Butz Foundation Inc.

Butz Foundation Inc. is a closely held, all-family operation with no program staff: its three officers — Theodore Butz (President/Treasurer), Catherine Butz (Secretary), and Thompson H Butz (Director) — draw $0 in compensation across every filing year in the record, the profile of a kitchen-table foundation rather than an institution with a grants department. Multiple third-party grant databases (Instrumentl, TheShareway) independently describe it as funding only preselected organizations and not accepting unsolicited requests, and its own website, butzfoundation.org, returned a 404 error during this research — there is no visible LOI form, portal, or published guidance to apply against.

The grantee data reveals a loyalty-based giving style rather than a competitive one: of the top 50 tracked recipients, most received the identical grant amount in three or four separate filing years — Canons Regular of the New Jerusalem ($101,000 across 4 grants), Holton Arms ($78,000/4), Ronald McDonald House ($57,120/4), Holy Cross Health Foundation ($45,000/4), and High Point University ($44,490/4) all show this renewal pattern. Once an organization enters the portfolio, it tends to be re-funded automatically rather than having to reapply.

The recipient list clusters around institutions with an evident personal tie to the family: independent schools (Holton Arms, St Thomas More Academy, Primary Day), Catholic/religious institutions, small regional hospital foundations (Holy Cross, Ronald McDonald House), and college alma maters (Franklin & Marshall, Colgate, University of Tampa, Ferrum College, High Point University) — a classic small-family-foundation pattern of funding causes the trustees are personally connected to, concentrated geographically in Maryland (46% of tracked grants), Charleston-area South Carolina, and the Chicago/Winnetka, Illinois corridor.

For an organization without an existing relationship to the Butz family, cold outreach is unlikely to succeed. The highest-odds path is identifying a genuine connection — shared board members, alumni ties to the schools above, or a presence in one of the three geographic clusters — and seeking a warm introduction or reference rather than submitting a written proposal into a void.

Butz Foundation Inc. paid $210,000 in grants in 2023 against $3,444,021 in total assets (a 6.1% payout) and $243,686 in total giving that year. Giving has been remarkably stable for over a decade: grants paid were $237,261 (2022), $212,588 (2021), $210,200 (2020), $210,193 (2019), $217,700 (2015), $209,200 (2014), $195,500 (2013), and $274,400 (2012) — never falling below roughly $195,000 since the foundation's 2012 ruling date, aside from a near-zero 2011 startup year. One third-party aggregator cites $216,190 in giving across 31 grantees for 2024, suggesting continuation at the same level.

The foundation receives no new contributions in any recorded year (contributions_received = $0 throughout) and runs entirely on investment returns from its roughly $3.4-3.8M endowment — revenue has swung from $65,529 (2022) to $411,273 (2021) purely on investment performance, while the payout itself stays smooth. Assets have drifted down modestly, from $3,783,991 (2021) to $3,444,021 (2023).

The database's own computed typical-grant-size metrics put the median grant at $5,000 and the average at $7,507, on a $1,000-$30,000 range (28-grant sample). The top-50 tracked-recipient list totals $897,310 across 123 grants, an average of $7,295 — consistent with the median/average figures above. Every single tracked grant purpose is coded "General," meaning this is exclusively an unrestricted, general-operating-support funder with no distinct program buckets to break spending down by.

Geographically, Maryland dominates with 57 of 123 tracked grants (46%), followed by South Carolina (14, 11%), Virginia (13, 11%), Illinois (10, 8%), West Virginia (8), DC (6), Wisconsin (4), North Carolina (4), Florida (2), and New York (2). Grant sizes show a long tail: a handful of relationships anchor $20,000-$30,000+ in cumulative annual giving (Canons Regular of the New Jerusalem, Holton Arms, Ronald McDonald House), while dozens of smaller, likely one-off gifts sit at $1,000-$2,000 (Alpha Phi Foundation, Zeta Tau Alpha Foundation, Leukemia & Lymphoma Society).

