Brush Foundation

The Brush Foundation is a small, focused Cleveland-area private foundation (founded 1928 by inventor Charles F. Brush) with roughly $7.5-8.8 million in assets that funds exclusively sexual and reproductive health, rights, and justice work, and exclusively within Ohio. This is not a foundation to approach cold: its own website and grant-cycle page state plainly that grantmaking is "by invitation only," and DB records confirm the application process is opaque — no online form, a generic instruction to "contact the foundation for formal guidelines," and a listed deadline pattern of 6/30 and 12/31 that coexists with a distinct RFP-based cycle (April 3, 2026 deadline for the 2026-27 cycle) described on its site. Grant seekers should treat the relationship as identification-driven rather than application-driven: the Foundation identifies candidates through its own field scanning, board relationships, and coalition visibility, then invites a subset to apply. Of the 40 grants captured in Foundation records (averaging $23,719, totaling $948,778), 27 of 40 went to Ohio-based recipients, with the remainder to national intermediaries in DC, NY, MA, PA, and CA that channel funds back into Ohio-focused work (e.g., Third Sector New England as a fiscal sponsor). First-time applicants should know three things: (1) they must be a 501(c)(3) with primary programmatic goals in reproductive health/rights/justice — adjacent work like general prenatal care or HIV education does not qualify unless reproductive rights is the stated primary mission; (2) political campaign activity and lobbying are categorically excluded; (3) the Foundation explicitly prioritizes organizations led by Black, Indigenous, and People of Color, and values cross-movement/progressive coalition connections over siloed single-issue work. The realistic relationship progression is: build visibility in Ohio reproductive-justice networks → get identified or receive a direct email from program contact Rachel (rachel@brushfoundation.org) → invited proposal → board decision (board includes President Lourdes Rivera, VP Judith Wright, Secretary Abigail English, Treasurer Rev. Henry C. Doll, with KeyBank serving as corporate trustee). Multi-year repeat funding is common — Planned Parenthood affiliates, Preterm, and Ohio Voice all show 2-4 grants across the observed period, indicating the Foundation favors sustained relationships over one-off gifts once a group is inside the portfolio.

Across the 40 grants captured in Foundation transaction data, the average grant is $23,719 and total tracked giving is $948,778; the Foundation's own typical-grant-size disclosure (12 recent grants) shows a median of $27,500, average $25,531, with a floor of $100 and a ceiling of $50,000 — confirming this is a mid-five-figure funder, not a six-figure one, on a per-grant basis. The largest tracked relationships by cumulative dollars are New Voices Pittsburgh ($130,000 across 3 grants), Ohio Voice ($106,040 across 3 grants), Planned Parenthood Of [Greater Ohio/affiliates] ($105,000 across 4 grants), URGE/Unite for Reproductive & Gender Equity ($90,000 combined across two entries plus a separate $40,000 general-operating grant), and Preterm ($80,250 across 3 grants). The smallest grants recorded run as low as $100 (Center for Reproductive Rights) and $1,000 (Philanthropy Ohio), suggesting the Foundation also makes small solidarity/membership-dues-style gifts alongside its core program grants. General operating and "support exempt purpose" grants dominate the purpose codes — general operating support, not restricted project funding, is the norm, which is a meaningfully applicant-friendly pattern. Geographically, Ohio absorbs 27 of 40 recorded grants (67.5%), with the balance split among DC (2), NY (3), MA (3), PA (3), and CA (2) — almost entirely national reproductive-rights intermediaries and fiscal sponsors rather than diversified program areas. On the balance sheet, total assets have grown steadily from $5.78M (FY2013) to $7.49M (FY2024), while annual giving has been volatile and trending down from a $438,878 peak (FY2019) to $321,900 (FY2023) and only $248,875 in actual grants paid that year — a payout rate near 3.3% of assets, close to the 5% IRS minimum after accounting for administrative costs (officer/trustee compensation to KeyBank ran $23,104-$25,773/year in the most recent filings). Revenue is investment-income-driven (net investment income of $345,214 of $373,274 total revenue in FY2023) with zero external contributions in every year on record — this is a closed-corpus family foundation, not one that fundraises, so its giving capacity is tied to market performance rather than donor growth.

