Blue Heron Family Foundation

Blue Heron Family Foundation is a small, trustee-directed private trust based in Indianapolis, IN, ruled by the IRS in March 2020 and run entirely by two uncompensated trustees, Andrew Teed and Carmen Teed — there is no program staff, no board beyond the family, and no formal grantmaking apparatus. The foundation's own Form 990-PF filings state plainly that it contributes only to preselected charitable organizations, meaning it does not run an open RFP, LOI cycle, or online application. This is not a large institutional funder in practice, despite crossing $5 million in assets; it behaves like a personal family giving vehicle. Realistic access runs through relationships, not applications. Since inception, the foundation has made 26 grants worth $292,247 to roughly 17 unique organizations, and 21 of those 26 grants (81%) went to Indiana-based recipients, with the remainder in Tennessee (3), Illinois (1), and California (1). The recipient list reveals a clear personal pattern: Catholic faith and education institutions (Immaculate Heart of Mary Church, the Chatard Annual Fund at Bishop Chatard High School), child and family welfare organizations (Isaiah 117 House, Trinity Haven, Indianapolis Children's Museum), and Indianapolis-area community and civic groups (RecycleForce, Meridian Kessler Neighborhood Association, Community Foundation of Bloomington and Monroe County). First-time applicants with no existing tie to the Teed family or its known grantee network should treat this as a long-horizon cultivation target rather than a near-term application opportunity. The strongest entry points are warm introductions through shared board service, parish or school community ties, or partnership with an existing grantee — several recipients (Isaiah 117 House, Indianapolis Children's Museum, Chatard Annual Fund) show repeat, multi-year funding (3 separate grants each), indicating the foundation favors sustained relationships over one-time gifts once trust is established. All 26 recorded grants were coded as general/unrestricted support, so if a conversation does open, lead with a simple operating-support ask rather than a complex restricted program pitch.

Lifetime giving through the most recent detailed data totals $292,247 across 26 grants, averaging $11,240 per grant. The foundation's own most-recent-filing-year summary shows a tighter and more current picture: 10 grants, ranging from $500 to $60,500, with a median of $5,000 and an average of $10,730 — though third-party trackers (Cause IQ, Instrumentl) citing a slightly newer filing put the most recent year at 10 grants totaling about $188,000, averaging roughly $19,000 each, suggesting grant sizes are climbing as the endowment grows. Total annual giving has risen every year on record: $8,100 (FY2019, the foundation's first year, funded by a $1.77M founding contribution), $6,750 (FY2020), $90,798 (FY2021), $108,903 (FY2022), and $129,644 (FY2023). Grants actually paid out follow the same trajectory: $0 in 2019, $6,000 in 2020, $59,750 in 2021, $107,300 in 2022, and $125,197 in 2023. Assets have grown from $1,852,323 in 2019 to $3,963,753 by the end of FY2023, and the current record shows $5,064,180 — nearly tripling in five years, driven primarily by net investment income (for example, $1,283,819 in FY2023 alone) rather than large new contributions. Giving is highly concentrated: the top three recipients — Isaiah 117 House ($131,500 across 3 grants), Indianapolis Children's Museum ($45,000 across 3 grants), and the Chatard Annual Fund ($31,400 across 3 grants) — together account for $207,900, or 71% of all lifetime giving. The remaining 14 known recipients split the other 29% in much smaller gifts, several under $1,000 (the smallest recorded gift was $100 to St. Baldrick's Foundation). Geographically, giving is overwhelmingly Indiana-focused (21 of 26 grants), with a secondary Tennessee presence (3 grants, all tied to the Isaiah 117 House national organization) and single grants each in Illinois and California. Every recorded grant purpose is coded as general/unrestricted support — the foundation has made no program-specific or capital grants in the data reviewed.

