C W Yount Foundation Inc.

C W Yount Foundation Inc. is a small, closely held family/legacy foundation based in Gering, Nebraska (EIN 47-0600603, ruled tax-exempt in June 1978) with no website, no published mission statement, and no formal grant program — `application_instructions` in IRS filings literally reads "none." It is run by a three-person board (Manager/Director James Emery, President Todd Ouderkirk, Secretary Thomas Holyoke) each drawing modest annual compensation ($5,000–$6,500, plus Emery's larger $37,000–$42,000 management fee), which points to a trust-style administration rather than a staffed program office. There is effectively no cold-application path: the grantee list is dominated by the same roughly 40-50 Scotts Bluff County, Nebraska organizations recurring year after year (many appear three or more times across the tracked period), so the realistic entry point is an existing local relationship — a board member, a church contact, or a direct phone call to (308) 641-3284 — rather than a written LOI-to-proposal pipeline. The foundation clearly favors organizations it already knows: Western Nebraska Community College and its foundation alone have pulled in over $125,000 across several award lines (bond retirement, capital improvements, scholarships), and Summit Christian College and Ozark Christian College — both small Bible colleges in Missouri — receive recurring five- and six-figure support despite being outside Nebraska, suggesting a personal or denominational tie for a board member or the Yount family. First-time applicants should not expect a site visit, formal reporting requirements, or a published deadline; the size and staffing simply don't support that infrastructure. Instead, plan for a brief, direct written or phone request that names a specific, modest use of funds (the foundation's own purpose lines read like short program tags — "Support Meals on Wheels Program," "Bond Retirement and Improvements," "Feeding Those in Need") and keep the ask proportional: the median award is $2,250 and 90%+ of grants fall under $15,000. Faith-based, youth-services, and Gering/Scottsbluff-based organizations have the clearest track record here.

Across the 169 grants tracked in the platform's grantee database, C W Yount gave $730,483 total, averaging $4,322 per grant — closely matching the foundation's own IRS-reported typical grant size for FY2025 (median $2,250, average $4,224, range $500–$25,000). Giving is heavily concentrated geographically: 163 of 169 tracked grants (96.4%) went to Nebraska recipients, with just 3 each to Missouri (Summit Christian College, Ozark Christian College) and North Carolina. By program area, education and scholarships form the largest bucket — Western Nebraska Community College and its foundation ($125,983 combined across bond, capital, and scholarship lines), Summit Christian College ($62,000), Ozark Christian College ($12,000), and Gering-area school foundations (Gering Schools Foundation $19,000; Gering High School Foundation $18,000) together account for roughly a third of tracked dollars. Human services and hunger relief form a second major cluster — 1113 Ministries ($23,500), Potter's Wheel Ministries ($23,000 combined), Cooperative Ministries ($13,000), Chuck Wagon Church ($13,000), Scottsbluff-Gering Soup Kitchens ($12,400), Elks Christmas Baskets, Salvation Army, and Meals on Wheels — roughly 15% of tracked giving. Health and residential care (Regional West Hospital Foundation $60,000; Northfield Haven Foundation $15,000) and community/civic capacity (Community Action Program Foundation $63,500 combined, Legacy of the Plains museum $15,000, volunteer fire departments, youth sports fields) round out the rest. At the whole-foundation level, total giving has risen every year on record: $210,132 (FY2020) → $218,647 (2021) → $228,109 (2022) → $234,368 (2023) → est. $243,155 (2024, per third-party aggregator) → $268,006 (FY2025), a 27.6% five-year increase, while grant count only grew from 51 to 58 (+13.7%) — meaning individual awards have been getting larger, not more numerous. Total assets have been essentially flat near $2.8–$3.1M for over a decade (2012: $2.94M; 2025: $3.03M), with the payout increase funded by net investment income that quadrupled from $59,517 (2020) to $242,263 (2025).

No peer set was available in the sourced data bundle, so the comparison below draws on foundations serving the same Scotts Bluff County / western Nebraska Panhandle region, identified via web research.

