Camp Grace Inc.

Camp Grace Inc. (EIN 27-2102742, Mobile, AL) is best understood not as a check-writing grantmaker but as an operating foundation that runs its own 455-acre camp facility and donates the use of it, largely for free, to a small, hand-picked roster of partner organizations. Across every fiscal year on record (2011-2023), cash grants to outside nonprofits have been negligible — as low as $0 and never above $36,769 in a single year — while the foundation has simultaneously reported $1.0M-$1.3M in annual 'total giving,' almost all of which is direct program expense for 'MAINTAIN CAMP' (990 program description) rather than pass-through grants. Its most recent public filing (tax year 2024) shows just one grant, totaling roughly $1,500, against $1,061,307 in direct charitable/camp-operating expenses. For a grant seeker, this means the realistic ask is almost never 'please fund my program' — it's 'please host my camper population at your facility at no cost,' which is the model used by known partners like Camp Rap-A-Hope (pediatric cancer) and Camp SMILE (disabilities, ages 5-50). First-time applicants should know: (1) there is no formal LOI or online grant portal; (2) the foundation is run entirely by three uncompensated volunteer officers — W Davis Pilot Jr (President), John C Bell (Secretary), Sandra Blount (Treasurer) — meaning decisions are made informally by a small, stable leadership team, not staff program officers; (3) the single documented grantee relationship in the data (Young Life, Iowa, two grants totaling $3,600, avg. $1,800, unrestricted) suggests occasional small unrestricted gifts to affiliated Christian youth organizations happen alongside the facility-hosting model, but these are minor relative to total spend. Organizations serving children or adults with medical conditions, disabilities, or serious illness who need overnight-camp infrastructure are the strongest fit; general operating-support requests from unrelated program areas are unlikely to be competitive.

Camp Grace's own numbers make its funding pattern unusual among Human Services private foundations: cash grants paid to third parties were $1,800 in FY2023, $1,800 in FY2022, $0 in FY2021, $0 in FY2020, $14,300 in FY2019, and ranged from $2,610 to $36,769 in the 2011-2015 filings — a median of roughly $2,000-$3,500 in most years, with no year exceeding $37,000 in outbound grants. Compare that to 'total giving' reported on the same filings — $1,271,655 (FY2023), $1,163,887 (FY2022), $1,038,692 (FY2021), $1,041,080 (FY2020) — and the gap (well over $1M/year) is direct program spending on operating the camp itself, categorized on the 990 as 'MAINTAIN CAMP' ($808,209 in program expenses in the most recent detailed filing, rising to $1,061,307 per the FY2024 filing). Total assets have held steady in the $4.4M-$6.4M range for over a decade (from $3.28M in 2011 to a peak of $6.42M in 2019, sitting at $5.78M-$5.81M in 2022-2023), funded by contributions that fluctuate significantly year to year ($509,193 in 2020 up to $2,450,514 in 2012), pointing to episodic large gifts rather than a steady annual campaign. The only recipient captured in the platform's grantee data is Young Life (Iowa), receiving two unrestricted grants totaling $3,600 (avg. $1,800 each) — 100% of the tracked grant dollars and 100% of the tracked grant count went to a single national Christian youth organization's Iowa chapter, geographically distant from the foundation's Mobile, AL base, reinforcing that outbound cash grants are incidental to the foundation's core work of directly operating and donating use of its own camp.

Camp Grace sits among a peer set of similarly-sized Human Services foundations (all roughly $5.75M-$5.83M in assets), but its operating model — running a physical facility rather than issuing checks — sets it apart from more conventional peer grantmakers.

All six foundations cluster tightly around $5.75M-$5.83M in assets, making Camp Grace's balance sheet unremarkable within this peer group. What differentiates it is structural: while small family and corporate foundations of this size typically distribute 5%+ of assets as grants to a range of outside nonprofits, Camp Grace redirects nearly all of its ~$1.27M in annual giving into operating its own facility, leaving a negligible pool (well under 1% of assets) available for the kind of cash grant a typical applicant would seek.

Public information on Camp Grace's very recent activity is thin — there is no dedicated press coverage, and the organization does not appear to issue announcements about grant cycles or funding priorities. The most concrete recent signal is administrative: the FY2024 Form 990 (filed and published around June 2025) shows the foundation's spending pattern held steady, with $1,061,307 in direct 'maintain camp' program expenses against just one outbound grant of roughly $1,500 — consistent with over a decade of filings. The only public-facing news item found was a consumer-protection notice posted to the Camp Grace Facebook page around October 2025, warning followers that a third party was fraudulently selling unauthorized 'Camp Grace' t-shirts and that the sales were not affiliated with or benefiting the organization. Leadership has been stable: W Davis Pilot Jr (President), John C Bell (Secretary), and Sandra Blount (Treasurer) all appear across multiple years of filings with zero reported officer compensation, indicating no recent leadership turnover. Because Camp Grace's core activity is running physical camp sessions for partner organizations (e.g., Camp Rap-A-Hope for pediatric cancer patients, Camp SMILE for people with disabilities ages 5-50) rather than announcing new grant programs, grant seekers should not expect a public RFP, annual report, or news cycle the way they might from a traditional foundation — the operational cadence is the camp calendar itself (summer sessions plus retreat hosting the rest of the year), not a grants calendar.

There is no online grant application, LOI form, or portal for Camp Grace Inc. — confirmed both by the absence of any application infrastructure on its actual website (campgrace.com) and by its Form 990, which lists no formal grant program. The realistic path in is a direct, low-key introduction: contact Melissa Whatley, the organization's on-site coordinator (251-635-0935, Melissa@CampGrace.com), rather than searching for a grants department or portal. Because Camp Grace explicitly states it is 'not a rental facility,' proposals framed as 'we'd like to rent your camp' will be a mismatch — the pitch that fits its actual model is a partnership request to host a specific, clearly defined camper population (children or adults with a medical condition, disability, or serious illness) for a week-long overnight session, in the same vein as existing partners Camp Rap-A-Hope and Camp SMILE. Given that outbound cash grants have never exceeded roughly $37,000 in any year on record and were as low as $0-$1,800 in five of the last seven filed years, organizations seeking a cash grant rather than in-kind camp access should calibrate expectations accordingly and consider Camp Grace a long-shot for a check, but a strong prospect for donated facility use if their mission aligns. The one confirmed cash-grant relationship in the data — two unrestricted gifts totaling $3,600 to Young Life's Iowa chapter — suggests small, unsolicited unrestricted gifts to aligned Christian youth ministries do happen periodically, likely through personal relationships of the all-volunteer board (Pilot, Bell, Blount) rather than a competitive process. Common mistakes to avoid: treating this like a conventional foundation with a deadline-driven cycle (none exists), leading with a budget/rental request instead of a partnership framing, and confusing this Mobile, AL organization (EIN 27-2102742, campgrace.com) with the similarly-named but unaffiliated Camp Grace ministries in Roberta, GA (thecampgrace.com) or Wyoming (campgrace.org) — sending a proposal to the wrong entity is a real risk given how the web search results overlap. Best approach: a short, warm phone or email introduction describing the specific population served and asking about hosting availability, not a formal grant proposal.