Butz Foundation Inc. sits in an asset band ($3.40M) essentially identical to its five closest database peers, all classified under the same "Philanthropy & Grantmaking" NTEE code used for closely held family grantmaking vehicles with no dedicated program staff:

None of the five peer foundations lists a website in the underlying data, whereas Butz Foundation Inc. at least maintains a registered domain (butzfoundation.org), even though it currently returns a 404 error. This is a peer set defined purely by asset size and IRS classification rather than by shared cause area — all six appear to be small, single-family grantmaking vehicles built around a personal endowment rather than active fundraising, distributing a similar mid-six-figure amount annually with no visible competitive application process. Grant seekers should not expect this cohort to behave like program-driven foundations; relationship access, not proposal quality, is almost certainly the deciding factor across all six.

No dated news specific to this foundation (EIN 45-1448807, Adamstown, MD) surfaced in this research. Web searches for "Butz Foundation" news instead surfaced coverage of a differently named, unrelated organization — the philanthropic arm of Alvin H. Butz, Inc., a Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania construction company, which committed $500,000 to Penn State Health's Hampden and Lancaster Medical Centers and supports Children's Miracle Network and Four Diamonds Mini-THON. That entity, along with the similarly named DaRin Butz Foundation and Lee and Dolly Butz Foundation Inc., is a separate charitable organization and should not be attributed to this Adamstown, MD foundation.

The most recent verifiable financial data point for Butz Foundation Inc. itself is its FY2023 Form 990-PF: $243,686 in total giving, $210,000 in grants paid, and $3,444,021 in total assets. One third-party aggregator additionally cites $216,190 in giving across 31 grantees for calendar 2024, consistent with continued stable operation. No leadership changes are evident — the same three Butz family officers (Theodore, Catherine, and Thompson H. Butz) appear across every filing year in the record.

The foundation's website, butzfoundation.org, returned an HTTP 404 error during this research (September 2026), which is itself a notable data point: grant seekers relying on that site for current guidance, contact details, or an application process will find it unreachable, and should instead confirm current status by mail at PO Box 149, Adamstown, MD 21710-0149 before assuming any previously circulated information is still accurate.

There is no public application process to follow here — application_instructions, application_deadline, and application_form_url are all blank in the foundation's own record, and independent grant databases (Instrumentl, TheShareway) confirm the foundation funds only preselected organizations and does not review unsolicited requests. The single most important "tip" is to not spend time drafting a cold LOI or searching for an online portal, because neither appears to exist.

Instead, treat this as a relationship-access problem. Map your organization's board, staff, and alumni networks against the three family trustees (Theodore Butz, Catherine Butz, Thompson H. Butz) and against the foundation's demonstrated grantee network: independent schools (Holton Arms, St Thomas More Academy, Primary Day), colleges (Franklin & Marshall, Colgate, University of Tampa, Ferrum College, High Point University), and the Maryland, Charleston-area South Carolina, and Chicago/Winnetka, Illinois geographic clusters where 78% of tracked grants land. A warm introduction through one of these channels is far more likely to matter than proposal quality.

If a connection does surface and you are invited to share information, calibrate the ask to what the foundation actually pays: a $5,000 median grant, $7,507 average, and a $1,000-$30,000 historical range — a first-time ask above $30,000 would be outside anything in the observed record. Frame the request as general operating support, since 100% of the foundation's tracked grant purposes are coded "General" rather than program-restricted.

The biggest mistake an applicant could make is mass-mailing this foundation alongside a list of other small private foundations, or assuming a formal review cycle exists — funding_cycle is blank in the underlying record, consistent with a family making decisions informally rather than on a published calendar. If a first grant is secured, plan for it to renew automatically for several years without a new application, based on the observed pattern of most top recipients receiving the same amount 3-4 years running; a brief, low-effort annual impact update is likely to matter more for retention than any resubmission.