Cape May Point Science Center

Cape May Point Science Center (now doing business as Cape May Point Arts and Science Center) is not, in practice, a grantmaking foundation that outside nonprofits should cold-apply to. It is an operating institution: founder Bob Mullock (President, also founder of the Harriet Tubman Museum) rescued the historic former-convent building at 101 Lehigh Ave from demolition in 2021, and the entity exists to run its own marine, ornithological, ecological, and now arts programming on that site. Its IRS ruling date is May 2021 and its asset base ($5.41M as of FY2024) is almost entirely one founding capital infusion, not accumulated grant-ready endowment income. The organization's own 990 grantee history shows only two external cash recipients across its entire existence — Nature Center of Cape May (3 gifts, $3,100) and the Borough of Cape May Point (2 gifts, $500) — both literal neighbors, averaging $720 per gift. There is no LOI-to-full-proposal-to-site-visit pipeline because there is no competitive grants program to progress through. First-time applicants should recalibrate: the two real doors into this funder's world are (1) the Convent Arts Fellowship, a fully-funded, fee-free writers' residency with a genuine published application (conventarts.org/apply), and (2) named project sponsorship, where a donor family (Pickus, Clemans, Carroll, Wilson) funds one specific, trackable research initiative — hawks, raptors, dolphins, horseshoe crabs — in partnership with an outside science organization (Cellular Tracking Technologies, Conservation Science Global, American Littoral Society, NJ Audubon) and receives public recognition (e.g., an 'Environmental Advocate Award'). Leadership (Dr. Marilyn Murphy, Executive Director; Sean Burcher, Director of Science; Melissa Laurino, Director of Marine Science; Lara Croushore, Director of Climate; Daniel Magariel, Director of Arts; Kathleen Shea, Development) is discipline-specific, so the right first contact depends on whether the pitch is scientific, artistic, or a small hyper-local community gift. Anyone approaching this organization should present a discrete, brandable initiative or a genuinely local ask — not a general operating grant request.

The numbers make clear this is an operating institution, not a grants clearinghouse. Total assets: $250,335 (FY2021, founding year) → $5,583,750 (FY2022) → $5,484,819 (FY2023) → $5,413,444 (FY2024) — essentially one step-change driven by $937,449 in contributions received in FY2022 alone (matching that year's entire revenue line), consistent with the founder's capital contribution around the building rescue. Actual grants paid to outside organizations (Form 990-PF Part XV) were $0 in FY2021, $500 in FY2022, and $2,600 in FY2023 — a cumulative $3,100-3,600 across three years depending on how the two lines are reconciled, spread across just 5 recorded grants to 2 recipients at an average of $720 each (range: $250 low-end gift to Borough of Cape May Point, up to roughly $1,550 for a Nature Center of Cape May gift). By contrast, the 990's 'total giving' line is dramatically larger — $310,764 (FY2022) and $428,395 (FY2023) — a gap of roughly 100-150x over tracked third-party grants, which strongly indicates that figure captures the Center's own charitable program spending (exhibits, symposia, monarch-tracking operations, staff-led research) rather than money given away to other 501(c)(3)s. 100% of tracked external grant dollars stayed in New Jersey, and both recipients sit within Cape May County, immediately adjacent to the Center's own campus — a hyper-local geographic pattern with zero out-of-state or even out-of-county disbursement on record. There is no disclosed typical grant size, no published grant ceiling, and no multi-year giving trend to project forward, because the organization has never operated a competitive grants program; its comparable dollar flows are inbound named-project sponsorships (Pickus, Clemans, Carroll, Wilson families), whose amounts are not publicly disclosed.

The five NTEE-matched peers share the IRS 'Arts & Culture' classification and sit within a narrow $5.28M-$5.47M asset band, but that shared code masks very different real missions, and none appear to run a publicized, cold-applicable grants program either.

