Campisi Family Foundation Inc.

Campisi Family Foundation Inc. is a small, closely held family foundation (7 directors, all Campisi/Jayne/Harrison/Greenhow family members, each drawing a standardized $4,000-$4,900 annual director stipend) run out of a PO Box in Lakeland, FL. Every public tracker -- Instrumentl, Candid, CauseIQ -- agrees on one point: the foundation funds preselected organizations and does not solicit or evaluate unsolicited proposals (`preselected_only: true` in IRS enrichment data, and Instrumentl lists zero live grant opportunities). There is no independently verifiable foundation website; the domain most databases attach to it (campisi.org) is actually an unrelated photographer's portfolio, so no application portal, LOI form, or published guidelines exist anywhere online. This is a relationship-driven, not process-driven, funder.

The grantee list makes the real access points clear: Polk County, FL civic and healthcare institutions (Lakeland Regional Health Foundation, Florida Southern College, Give Well Community Foundation/Bonnet Springs Park), Catholic parishes, schools, and religious orders (Sisters of St. Francis of Assisi, St. Vincent De Paul Regional Seminary, Santa Fe Catholic High School, Resurrection Catholic School, EWTN, Knights of Columbus, Franciscan Mission Associates), and pro-life/pregnancy-resource organizations (Options for Women Pregnancy Clinic, A Woman's Choice). An organization with no Polk County presence and no Catholic/faith-based identity has essentially never appeared in this foundation's 76-grant, nine-year giving history.

For a first-time prospect, the realistic path is not a cold digital application but a warm introduction: through the Diocese of Orlando/Catholic parish network, through Florida Southern College or Lakeland Regional Health development staff (who clearly already have Campisi relationships), or through a mailed letter to Salvador V. Campisi Sr. at the PO Box referencing a specific, tangible local need. Multi-year, repeat funding is the norm once a relationship exists -- roughly two-thirds of the top 50 grantees received the same commitment across 2-3 consecutive filing years, indicating the foundation prefers renewing known relationships over funding new ones each cycle.

Across the 76 grants captured in the foundation's public grantee history, total disbursement is $2,037,433 with an average grant of $26,808; the IRS-derived typical-grant-size metric shows a median single grant of $8,750 (mean $20,493), ranging from $1,000 to $193,335. The two largest cumulative recipients dwarf the rest: Lakeland Regional Health Foundation received $690,003 across 3 grants (34% of tracked giving) for the Hollis Cancer Center, and Florida Southern College received $550,000 across 3 grants (27%) for the Jean & Sal Campisi Sr. Academic Center for Physical Therapy -- together these two capital/naming commitments account for 61% of all tracked dollars. Below that tier, grants drop sharply: Bonnet Springs Park ($122,930), All Saints Episcopal Church ($55,000), Dream Center of Lakeland ($50,000), and a cluster of $40,000 three-year commitments (Sisters of St. Francis of Assisi, Options for Women Pregnancy Clinic, Santa Fe Catholic High School, St. Vincent De Paul Regional Seminary, Franciscan Mission Associates). The smallest recorded grants are $3,000 (Boys Town, Food for the Poor).

Geographically, 54 of 76 grants (71%) went to Florida organizations, almost entirely concentrated in Polk County (Lakeland/Bartow/Mulberry). The remainder is scattered nationally: New York (6), Wisconsin (5), Alabama (3), Illinois (2), Nebraska (2), Tennessee (2), Colorado (1), Massachusetts (1) -- mostly national Catholic organizations (seminaries, missionary societies, EWTN) rather than local grassroots groups.

By program mix, giving spans four recurring themes: healthcare/medical (Lakeland Regional Health, Lakeland Volunteers in Medicine, St. Jude's, St. Joseph's Children's Hospital), Catholic faith institutions and vocations (parishes, seminaries, religious orders, EWTN, Knights of Columbus), education (Florida Southern College, Santa Fe Catholic HS, Resurrection Catholic School, Pace Center for Girls), and human services/homelessness (Talbot House Ministries, Lighthouse Ministries, Dream Center of Lakeland, Parker Street Ministries, New Life Warehouse). Total giving has been volatile year to year: $308,000 (2019) to $524,800 (2020) to $477,114 (2021) to $543,648 (2022) to a peak $1,072,997 (2023, driven by the capital gifts) to an estimated $828K-$852K in 2025 as those capital commitments wound down.

