Bowen Foundation

The Bowen Foundation (EIN 26-3871656), also filed as the Charles and Cassandra Bowen Charitable Foundation, is a small, president-run family foundation based at 7300 N Country Club Dr in Oklahoma City. Cassandra C. Bowen serves as President (uncompensated), with Charles K. Bowen listed as the c/o contact — there is no program staff, no published mission statement, and the IRS record lists application_instructions as none, no application form URL, no deadline, and no funding cycle. Critically, the domain often associated with 'Bowen Foundation' (bowenfoundation.org) belongs to an unrelated Maryland autism-services nonprofit; this Oklahoma foundation has no discoverable public website or RFP process. That absence, combined with a preselected_only grantee model in available data, strongly signals a closed, relationship-based funder rather than one soliciting unknown applicants.

The grantee list bears this out: of 345 tracked grants totaling $5.35M, one organization — Rebuilding Together OKC — accounts for $1.41M (26% of all tracked dollars) across 5 grants, and the top three recipients (Rebuilding Together OKC, Wings Special Needs Community, University of Oklahoma Foundation) together account for 46% of giving. Most named grantees receive support in repeating multi-year patterns (grant_count of 2-5 per organization is the norm across the top 50), indicating the Bowens fund the same trusted partners annually rather than churning through a competitive cycle.

For first-time applicants, the realistic path is not a cold LOI — there is nowhere to submit one. Instead, organizations should pursue introduction through the Oklahoma City Community Foundation network (the Bowens are listed OCCF donors), through board or personal connections to Charles or Cassandra Bowen, or through affiliation with an existing grantee (many of the top recipients are OKC-based human-services, veterans, faith, and disability-focused nonprofits, suggesting the Bowens' personal networks run through those communities). Given the foundation's heavy Oklahoma concentration (84% of grants by count), out-of-state organizations without an existing Oklahoma tie face a materially harder path in.

Financial data spans FY2011-FY2023 in the tracked filings, supplemented by FY2024-FY2025 aggregation from Instrumentl. Assets have declined steadily from $10.67M (FY2019, following a one-time $7.6M contribution) to $7.63M (FY2023) and roughly $7.5M currently — consistent with a foundation spending down without significant new inflows (contributions_received was $0 in most recent years). Grants paid have ranged from a low of $322,134 (FY2011) to a high of $1,515,715 (FY2022), with FY2023 at $747,828 and web-sourced FY2024/FY2025 figures of roughly $817,000 and $872,000 respectively — the last three years cluster in a tighter $750K-$870K band after the FY2022 spike.

Across the full 345-grant historical record, total disbursed to named grantees is $5,348,531 at an average of $15,503 per grant — but that average is heavily skewed by a handful of large, repeat six-figure commitments. The foundation's own typical_grant_size record (likely reflecting a single recent filing year, 76 grants) shows a very different shape: minimum $40, maximum $196,000, median just $2,500, and average $10,617 — indicating the foundation makes many small check-sized gifts (under $5,000) alongside occasional large signature grants. Rebuilding Together OKC ($1,407,900 / 5 grants, avg. $281,580 each) and Wings Special Needs Community ($580,000 / 3 grants, avg. $193,333) sit far above that median, meaning most other grantees receive far smaller, more typical support (Hearts for Hearing $142,500 over 5 grants averages $28,500; Golf Fore Africa $122,880 over 5 grants averages $24,576; many others fall in the $2,000-$20,000 range per gift).

Geographically, Oklahoma dominates: 290 of 345 grants (84%) go to OK-based organizations, with Texas (12, 3.5%) and Arizona (11, 3.2%) a distant second and third, and single-digit counts scattered across IL, MO, NC, NY, TN, NE, and CT. By purpose, essentially all tracked grants are coded simply 'CHARITABLE' with no further programmatic breakdown available, but recipient names skew toward home repair/community development (Rebuilding Together OKC), disability/special-needs services (Wings, Hearts for Hearing), higher education (OU Foundation), veterans (Dale K Graham Veterans Foundation, Folds of Honor), faith-based and food-security organizations (Ringling United Methodist Church, Ringling Food Bank, City Rescue Mission), and youth/education nonprofits (Teen Recovery Solutions, Saving Our Youth OKC, charter schools).

