Chestnut Foundation

The Chestnut Foundation is a closed, preselected-giving family foundation, not a competitive grants program. IRS data flags it explicitly as "preselected only," its Form 990 lists no application process ("__none__"), and no application form, portal, or grants page exists. Practically, this means cold LOIs and unsolicited proposals have close to zero chance of success. Led by President Benjamin Kest, Treasurer Asher Kest, and Secretary Rachel Lorber — all uncompensated in most filed years, with modest officer compensation appearing only in FY2023–2024 — the foundation operates as a family vehicle for the Kest family's own charitable relationships rather than an institution soliciting the broader nonprofit sector. Its grantee list bears this out: of 150 recorded grants totaling $2,390,137, the top 10 recipients alone account for roughly 81% of all dollars given, and every one of them is an Orthodox Jewish congregation, yeshiva, or affiliated communal-service organization (bikur cholim, mikvah, chesed funds) concentrated in Lawrence, Far Rockaway, and the greater Five Towns area of Nassau County, NY, with a secondary cluster of similar institutions in New Jersey (32 of 150 grants; likely Lakewood-area yeshivas). New York accounts for 102 of 150 grants and Yeshiva University is the only large, non-local institution to appear in the top 10 ($100,000 across 3 grants). For organizations outside this network — Orthodox Jewish religious, educational, and communal institutions with an existing relationship or geographic footprint in the Five Towns/Lawrence corridor — realistic engagement starts with community introduction, not a written proposal: a warm connection through a shared rabbi, yeshiva board, or communal organization the Kest family already supports. First-time contact should be framed as relationship-building (a conversation about the organization's mission and specific need) rather than a formal grant request. Organizations outside the Orthodox Jewish nonprofit sector, or outside the NY/NJ geographic base, should treat this foundation as a poor fit and redirect research effort toward more accessible funders with open, published application processes.

Across the 150 grants captured in filings, the average grant is $15,934 and total recorded giving is $2,390,137, but the distribution is heavily skewed: the single largest relationship, Congregation Khal Chasidim Of Lawrence, received $420,910 across just 2 grants (avg. ~$210,455 each), while Yeshiva Ohavei Torah received $384,000 across 4 grants and its related entity Ohavei Torah received a further $330,000 across 3 grants — meaning these three related recipients alone total $1,134,910, or 47% of all recorded giving. Beyond the top tier, amounts fall off sharply: Cong Ahavath Chesed ($174,500/4 grants), Bnos Bais Yaakov ($118,850/2 grants), Koliel Tiseres Yaakov ($110,000/2 grants), Bikur Cholim Of Manhattan ($107,825/3 grants), and Yeshiva University ($100,000/3 grants) round out the next tier, and the list tapers to dozens of grants under $10,000 (down to $2,050) for smaller congregations, mikvahs, and yeshiva ketanas. The foundation's own 990-derived "typical grant size" field shows a median of just $1,830 against an average of $8,589 (range $100–$125,000, n=44 in the most recent schedule) — confirming that a small number of five- and six-figure anchor gifts to core institutions coexist with a long tail of modest, likely-recurring four-figure gifts to smaller communal organizations. Geographically, giving is concentrated at 102 of 150 grants (68%) in New York and 32 of 150 (21%) in New Jersey, with small residual amounts in Florida (5), Illinois (2), California (3), Pennsylvania (4), Michigan (1), and Arizona (1) — likely national affiliates or satellite campuses of the same core Orthodox institutions. On the balance sheet, assets have grown steadily from $6.3M (FY2014) to $11.03M (FY2024), while annual total giving has ranged from a low of $158,360 (FY2014, an early/ramp-up year) to a high of $1,235,510 (FY2022), settling most recently around $698,054 (FY2023) and an estimated $813,257 across 34 awards (FY2024, per third-party 990 aggregation) — a payout pace of roughly 6-8% of assets in recent years, above the 5% federal minimum distribution requirement for private foundations.

