Casa Family Foundation

Casa Family Foundation is a small, closed, family-directed private foundation, not a program-staffed grantmaker. It has no compensated officers — co-chairs Christopher and Hermila Cutler run it as volunteers — no published grants page, no LOI form, and the platform's own data flags it `preselected_only`, meaning it functions as an invitation/relationship funder rather than one that reviews open applications. First-time applicants should not expect a portal, RFP, or published deadline (application_deadline, application_form_url, and funding_cycle are all blank in its IRS record), and should instead plan for a direct, low-friction inquiry followed — if there's fit — by an informal conversation rather than a formal review committee process.

The grantee history shows the foundation favors three distinct channels: (1) Utah-based human-services and community organizations, especially in Davis County near its Centerville address (Bountiful Community Food, Fourth Street Clinic, Utah Food Bank, The Road Home, Edison Elementary School, Centerpoint Legacy Theatre); (2) LDS Church-affiliated giving (LDS Church Philanthropies and LDS Church directly account for roughly $397,000, its single largest cluster); and (3) a distinctive, recurring niche funding correspondence and distance-education programs for incarcerated students (California Coast University, Adams State University, Blackstone Career Institute, Center for Legal Studies). Organizations that fall outside these three lanes have comparatively little precedent in the data.

Relationship progression appears to be simple and durable rather than staged: most top grantees (Utah Food Bank, Fourth Street Clinic, Mentors International, California Coast University, Adams State University, American Indian Services, Eagle Condor Humanitarian, Guadalupe Schools) received the same or a similar grant in three or four consecutive years, suggesting the foundation renews relationships once established rather than running new organizations through a formal LOI-to-full-proposal-to-site-visit pipeline. The practical takeaway: getting in the door via a warm introduction from an existing grantee or shared community/church network matters more here than a polished cold proposal.

Across the 108 tracked grants in the foundation's history (totaling $1,446,281, average $13,391), the median single grant is $5,892 and the typical range runs $500 to $115,000, per the foundation's own typical_grant_size record (27 grants sampled, average $13,531). Only two grantees have ever crossed six figures in cumulative giving: LDS Church Philanthropies ($307,000 across 3 grants) and California Coast University ($244,746 across 4 grants) — both outliers relative to the sub-$15,000 norm most grantees receive.

By program area (based on the purpose tags across the top 50 grantees), religious giving to LDS Church entities accounts for roughly 27% of tracked dollars ($397,000), general human-services/"needy" giving roughly 26% ($383,000 — food banks, homeless clinics, Native American services, refugee and youth programs), correspondence/inmate education roughly 23% ($334,000 — California Coast University, Adams State University, Blackstone Career Institute, Prison Education Foundation, Center for Legal Studies, Stradford Career Institute), general education (non-inmate) roughly 15% ($213,000 — University of Utah, Mentors International, Ohio University, Davis Education Foundation), food assistance roughly 4% ($60,000, concentrated in one grantee), scholarships roughly 3% ($40,000, entirely the Zambia Scholarship Fund), and arts under 2% (two Centerville-area theatre grantees).

Geographically, Utah dominates with 71 of 108 grants (66%), followed by California (9), Colorado (8), Indiana (4), Pennsylvania (4), Illinois (3), Ohio (3), Oregon (3), Florida (2), and Vermont (1) — the non-Utah states are almost entirely explained by the inmate-correspondence-education grantees, which are headquartered outside Utah but serve a national population.

On total giving trend: annual grants_paid ranged $317,841-$384,982 from 2011-2023 (10 years of available filings), with total_giving (including admin) running $348,387-$459,673 in the same window and total assets holding steady between $5.4M and $6.2M — a stable, non-growing endowment paying out consistently rather than scaling. FY2024 figures reported by third-party 990 aggregators show $345,540 in grants across 23 awards, at the low end of the decade's range.