No peer foundations were returned in the structured data bundle for this profile, so this comparison draws on the grantee/geography pattern and general knowledge of the Ohio reproductive-rights funding landscape. Brush sits at the small end of the reproductive-rights funder spectrum — its $7.5M corpus and sub-$350K annual payout put it well below national players like Groundswell Fund, but its 98-year operating history, near-total Ohio geographic concentration, and general-operating-support norm make it an outsized relationship for the right Ohio-based grantee: a Brush grant is proportionally a much bigger share of a small Ohio nonprofit's budget than the same dollar amount would be from a diversified national funder. Its closed, invitation-only model is more restrictive than several Ohio peer funders that run open LOI cycles, so it functions more like an inner-circle sustaining funder than a growth-stage acquisition target for new organizations.

The Foundation's own "Recent Grantmaking" page reports $368,000 distributed to 16 grantees in 2025, a modest increase over the $321,900 total giving and $248,875 in grants paid reported in the FY2023 IRS filing (the most recent year with full financial detail in Foundation records; FY2024 shows $528,330 total revenue but grants-paid figures were not yet available at filing time). The 2025 grantee list — Abortion Forward, Abortion Fund of Ohio, Preterm, Collective Power for Reproductive Justice, New Voices for Reproductive Justice, Catholics for Choice, Faith Choice Ohio, Planned Parenthood regional affiliates, Ohio Progressive AAPI Women's Leadership, Ohio Voice, Ohio Women's Alliance, and the Reproductive Rights Law Initiative — confirms continuity with the Foundation's historic pattern of funding both direct abortion-care providers and advocacy/legal/movement infrastructure. For the 2026-2027 cycle, the Foundation has published a concrete timeline: RFP release in mid-February 2026, application deadline April 3, 2026, and award decisions expected in June 2026 — a meaningfully more transparent disclosure than in prior years, when the site gave no specific dates. No leadership transitions were identified in this search; the board listed in Foundation records shows Lourdes Rivera and Elizabeth Stites having both held the Board President title across different filing years, suggesting a presidency transition occurred at some point in the recent past, though the exact date was not confirmed by available sources. No large single grants, new program launches, or funding cuts were reported in the news search beyond the standard annual cycle communications.

Because Brush Foundation grantmaking is invitation-only, the single most important tactical step is direct outreach to program contact Rachel (rachel@brushfoundation.org, 929-464-4118) well before the stated RFP window opens — for the 2026-27 cycle, that means reaching out before the mid-February 2026 RFP release rather than waiting for an April 3, 2026 deadline to appear. Do not submit an unsolicited full proposal; instead, ask directly whether your organization is eligible to be considered for invitation, and offer a one-paragraph description of your mission, Ohio geographic footprint, and reproductive-health/rights/justice alignment. When you do get invited, frame your proposal around the Foundation's five explicit strategic priorities rather than generic reproductive-health language: (1) defending/expanding access to services, (2) shaping public opinion or policy, (3) BIPOC leadership within your organization, (4) connections to broader progressive/systems-change movements, and (5) willingness to be co-funded alongside allied funders — the Foundation explicitly favors collaborative funding arrangements. Request general operating support rather than a narrow restricted project grant; the transaction history shows the overwhelming majority of grants are coded "general operating" or "support exempt purpose," meaning the Foundation trusts grantee organizations to allocate funds rather than requiring detailed project budgets. A common mistake to avoid: proposing programs where reproductive rights is a secondary or incidental goal (e.g., general maternal health, HIV/AIDS education, or gender equity work without an explicit reproductive-rights core) — the Foundation's own guidance states these will not qualify unless reproductive health/rights/justice is the "primary goal and objective." Similarly, any activity resembling political campaign support or direct lobbying is categorically excluded under federal private-foundation rules and will disqualify a proposal outright. Given the small grant sizes (median $27,500, range $100-$50,000), position a Brush grant as one component of a diversified Ohio funding base rather than a primary revenue source, and consider that a first small grant (in the $1,000-$10,000 range, as seen with Philanthropy Ohio and Harm Reduction Coalition) may be a relationship-building entry point that can grow into the $25,000-$50,000 range seen with sustained grantees like Preterm and Planned Parenthood affiliates over 2-4 renewal cycles.