All five peer foundations sit within a remarkably tight asset band ($7.499M-$7.504M) alongside Bowen's $7.50M, suggesting they are grouped by asset-size proximity rather than programmatic similarity — none has public annual-giving or application-process data in this dataset, and only Deloache Family Foundation has a listed website. What differentiates Bowen from this peer set is transparency-by-necessity: its grant history is fully reconstructable from 990-PF filings (345 grants across 15 years), giving applicants an unusually clear map of its real funding behavior even though the foundation itself publishes nothing. Organizations evaluating this peer group should treat Bowen as the most 'legible' of the six despite having no public-facing presence — the IRS record substitutes for the missing website.

No leadership changes, press coverage, or public announcements were found for the Bowen Foundation in 2025-2026 searches — consistent with its profile as a low-visibility family foundation with no communications function. Cassandra C. Bowen continues to be listed as President (uncompensated) in the most recent available records, with Charles K. Bowen as the family contact of record at the foundation's Oklahoma City address.

The most concrete recent signal is financial: aggregated 990 data (via Instrumentl) shows FY2024 charitable disbursements of roughly $817,000 across 54 grants and FY2025 disbursements of roughly $872,000, both down from the FY2022 high of $1.52M across 66 grants. Total revenue has also been volatile — $327,993 (FY2023) versus $738,018 (FY2024) and $891,238 (FY2025) per web-aggregated figures — driven primarily by fluctuating net investment income rather than new contributions, since the foundation has received essentially no new outside contributions in most recent years.

The clearest ongoing relationship signal is the foundation's continued, multi-year support of Rebuilding Together OKC, which has received 5 separate grants totaling $1.4M and remains by far its largest and steadiest commitment — any organization tracking this funder's behavior should treat that relationship as the foundation's flagship, long-running partnership rather than a one-time gift.

There is no formal application process to describe — no LOI portal, no grant guidelines PDF, no listed deadline, and no online form (application_instructions is recorded simply as 'none' in IRS-sourced data, and no independent foundation website exists). Practically, this means: (1) Do not attempt to submit through bowenfoundation.org — that domain belongs to a different, Maryland-based autism-services foundation and any application sent there will never reach the Oklahoma City Bowens. (2) The most realistic entry point is a warm introduction — through the Oklahoma City Community Foundation (where Charles and Cassandra Bowen are listed donors), through a board member or volunteer connection to one of the foundation's existing grantees (Rebuilding Together OKC, Wings Special Needs Community, Hearts for Hearing, and similar OKC human-services nonprofits are useful reference points for the kind of organization that gets funded), or through direct outreach by phone to the foundation's listed number, (405) 848-8370.

(3) Match the funder's demonstrated pattern rather than pitching a novel program: the Bowens fund home repair/community development, disability and special-needs services, higher education, veterans' causes, and faith-based/food-security organizations, almost always in Oklahoma (84% of grants by count), with occasional support extending to Texas and Arizona. An out-of-state organization with no Oklahoma tie should not expect to break in cold.

(4) Expect small first gifts that can grow into recurring support — the median tracked grant is just $2,500, and the vast majority of relationships repeat 2-5 times across years at modest dollar amounts, rather than starting with a large single award. Only a handful of deeply trusted, long-tenured partners (led by Rebuilding Together OKC) receive six-figure annual commitments.

(5) A common mistake would be treating this as a competitive, cycle-based grantmaker — there is no evidence of an RFP, review committee, or announced funding cycle. Since Cassandra Bowen is both President and, functionally, the sole decision-maker with no compensated staff, proposals should be short, personal, and relationship-first rather than formatted for a large institutional review process.