Brant Foundation

The Brant Foundation is a small, two-trustee family foundation (Gale Jean Picker and Jean Larsen, both uncompensated) with roughly $8.1M in assets, administered out of the New York accounting firm Perelson Weiner LLP rather than a dedicated office or program staff. There is no grants webpage, no published mission statement, no LOI form, and no application deadline in IRS or DB records — this is a trustee-directed giving vehicle, not an open-competition grantmaker, and grant seekers should calibrate expectations accordingly. The grantee list (100 grants totaling $2.84M in the data on file, averaging $28,373) is heavily relationship-driven: trustee Gale Picker's Seattle civic network and former Scripps College trusteeship visibly shape the portfolio, which spans civic engagement and voting rights (Common Power, Common Power Future, Women's Donor Network), environmental law (Earth Justice), reproductive rights (Planned Parenthood), racial justice (Black Progressive Action Coalition, Foot Soldiers Park), higher education (Scripps College, UC Berkeley Foundation), Jewish community life (Jewish Family Services, Temple Beth Am), immigrant and refugee services (Casa Latina, Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, Asian Counseling & Referral Service), and Seattle basic-needs organizations (Ballard Food Bank, White Center Food Bank, Rainier Valley Food Bank). First-time applicants should not expect a portal or a review cycle; instead, the realistic path in is a warm introduction through a shared board member, alumni network (Scripps College), or a peer organization already in the portfolio (e.g., Seattle Foundation, ACLU of Washington, Earth Justice). Organizations without any Seattle/Washington or Bay Area tie, or without a plausible connection to the trustees' documented causes, are poor fits regardless of program quality. Because the foundation has repeatedly made its largest gifts ($75,000-$253,000) as direct transfers of appreciated Berkshire Hathaway Class B stock rather than cash, nonprofits capable of accepting securities gifts — directly or via a fiscal sponsor — are better positioned to receive a foundation's largest tier of support if a relationship develops. Given the trustee-directed structure, cold outreach (mailed proposals, general inquiry emails) is unlikely to be read or acted on; relationship-building through the causes and institutions already in the portfolio is the only strategy supported by the evidence.

Giving is sharply bimodal. On one end, a handful of large stock-transfer gifts dominate total dollars: Earth Justice received $252,837 and $124,644 in separate Berkshire Hathaway Class B share grants; Ashoka Innovators for the Public, $252,837; Re-Evaluation Foundation, $252,837 and $249,305 ($502,142 combined); Common Power/Common Power Future, $251,760 + $50,000 + $44,250 ($346,010 combined); Scripps College, $246,744 + $134,000 ($380,744 combined); and Seattle Foundation, $79,527 + $15,000. On the other end, dozens of $5,000-$10,000 general-operating gifts go to smaller Seattle-area nonprofits — Ballard Food Bank, White Center Food Bank, Rainier Valley Food Bank, Casa Latina, Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, Braided Seeds, Rooted Rentry — each at $5,000. The DB's typical-grant-size field reflects this split precisely: median $5,000 against an average of $42,705, with a range of $150 to $1,000,000 across 32 tracked grants. Geographically, of the top 100 grants on file, 62 went to Washington State recipients, 17 to California, and single digits scattered across DC (6), New York (4), Louisiana (4), Virginia (2), Alabama (2), and one each to Iowa, Maine, and New Hampshire — a clear Seattle/Pacific Northwest center of gravity with a secondary California cluster (largely Scripps College and UC Berkeley). All 100 tracked grants are classified as GENERAL-purpose support rather than restricted program or capital grants, indicating the foundation prefers unrestricted gifts to organizations it already trusts. Total annual giving has ranged from $785,340 (2021) to $1,376,400 (2020) over the past five full fiscal years, most recently reported at $978,500 for FY2025 per ProPublica's read of the latest 990-PF — a gradual decline that tracks a slow drawdown in total assets, from $9.6M in 2015 to about $8.1M today. Net investment income (largely capital gains on the Berkshire Hathaway holdings) funds most annual revenue; the foundation received no new outside contributions in any year from 2019-2023 in the data on file, meaning its giving capacity depends entirely on portfolio performance rather than ongoing donor contributions.