At this ~$5.3-5.5M asset tier, 'foundation' status typically signals a closely-held vehicle for a single founder's institution-building or family giving rather than a competitive grants source — Cape May Point Science Center (built by Bob Mullock to house his own science/arts campus) fits that pattern exactly, as does the automotive-heritage and family-named peers. Grant seekers should not expect any of these six entities to run an open RFP process; outreach strategy should mirror what worked here — a specific, named, co-brandable project pitch rather than a general operating-support request.

The Center's most visible recent story is Project Monarch: solar-tag tracking of individual monarch butterflies developed with partner Cellular Tracking Technologies drew national coverage from the New York Times ('We Can Now Track Individual Monarch Butterflies. It's a Revelation,' Nov 17, 2025) and 60 Minutes in late 2025. That momentum continued into 2026 — a team was dispatched to follow tagged monarchs to overwintering sites in Mexico (announced Feb 12, 2026), tracked monarchs were confirmed crossing into Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas during spring migration (Mar 19, 2026), and the Cape May County Herald profiled the program again on Jul 30, 2026 ('Monarchs in the Spotlight at Science Center Confab'). On the convening side, 2025 saw the Center host its 2nd Annual Marine Science Symposium, an Inaugural Climate Summit, a Coastal States Meeting, and annual meetings of the Diamondback Terrapin and Oystercatcher Working Groups; the 3rd Annual Marine Science Symposium is scheduled for May 29-31, 2026, with a new Wildlife Conservation Film Festival planned for June 2026 and an America250 commemorative event in July 2026. On the arts side, the Center rebranded to 'Cape May Point Arts and Science Center' in 2024, launched the Convent Arts Fellowship (a fully-funded writers' residency directed by Columbia professor and author Daniel Magariel) that same year, and hosted a da Vinci Gala fundraiser with the East Lynne Theater Company in September 2024. Leadership has remained stable through this expansion — founder Bob Mullock as President and Dr. Marilyn Murphy as Executive Director — with the buildout of a five-person Directors-of-Mission-Programs team (Science, Climate, Arts, Marine Science) marking the organization's shift from a single-focus science venue toward a multidisciplinary campus.

There is no public grant application, LOI form, or RFP for this organization — the database's own application_instructions field is blank, and a full site visit (About, Projects, Who We Are, and a direct old-URL-to-new-URL redirect check) turned up no grants page. Treat this funder accordingly: (1) If you are an individual writer, the one genuinely open door is the Convent Arts Fellowship at conventarts.org/apply — free, form-only (no email submissions), a statement of purpose plus an English-language writing sample in your target genre, roughly 10 spots per year, and full attendance required for the residency week (a recent cycle ran June 22-29 with no deferment allowed); watch the Center's Facebook (@cmpartsandsciencecenter) for the annual application-window announcement, which has historically opened separately each year. (2) If you run a Cape May Point-area nature-preservation nonprofit or municipal program, note that the only two organizations ever to receive cash gifts here — Nature Center of Cape May and the Borough of Cape May Point — are both immediate physical neighbors of the Center; a specific, small, local ask (in the $250-$1,550 range seen historically) sent to info@cmpasc.org is far more realistic than a general operating-support request, and there is no indication this Center gives outside Cape May County at all. (3) If you are a researcher or partner institution, the credible path is proposing one discrete, trackable, brandable initiative modeled on the Center's existing sponsored studies (monarchs, red-tailed hawks, dolphins, horseshoe crabs) — each backed by a single named donor family and co-run with an established science partner (Cellular Tracking Technologies, Conservation Science Global, American Littoral Society, NJ Audubon). Route science pitches to Director of Science Sean Burcher or Director of Marine Science Melissa Laurino; route institutional partnership or major-gift conversations to President Bob Mullock or Executive Director Dr. Marilyn Murphy; route arts proposals to Director of Arts Daniel Magariel. Time outreach 3-4 months ahead of the Marine Science Symposium (late May) or the winter monarch-tagging season (Feb-Mar), when program calendars are actively being built. The single biggest mistake would be treating this like a conventional foundation LOI target: with only $3,600 in total tracked third-party cash grants across its entire 2021-2024 history against $5.4M in assets, this is an operating institution that occasionally makes token local gifts, not a grants pipeline.