All five identified peers sit within roughly $10,000 of Chestnut's $11,031,383 in assets and share its IRS "Philanthropy & Grantmaking" classification — a strong signal these are all similarly structured small family or single-family-office foundations rather than institutional grantmakers. None of the five peers have a listed website in the data available, which mirrors Chestnut's own situation (its recorded website resolves to an unrelated organization) and reinforces that this entire peer set operates as private, relationship-driven vehicles rather than publicly accessible grant programs. For an outside grant seeker, this comparison set is best read as a category-level insight rather than a set of alternative targets: organizations without an existing personal or communal connection to any of these families are unlikely to gain traction with Chestnut or its close asset-tier peers, and should prioritize funders in the same asset range that do publish an application process.

No foundation-specific news, leadership changes, or program announcements were identified for this Chestnut Foundation in 2025-2026 web searches; the "Chestnut Foundation" name is shared with several unrelated, more web-visible organizations (the $277M Atlanta-based Chestnut Family Foundation and The American Chestnut Foundation tree-restoration nonprofit), and none of their announcements — including an $8M Atlanta Beltline bike-park gift and a $1.5M SUNY-ESF chestnut-tree research grant — pertain to this Lawrence, NY filer. The most recent verifiable activity comes from Form 990 aggregation: FY2024 total assets stood at $11,031,383 (up from $10,918,109 in FY2023), with total revenue of $1,171,046 and an estimated $813,257 distributed across 34 grants during the year, per third-party 990 reporting (Instrumentl). This continues a pattern last documented in the underlying grantee data, where Congregation Khal Chasidim Of Lawrence, Yeshiva Ohavei Torah, and Ohavei Torah remain the foundation's largest and most consistent relationships (2-4 grants each across the historical record). Leadership has been stable throughout — Benjamin Kest (President), Asher Kest (Treasurer), and Rachel Lorber (Secretary) appear unchanged across all available filing years, with no indication of a leadership transition. The one notable financial shift is the reappearance of officer compensation, rising from $0 in FY2021-2022 to $15,457 in FY2023 and an estimated $92,743 in FY2024 — worth monitoring as a sign of increasing administrative formalization, though it does not indicate any change to the foundation's preselected, non-competitive giving model.

This is not a funder to pursue through a written cold proposal — there is no application form, portal, published deadline, or grants page, and its IRS filing explicitly marks it "preselected only." The single highest-leverage move for a realistic prospect is community proximity: this foundation's giving is almost entirely (68% of grants, and a higher share of dollars) directed to Orthodox Jewish congregations, yeshivas, and communal-service organizations (bikur cholim, mikvah, chesed funds) in Lawrence, Far Rockaway, and the Five Towns area of Nassau County, NY, with a secondary concentration in New Jersey. Organizations that are not part of this specific Orthodox Jewish institutional network, or that lack any presence in this geography, should not spend proposal-writing effort here — the data shows no history of funding outside this pattern except Yeshiva University, a large national institution with deep communal ties of its own. For organizations that ARE plausible fits, the approach should mirror how the foundation's existing relationships were likely built: an introduction through a shared rabbi, yeshiva board member, or communal leader who already has a relationship with the Kest family, rather than a mailed or emailed LOI. When an introduction is made, come prepared with a specific, tangible need (the grant-level data shows the foundation funds general "public support of organization mission" rather than restricted programs, so a clear near-term use of funds — a building need, a program shortfall, a scholarship gap — will resonate better than an abstract capacity-building pitch). Expect gift sizes to track closely with the strength and duration of the relationship: the largest, most established relationships (Congregation Khal Chasidim Of Lawrence, Yeshiva Ohavei Torah) receive five- and six-figure annual or biennial gifts, while newer or smaller relationships start in the low four figures ($2,000-$10,000) and appear to grow over multiple years of repeat giving (many recipients show 2-4 recorded grants rather than a single gift). A common mistake would be treating this like a typical foundation prospect research target — spending time on a formal proposal narrative, budget, or logic model is very unlikely to be the deciding factor here; relationship and communal trust are. Because there is no disclosed fiscal year-end or board meeting cadence in public filings, there is no evidence of a specific "best time to apply" — engagement is better paced around communal calendar touchpoints (High Holidays, yeshiva dinners, building campaigns) than a grant cycle.