At roughly a quarter the asset size and giving level of Oregon Trail Community Foundation — the region's dominant, professionally run community funder with published cycles — Yount operates at the opposite end of the formality spectrum: no website, no cycle, no staff beyond a paid trust manager. It behaves less like a competitive grantmaker and more like a standing family gift fund that renews relationships with the same local institutions (notably WNCC, whose foundation also benefits from the much larger Western Nebraska Community College Foundation's own $810K in separate giving, underscoring how concentrated the local nonprofit-funder ecosystem is around a handful of Scotts Bluff County anchor institutions).

No news coverage, press releases, or public announcements referencing C W Yount Foundation Inc. by name turned up in web searches for 2025-2026 — searches for grants awarded, application guidance, and general news returned only nonprofit-database aggregator pages (Instrumentl, Cause IQ, Charity Navigator, Candid/Foundation Directory Online, Grantable, IntelliSpect) rather than journalism or foundation-issued announcements, consistent with a foundation that has no website or communications presence. The most recent verifiable activity is financial, from IRS Form 990-PF data reflected in third-party filings: total giving reached $268,006 in FY2025 (58 grants), up from $243,155 in FY2024 (57 grants) and $234,368 in FY2023 (57 grants) — a third consecutive year of increased payout. Leadership has been stable across the filings reviewed: Todd Ouderkirk (President/Director) and Thomas Holyoke (Secretary/Director) have held their roles across multiple filing years at flat $5,000-$6,500 compensation, while James Emery's title (Manager and Director) and rising compensation ($37,000 → $39,500 → $42,000 across the three most recent years captured) suggest he is the foundation's de facto administrator. No leadership transition, new program announcement, or governance change was identified. Given the total absence of a public communications channel, grant seekers should treat the IRS filing cadence itself — typically the most current available signal — as the best proxy for "recent activity" rather than expecting a news trail.

Because C W Yount Foundation publishes no website, application form, deadline, or grants page (`application_instructions` is recorded simply as "none" and no `opportunities_url` exists), the standard LOI-to-proposal playbook does not apply here — this is a relationship-driven, invitation-leaning fund, not a competitive open program. Practical approach: (1) Call first. The foundation's listed phone is (308) 641-3284 and its filings list the contact as "c/o James A Emery" — a brief, polite call asking how the foundation prefers to receive requests is more productive than mailing an unsolicited full proposal. (2) Anchor the ask in Scotts Bluff County. 96% of tracked grants stay in Nebraska, and the overwhelming majority cluster in Gering and Scottsbluff specifically — organizations outside this immediate service area (apart from the two out-of-state Bible colleges with an apparent standing tie) have essentially no track record here. (3) Size the request to precedent. Median grant is $2,250 and the FY2025 range tops out at $25,000; a first-time ask above roughly $10,000-$15,000 without a multi-year track record (like WNCC's bond/capital requests) is out of pattern. (4) Mirror their purpose-line language. Their own grant descriptions read as short, concrete program tags ("Support Meals on Wheels Program," "Fund Handicapped Residential Facility," "Prevent Underage Alcohol Use") rather than strategic-plan language — a one-page letter naming a specific, tangible use of funds will fit their style better than a narrative proposal. (5) Expect renewal, not a single grant. Many recipients (1113 Ministries, Cirrus House, Camp Rock, Boy Scouts, CASA, DOVES, Riverside Discovery Center) appear repeatedly across years for the same purpose, suggesting once accepted into the giving circle, organizations get considered again in future cycles — the real strategic goal for a new applicant is getting into that recurring set, not winning one large grant. (6) A faith-based, youth-services, or direct human-needs framing (hunger, disaster relief, disability services, domestic-violence support) fits their demonstrated pattern better than research, advocacy, or general operating asks at large organizations. (7) Do not confuse this foundation with the similarly named "Carl C. Yount Charitable Scholarship Trust" administered through Scholarship America — they are unrelated; verify EIN 47-0600603 before sending anything.