Campisi Family Foundation sits in a tight cluster of small, single-family, single-state private foundations with near-identical asset bases (roughly $6.8M) but very different giving styles -- most peers are quieter, more narrowly local, or entirely undocumented online, underscoring how atypical even modest public visibility is in this asset tier.

All five peers carry an NTEE 'Education' classification within $50K of Campisi's asset base, but Campisi is the only one in this set with an active, itemized public grantee history (76 grants, avg. $26,808) -- most peers disclose only IRS BMF-level data with no discoverable grants list or programmatic detail. Only Barrett Family Foundation Trust has a live website among the peer set, and even that appears to offer no public application portal, reinforcing that foundations at this asset scale operate almost entirely through personal/institutional relationships rather than competitive RFPs.

No dedicated press coverage, press releases, or news articles about Campisi Family Foundation Inc. were found in web searches covering 2025-2026 -- this is consistent with a foundation that has no active public communications function (no website, no social media, no listed contact email). The most current public signal is the fiscal year 2025 Form 990-PF, aggregated by ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer, Instrumentl, and CauseIQ, which shows total assets of $6,805,254 (down from $7,100,388 in 2023), total revenue of $749,145, total expenses of $870,549, and a net operating loss of roughly $121,404 for the year. Charitable distributions for FY2025 are reported as $827,900 (Instrumentl) to $852,400 (ProPublica, 97.9% of total expenses) across 26 grants -- down from 36 grants in FY2024 and well below the 2023 peak of $1,036,500 paid across what was likely a larger cohort of capital-campaign gifts.

The most recent notable named grants surfaced by third-party 990 aggregators include a $150,000 commitment to Grace City Church of Florida (homelessness/hunger outreach) and an expanded $250,000 cumulative commitment to Parker Street Ministries -- both larger than any figure appearing in the historical top-50 grantee data captured in this platform's own database, suggesting the foundation has increased its human-services/faith-based giving as its two marquee capital projects (the Hollis Cancer Center gift to Lakeland Regional Health and the Jean & Sal Campisi Sr. Academic Center for Physical Therapy at Florida Southern College) have wound down. Leadership has been stable throughout: Salvador V. Campisi Jr. (President), Salvador V. Campisi Sr. (Chairman), and Jean M. Campisi (Vice President) have held the same roles across every filing year reflected in the data.

There is no formal, published application process for this foundation -- `application_instructions` is explicitly blank in IRS enrichment data, `accepting_applications` reads true only in the technical sense that the foundation is legally able to receive requests, and the foundation is flagged `preselected_only`. Every third-party grant database (Instrumentl, Candid/Foundation Directory Online, CauseIQ) independently confirms the foundation funds only organizations it has already identified, and Instrumentl explicitly lists zero live/open grant opportunities. Treat this as an invitation-only funder and calibrate effort accordingly.

Practical guidance: (1) Do not rely on 'campisi.org' as the foundation's website -- it is an unrelated photography portfolio, not a live application portal; there is no online form to submit. (2) The only verifiable contact channel is a phone call to (863) 687-8000 or a mailed letter to PO Box 90037, Lakeland, FL 33804-0037, attention Salvador V. Campisi Sr. A concise, specific letter of introduction -- not a full proposal -- is the appropriate first move. (3) Build the case through institutional proximity: the foundation's grant history is dominated by Polk County, FL institutions (Lakeland Regional Health, Florida Southern College, Bonnet Springs Park) and Catholic Church-affiliated organizations (parishes, Catholic schools, seminaries, pro-life pregnancy centers, EWTN). Organizations with a credible Polk County footprint or a Catholic/faith-based identity have a materially better fit than generalist national nonprofits. (4) Reference tangible, named projects rather than general operating appeals when possible -- the foundation's two largest gifts (Hollis Cancer Center, the Campisi Sr. Academic Center for Physical Therapy) were both capital/naming commitments tied to a specific facility bearing or benefiting family recognition. (5) Expect multi-year renewal, not one-time grants -- most tracked grantees received identical or near-identical amounts across 2-3 consecutive years, so a first grant, if secured, is a foothold toward a repeat relationship rather than a single transaction. (6) Common mistake to avoid: submitting an unsolicited full proposal or grant application packet cold -- with no open cycle and no portal, this will not be reviewed; a short relationship-building letter or a warm referral through an existing grantee (e.g., the Diocese, Florida Southern College's development office, or Lakeland Regional Health Foundation) is the only documented path in.