DE in March 2019, with a single disclosed officer, trustee Eli Gottesdiener, who takes no compensation. CauseIQ finds no public website for it. This profile — one uncompensated family trustee, no staff, no published guidelines, and a 'preselected only' grantee pattern — marks it as relationship-driven family philanthropy, not an open-application funder.

The grantee history bears this out. Of $3,104,985 given across 73 recorded grants since 2019, three medical institutions — Texas Children's Hospital ($1,205,000 across 9 gifts), Cedars-Sinai Medical Center ($600,000 across 3 gifts), and Ichor Research Institute ($500,000 across 2 gifts) — account for roughly 74% of all-time giving. The remaining quarter is spread across 27+ smaller recipients, heavily concentrated in Brooklyn and New York civic, arts, and youth organizations (37 of 73 grants went to NY-based groups), plus a scattering of national causes (American Indian College Fund, NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Razom for Ukraine disaster relief) and one issue-advocacy grantee, the Pension Rights Center ($85,000 across 4 gifts), that aligns with the trustee's known background in ERISA and pension law.

First-time, unconnected applicants should treat this as a low-probability target: there is no LOI portal, no site-visit cycle, and no evidence of a competitive review process — grants appear to flow directly from personal or professional relationships with the trustee to the recipient. Organizations with a genuine link to the trustee's network (NY/Brooklyn civic life, Jewish communal institutions, pension/retirement-security policy, or pediatric/medical research) have the most realistic shot. Everyone else should budget significant relationship-building time before any ask, and keep expectations modest — most non-medical grants in the record run $500 to $50,000, not six figures.

Total recorded giving across the foundation's history: $3,104,985 over 73 grants, averaging $42,534 per grant — a figure skewed heavily upward by three outsized medical gifts. Excluding Texas Children's Hospital ($1,205,000), Cedars-Sinai Medical Center ($600,000), and Ichor Research Institute ($500,000), the remaining ~$799,985 spread across roughly 70 grants averages closer to $11,400, with individual gifts ranging from $500 (Brooklyn Technical High School) to $116,000 cumulative (Fractured Atlas, a fiscal-sponsorship nonprofit, across 6 gifts).

By geography, New York dominates: 37 of 73 grants (over half) went to NY-based organizations, followed by Texas (12, almost entirely the Texas Children's Hospital series), with Washington DC, California, and Colorado at 4 grants each, and Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Minnesota at 3 each — a footprint consistent with a trustee based in or connected to the New York/Brooklyn area making occasional out-of-state gifts to major medical institutions and national causes.

By purpose, medical support is the largest single category by dollar value (at least $2,315,000, or roughly 75% of total giving, once smaller medical gifts like Discovery to Cure Foundation and Memorial Sloan Kettering are included), followed by general support grants spread across dozens of civic and cultural organizations, educational support (American Indian College Fund, Beam Center, Brooklyn Music School), and smaller allocations to housing/shelter support (Banana Kelly Community Improvement, HomeStart) and disaster relief (Razom Inc, $50,000 for Ukraine).

Annual payout has been volatile rather than programmatic: $146,700 in 2019 (formation year), climbing to a peak of $1,478,182 in 2021, then $1,193,150 in 2022, dropping to $341,150 in 2023 (a year the foundation also received a $1,297,930 contribution, rebuilding the corpus), and an estimated $485,700 in 2024 per the most recent 990-PF. Total assets have held roughly steady near $7.1M since 2022 after declining from $8.5M in 2020, indicating the foundation is drawing down close to its investment income each year rather than aggressively spending its principal.

Peer foundations below were matched primarily on near-identical total assets (all within $6,000 of $7.1M) and shared NTEE classification (Philanthropy & Grantmaking), not necessarily on mission or grantmaking style — treat this as an asset-tier comparison rather than a strategic-fit comparison. None of the five peers has a public grants program on record, and annual giving figures were not available in this dataset for any of them; the IRS 5% minimum-distribution rule implies each should be paying out roughly $350,000-$360,000 per year against comparable asset bases, a useful benchmark against The Beta Foundation's own $341,150-$1,478,182 historical range.

All six organizations sit in the same asset tier ($7.10M-$7.11M) and share the generic 'Philanthropy & Grantmaking' NTEE code typical of single-family, single-trustee vehicles with no dedicated program staff. None publish grant guidelines online, reinforcing that relationship-based outreach — not cold applications — is the norm across this entire peer set, not unique to The Beta Foundation.

The foundation's most recently disclosed activity is its FY2024 Form 990-PF (filed December 1, 2024), reporting $472,935 in revenue, $487,470 in expenses, and $7,108,080 in net assets, with 21 grants made during the year. The three grants CauseIQ was able to identify from that filing — $150,000 to PEF Israel Endowment Funds, $133,000 to Oshman Family Jewish Community Center, and $60,000 to Hudson Institute — do not appear in this dataset's historical top-recipient list, indicating a meaningful shift toward Jewish communal and public-policy grantees in the most recent cycle.

The only other notable financial event in the record is FY2023, when the foundation received $1,297,930 in new contributions — its first and only large inbound gift since formation in March 2019 — while grants paid that year were comparatively modest at $341,150, suggesting the foundation was rebuilding its asset base after 2021's $1,473,000 payout year.

No mainstream press coverage, leadership changes, or program announcements were found for this foundation, which is consistent with its profile as a small, single-trustee, no-staff private foundation that does not maintain a public website or communications presence. Grant seekers should not expect to find foundation news through normal channels (press releases, social media, or a grants blog) and should instead track activity through annual Form 990-PF filings as they become available via ProPublica's Nonprofit Explorer or CauseIQ.

There is no published application process, portal, or guidelines for this foundation, and CauseIQ confirms it has no public website — this is a critical difference from what a search for 'beta.org' will surface (that domain belongs to the unrelated Beta Theta Pi Foundation). Do not submit fraternity-style scholarship or chapter-housing applications; they will not reach this foundation.

Given the sole-trustee, no-staff structure and the 'preselected only' grantmaking pattern evident in the 990-PF history, the highest-value strategy is relationship-based: identify any personal, professional, or institutional connection to trustee Eli Gottesdiener before reaching out. The grantee list suggests strongest affinity with (1) pediatric and medical research institutions (Texas Children's Hospital, Cedars-Sinai, Ichor Research Institute, Memorial Sloan Kettering), (2) Brooklyn/NY civic, arts, and youth-serving organizations (Prospect Park Alliance, Fractured Atlas, Beam Center, Brooklyn Music School), (3) pension and retirement-security policy work (Pension Rights Center), and (4) Jewish communal and Israel-focused organizations, which grew more prominent in the FY2024 filing (PEF Israel Endowment Funds, Oshman Family JCC).

If pursuing cold outreach anyway, keep it short: a letter identifying the organization, its charitable purpose, the specific amount requested, and the proposed use of funds is the only application format this dataset associates with the foundation — there is no evidence of a multi-stage LOI-to-full-proposal process, board deck, or site visit requirement. Avoid generic, mass-distributed proposals; the grantee mix strongly favors organizations the trustee already knows or has a direct stake in, so a proposal that doesn't establish a clear personal or thematic connection is unlikely to get traction. Common mistake to avoid: assuming this is the Beta Theta Pi fraternity's foundation and tailoring a pitch around chapter housing, Greek life leadership development, or member scholarships — that funder is a completely different organization with its own separate application channels.