Catskill Recreation Center Inc.

The single most important fact for any grant seeker researching Catskill Recreation Center Inc. (CRC) is this: despite carrying an IRS private-foundation classification (foundation code 04, ruling date July 2006) and appearing in foundation databases under the Human Services / Recreation & Sports (NTEE N50) category, CRC does not operate an external grants program. It is, in practice, an operating charity — a 501(c)(3) that built and runs a $5 million, 6-lane swimming pool and fitness facility in Arkville, NY, opened June 7, 2014 by founder Kingdon Gould Jr. Nearly all of its annual charitable spending ($680K-$1.03M in recent years) funds its own aquatics, fitness, and recreational programming for the surrounding Catskills/Delaware County community, not grants to other nonprofits. Public 990-PF data shows exactly $0 in grants paid to outside organizations in every fiscal year from 2014 through 2023, with only a single $1,000 grant (to Life Mark Project, 2013) and a $60,000 distribution in 2012 appearing at all in the historical grant ledger — both predating the facility's opening and plausibly tied to construction-era commitments rather than an ongoing program. CRC's own "Support Us" page confirms the funding flow runs the other direction: it solicits memberships, donations (via Zeffy), and volunteers, and explicitly states it "relies on grants and donations" to operate. CRC is itself a documented grantee of the A. Lindsay & Olive B. O'Connor Foundation ($16,000 for its "Fitness for All" access program and a separate $5,000 for geothermal system maintenance), the Hudson Valley Foundation for Youth Health ($12,000), and the Armand G Erpf Fund ($5,000, reported January 2026). For a grant-seeking organization, the actionable takeaway is to redirect research toward those three funders — they have demonstrated, current interest in exactly the program area (rural aquatics/fitness access, facility sustainability) that a similarly positioned nonprofit would pitch — rather than pursuing CRC, which has no application process, no staff grants function, and no track record of funding outside groups. First-time researchers should treat CRC's appearance in a foundation-prospecting database as a data artifact of its tax classification, not a funding lead.

CRC's own financials should not be read as a grantmaking budget — they are the operating budget of a community recreation facility. Total assets have declined steadily from a peak of $6,050,942 (FY2014, the year the facility opened) to $4,579,654 (FY2023) and $4,192,567 as of the most recent record, reflecting a foundation drawing down its endowment to subsidize facility operations rather than growing a grants corpus. Annual "total giving" (more accurately, qualifying distributions under private-foundation rules, spent almost entirely on direct charitable activity — running the pool and fitness center) has ranged from $505,301 (FY2014) to $1,025,040 (FY2015), and stood at $836,081 in FY2023, $737,660 in FY2022, $699,979 in FY2021, $679,940 in FY2020, and $887,123 in FY2019. Contributions received (donations/membership support flowing in) have been rising — $676,667 in FY2023 vs. $274,607 in FY2021 and $303,414 in FY2020 — while total revenue has grown from $459,983 (FY2020) to $787,708 (FY2023), suggesting increased reliance on donor and membership support as the endowment shrinks. Critically, "grants_paid" (money distributed to outside organizations) is recorded as $0 in FY2023, FY2022, FY2021, FY2020, FY2019, FY2015, and FY2014 — seven consecutive filed years with zero external grantmaking. The only nonzero grants-paid years in the available record are FY2013 ($1,000, to Life Mark Project) and FY2012 ($60,000, pre-facility-opening). There is no program-area or geographic breakdown to analyze because there is no active outside-grants program to break down. Officer compensation was $63,600 in FY2023 (up from $0 recorded in FY2022, FY2021, and FY2020 in this dataset, though Cause IQ shows an Executive Director salary of $72,800 as of the FY2025 filing) — consistent with a staffed operating facility, not a philanthropic grantmaking office.

The dataset's automated peer set groups CRC with other Human Services-classified private foundations in the same $4.0M-$4.6M asset band. That comparison is useful for asset-scale context but misleading on function: CRC is the only one of the group confirmed (via its own 990-PF filings and website) to be a self-operating recreation facility rather than a third-party grantmaker.

Giving-level data for the five peer foundations was not available in the provided dataset or surfaced in web research within this pass, so no direct dollar-for-dollar giving comparison can be made responsibly; a grant seeker would need to run each peer's own 990-PF or website individually. The one confirmed fact that differentiates CRC from a typical peer at this asset level is structural, not financial: CRC channels its distributions into operating a physical facility for its own community rather than issuing third-party grants, so it should be dropped from any prospect list built from this peer group.

The most consequential recent development is a leadership transition: Executive Director Simon Orr, who had led CRC since May 2023, stepped down in March 2026 according to a newsletter from the board of directors (reported by The Reporter, a Catskills-region outlet, in a piece titled "New Leadership, Expanded Access: Catskill Recreation Center Charts a Course for the Future"). CRC's board is currently led by President Izaak Schwaiger, Vice President Anya Pollara, Treasurer Stephen Wilder, and Secretary Pat Gonzalez, with additional directors including Bill Berg, Melissa Gould, Ivan Herrera, Justine Hoffman, Megan Moore, David Rainbird, Oliver Tallman, and Lewis Wendell — a materially different lineup from older IRS filings in the data bundle (which show David Rainbird as President and George Suess as Vice President), confirming board turnover has been ongoing. On the funding side, CRC was reported to have received a $5,000 grant from the Armand G Erpf Fund around January 2026, alongside its most recent Form 990-PF (fiscal year 2024) filed in October 2025. No new outside grants program, RFP, or funding-priority announcement was found in any source checked — consistent with the decade-long pattern of CRC not operating one. Program-side, the facility's last publicly documented physical expansions were a volleyball court (2018) and a pedestrian trail (2020); no 2025-2026 capital announcements surfaced in this research pass. Grant seekers should treat CRC's public presence as quiet on the funding front and active on the operations/leadership front.

There is no grant application process to optimize here, and any tips framed as if there were would be fabricated. CRC's own "Support Us" and FAQ pages describe only inbound channels — membership, one-time or recurring donations via Zeffy, volunteering, and newsletter sign-up — with no grants portal, LOI process, or RFP language anywhere on the site, and Grantable's automated profile of CRC's 990-PF data explicitly notes "No grants recorded" for the most recent filed year. The single line in CRC's own IRS filing that resembles "application" guidance ("No particular form necessary. Information regarding applicant's functions.") is 990-PF boilerplate private foundations must include even when they run no active grants program, and should not be read as an invitation to apply. If your organization is nonetheless interested in a relationship with CRC, the realistic, non-grant paths are: (1) propose a facility-use or co-programming partnership (e.g., a joint aquatics-access or youth-fitness program CRC could operate on-site, which is the kind of activity its own funders — the O'Connor Foundation's "Fitness for All" grant, for instance — already support); (2) approach CRC as a potential program sponsor of your event or initiative rather than a grantor; or (3) if you serve the same Catskills/Delaware County catchment, explore co-applying with CRC to a shared funder, since CRC has an active, current relationship with at least three funders (O'Connor Foundation, Erpf Fund, Hudson Valley Foundation for Youth Health) that back rural recreation and youth-health programming. The higher-value move for most grant seekers is to research and apply directly to those three funders, positioning your program against the same access/fitness/facility-sustainability language CRC has successfully used with them, rather than approaching CRC itself.