Brant is the smallest and least formal of this peer set by a wide margin — closer to a personal giving vehicle than an institutional grantmaker — while Satterberg and Bullitt operate with program staff, published strategies, and (in Bullitt's case) a public sunset plan. What Brant shares with all three peers is the absence of an open, unsolicited-application process and a shared Washington State/Pacific Northwest gravitational center, which is the strongest signal for where a warm introduction is likely to land.

The most concrete recent data point is the foundation's FY2025 Form 990-PF, which shows $978,500 in charitable disbursements, down from $1,278,250 in FY2024 and $805,354 in FY2023 (ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer, filings through 2025). No dedicated news coverage, press releases, or public statements from this foundation were located in any 2025-2026 search — expected for a two-trustee, staff-less vehicle with no communications function. Trustee Gale Jean Picker remains publicly active in Seattle civic life during this period, including continued involvement with the National Women's Political Caucus of Washington and the University of Washington Continuum College Council of Advisers, both consistent with the foundation's ongoing pattern of funding civic-engagement and higher-education organizations. A notable research finding worth flagging explicitly: search results for "Brant Foundation" news are dominated by an unrelated organization, The Brant Foundation Art Study Center (Peter and Allison Brant's art museum, EIN 06-1470051), which announced a major Keith Haring exhibition opening March 11, 2026 at its East Village space, following 2025's Glenn Ligon show and earlier Basquiat (2019), Warhol (2023), and Kenny Scharf (2024) exhibitions. None of that activity involves or reflects on the grantmaking Brant Foundation covered in this report — grant seekers should disregard art-museum coverage when researching this funder. Absent foundation-specific news, the most reliable indicator of current activity remains the year-over-year 990-PF disbursement trend, which shows steady but gradually shrinking giving consistent with a mature, drawdown-phase family foundation.

There is no published application process, LOI form, deadline, or grants portal for this foundation — DB enrichment fields for application instructions, deadline, and form URL are all empty, and no grants page exists on any website tied to the foundation's EIN. Proceeding as if this were an open-competition funder (cold LOI, generic proposal, mass email) is very unlikely to work and risks being mistaken for the unrelated art museum at brantfoundation.org. The realistic strategy is relationship-first: identify a board member, staff leader, or alumnus who has a direct or one-degree connection to trustee Gale Jean Picker's known networks — Scripps College (she is a former trustee), the Seattle Foundation and Seattle civic-engagement circles, the National Women's Political Caucus of Washington, or UW Continuum College. Organizations already in the portfolio (Earth Justice, ACLU of Washington, Planned Parenthood, Common Power, Casa Latina, Ballard Food Bank and other WA food banks, Jewish Family Services, Temple Beth Am) are the best evidence of what resonates — civic/voting-rights work, reproductive rights, environmental legal advocacy, immigrant and refugee services, and Seattle basic-needs organizations all appear repeatedly across multiple years, suggesting durable, renewed relationships rather than one-time gifts. A common mistake would be treating the $1M single grants in the data as representative of a typical ask — the median tracked grant is $5,000, and the largest gifts are structured as direct transfers of appreciated Berkshire Hathaway Class B stock rather than cash, which only makes sense for an established relationship, not a first approach. Because all 100 tracked grants are general-purpose/unrestricted, proposals emphasizing core operating support rather than a narrowly scoped project or capital campaign are more consistent with this funder's demonstrated preference. Given the foundation is trustee-run with no staff, timing outreach around natural touchpoints — an event, introduction, or shared affiliation — will do more than any cold submission; there is no indication of a fiscal year-end giving push or a specific board meeting cadence in the public record, so no optimal calendar window can be identified with confidence.