Granted's peer-matching surfaced five foundations with near-identical asset totals to Blue Heron Family Foundation, all clustered within about $3,600 of one another around $5.06-5.07M and all classified under the same Philanthropy & Grantmaking NTEE category. None of the five have a public website, published giving total, or disclosed focus area on file — reinforcing that this asset tier ($5M) is populated by low-visibility, trustee-directed family trusts rather than staffed institutional funders.

Blue Heron Family Foundation is actually more transparent than its peer set by virtue of having a documented grant history (26 grants since 2020) in IRS filings, whereas the five peers show no discoverable grantee lists or web presence at all in this research. This suggests grant seekers should expect the same posture — relationship-based, unadvertised, trustee-controlled access — from any comparably sized ($5M) family trust, and that Blue Heron's willingness to fund small, local, personally-connected causes ($100-$500 gifts included) is not unusual for this tier.

No news articles, press releases, leadership changes, or program announcements for Blue Heron Family Foundation were found in web searches covering 2025-2026 — consistent with a two-person family trust with no communications function or public-facing presence. Trustees Andrew Teed and Carmen Teed appear as the sole, uncompensated trustees across every filing year reviewed, with no evidence of a change in leadership or governance structure. The website address on file in public records for this foundation, blueheron.org, was checked directly on 2026-09-02 and confirmed to belong to Blue Heron Renaissance Choir, an unrelated Cambridge, MA-based vocal ensemble — the foundation itself appears to have no dedicated public website, and search results are further complicated by at least one other, unrelated organization also named "Blue Heron Foundation" (EIN 41-2054373). The most recent financial activity confirmed directly from Granted's filing data is FY2023, showing $129,644 in total giving against $3,963,753 in assets. Granted's foundation record shows a more current asset figure of $5,064,180 as of its last verification (2026-08-15), implying a newer filing (likely FY2024) exists but was not broken out in the itemized grants list reviewed here. Third-party nonprofit data aggregators (Cause IQ, Instrumentl) independently report a more recent filing year with 10 grants totaling approximately $188,000 — a meaningful step up from the $125,197 paid in FY2023 — consistent with the multi-year pattern of steadily increasing annual giving as the trust's asset base has grown from under $2M in 2019-2020 to over $5M today.

Blue Heron Family Foundation's own 990-PF filings state directly that it makes contributions only to preselected organizations — there is no open application, LOI process, published deadline, or online portal to submit to, so a cold proposal is very unlikely to be read or answered. The only verified contact information tied to the EIN is the mailing address (4510 N Park Ave, Indianapolis, IN 46205) and phone number ((317) 726-1714); the website commonly associated with the name (blueheron.org) is confirmed to belong to an unrelated Massachusetts choir, so do not rely on it for guidance or an application form. Given the foundation is a two-trustee family vehicle, the most realistic path to funding is relationship-based: build a genuine connection within the Indianapolis civic and Catholic faith community that the Teed family is evidently engaged with — Immaculate Heart of Mary Church, the Bishop Chatard High School network (via the Chatard Annual Fund), or organizations like Indianapolis Children's Museum and Community Foundation of Bloomington and Monroe County that have already received multi-year support. A shared board member, parish connection, or introduction through an existing grantee is far more likely to succeed than a written proposal sent cold. If an introduction leads to a conversation, keep the ask modest and unrestricted: historical grants cluster from $100 to about $5,000 for a typical or first-time gift, with larger five-figure awards ($28,600-$60,500) reserved for organizations with an established, multi-year relationship (Isaiah 117 House, Indianapolis Children's Museum, and the Chatard Annual Fund each received three separate grants over time). Every recorded grant has been general operating support, not restricted program funding, so a simple unrestricted-use request mirrors what the foundation actually funds. The most common mistake would be treating this as an institutional funder because it holds over $5 million in assets — in reality it has no staff, no guidelines, and no formal review process, so time spent on a polished grant application packet is largely wasted without a prior relationship. When engaging, use language that speaks to direct, tangible impact for Indianapolis-area children, families, and faith or education institutions, since that is the clearest throughline across everything the trust has funded to date.