Casa Family Foundation sits among a cluster of similarly small, single-family private foundations with near-identical asset bases (~$5.5-5.6M) but almost no public program transparency — a pattern typical of foundations coded generically under NTEE "Philanthropy & Grantmaking" rather than a specific cause area. None of the five closest asset-matched peers in the platform's database have a listed website, funding focus, or application information, underscoring how atypical it is for a foundation this size to publish anything at all; Casa Family Foundation is unusual only in that its own real activity (traceable via 990 filings) shows a coherent, if narrow, giving pattern despite the blank public profile.

All six foundations cluster tightly around $5.5-5.6M in assets, which is coincidental to how this peer set was built (nearest-asset matching) rather than evidence of a common giving strategy. The meaningful differentiator is that Casa Family Foundation's grantmaking is reconstructable from IRS 990 grantee schedules even though it has no public-facing program materials, while the peer foundations show no discoverable grant history at all in this dataset — grant seekers targeting any of them, including Casa, should expect to work entirely through direct outreach and personal networks rather than public RFPs.

No foundation-specific news, press coverage, or public announcements were found for Casa Family Foundation (EIN 20-3909377, Centerville, UT) in 2025 or 2026 — web searches for its name returned only results about the unrelated national CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates) child-welfare network, which appears to be a naming collision rather than any connection. There is no evidence of a leadership change: Christopher Cutler and Hermila Cutler remain the foundation's uncompensated co-chairs in the most recent filings referenced by third-party 990 aggregators (Instrumentl, Cause IQ), consistent with the platform's own record.

The most recent verifiable activity is financial: FY2024 filings (as reported by Instrumentl) show $345,540 distributed across 23 grants on a $5.56M asset base, essentially flat with — and slightly below — the FY2021-2023 average of roughly $409,000/year. Total assets have been remarkably stable, moving only from $5.42M (2023) to $5.56M (2024) after a decade of gentle decline from $6.18M in 2011, driven by steady net investment income (averaging roughly $250,000/year over the past decade) largely offsetting payouts.

No new program announcements, RFPs, or opportunity listings were found; grants_page_url and application_form_url remain unset in the foundation's own record, and its GrantAdvisor profile has zero applicant reviews. Grant seekers should treat this as a quiet, steady-state family foundation rather than one undergoing any strategic shift — the safest assumption is that FY2025/2026 giving will continue in the same $320K-$420K band and the same three-lane focus (Utah human services, LDS giving, inmate correspondence education) documented over the past decade.

There is no formal application process to optimize for — application_instructions is blank in the foundation's own record, no LOI template or portal exists on any aggregator (Candid, Cause IQ, Instrumentl, GrantAdvisor, Zeffy), and the platform flags this funder `preselected_only`. Treat every interaction as relationship-building, not form-filling.

Best opening move: a short, direct letter or phone call to the foundation's registered address (115 W 2150 N, Centerville, UT 84014) or phone ((801) 268-8200) asking whether they are open to hearing about your organization, rather than sending an unsolicited full proposal — there is no evidence the foundation reviews cold packets. A warm introduction carries real weight here: because co-chairs Christopher and Hermila Cutler run the foundation without staff, a referral from an existing grantee (Fourth Street Clinic, Utah Food Bank, Bountiful Community Food, Mentors International, or an LDS Church Philanthropies contact) or from within the LDS community network is likely to open doors that a cold approach won't.

Match your ask to their norm: the median grant is $5,892 and most awards fall between $500 and $60,000 — asking for $250,000 with no prior relationship is a mismatch; the only grantees ever to clear six figures (LDS Church Philanthropies, California Coast University) did so cumulatively across three to four separate multi-year grants, not in one award.

Lead with alignment language specific to their three documented lanes: Utah/Davis-County community impact, LDS-affiliated mission, or — if applicable — distance/correspondence education access for incarcerated or otherwise non-traditional students. A proposal that doesn't fit one of these three areas has thin precedent in a decade of grant history.

Common mistakes to avoid: assuming casa.org is this foundation's website (it is not reachable and, per independent web results, appears to belong to the unrelated national CASA child-advocacy network — do not reference it in outreach); expecting a deadline or cycle (none is published, so ask directly about timing); and treating this as a one-time-project funder — the data strongly favors organizations positioning the request as an ongoing, renewable partnership, since most top grantees repeat for three to four consecutive years.