Children Can Shape The Future Inc.

Children Can Shape the Future Inc. (CCSF) is a small, family-run private foundation — IRS ruling date May 2006, now administered out of Radnor, PA through Pembroke Philanthropy Advisors, an Ardmore-based philanthropic advisory firm that appears to run its day-to-day operations under the 'c/o' listing on its filings. The board is a mix of family (President Aline M. Holmes, Executive Director Jonathan M. Holmes) and community members including a physician (Dr. Alfred Sacchetti) and educators/advocates (Rosemary Cataldi, Sarah Fishman, Ebony Welch, Ralph Burnley), with David Bromley as Secretary and Lisa Pack as Vice President. This is not a typical institutional grantmaker: CCSF's own public messaging describes an approach built explicitly 'against the grain' of traditional philanthropy, prioritizing speed and directness over process. Where most foundations fund organizations, CCSF funds individuals — specifically direct-service educators working in Camden, NJ and Philadelphia, PA classrooms and after-school settings. Administrators, principals, and nonprofit executives are explicitly excluded from eligibility; the theory of change is that the people closest to students know best what they need, and intermediaries dilute that. For first-time applicants, the biggest strategic insight is that professionalized, heavily-produced proposals are a liability here, not an asset — the foundation asks for roughly 250 words with no attachments or links, evaluated on the strength and specificity of the idea rather than the packaging. There is no LOI-to-full-proposal escalation ladder; a single short pitch either leads to a phone conversation or a declination with feedback, and the Board decides on a rolling basis within roughly 60 days. Recent aggregator listings (Instrumentl, GrantExec) flag the foundation as 'under transition' and currently invitation-only, a meaningful shift from its historically open, rolling-application posture — prospective applicants should verify current status directly before investing time. The one recently observed exception to the small-grant model is a $25,000 'After School Program 2024-2025' award structure, suggesting the foundation may be testing larger, program-level grants alongside its traditional $10,000 individual-educator cap.

CCSF's asset base has been remarkably stable for a decade-plus, ranging from $7.35M (2011) to a peak of $9.67M (2021) and standing at $8.86M as of FY2023 — this is an endowment-style foundation living off investment income (net investment income of $838,354 in 2021 alone, versus a typical $170K-$230K in flatter market years) rather than fresh contributions (contributions received were $0 in FY2023, FY2021, and FY2020). Total giving has fluctuated year to year: $189,420 (FY2023), $202,784 (FY2022), $179,467 (FY2021), $241,825 (FY2020), and a clear outlier of $754,691 in FY2019. Going back further, annual giving ranged from $197,131 (2013) to $383,306 (2011), with 2015 at $366,162. The 'grants_paid' line item in IRS filings is inconsistently reported in the underlying data (showing $0 in several recent years despite non-zero total_giving), which is likely a filing/extraction gap rather than a true stop in grantmaking — treat the total_giving figures as the more reliable signal of annual grantmaking capacity. With a confirmed per-grant cap of $10,000 for the core individual-educator program, a typical $180K-$250K giving year implies roughly 18-25 small classroom grants annually, a high-volume/low-dollar distribution model rather than a few large awards. Officer compensation for the Executive Director has held steady in the $90,000-$103,000 range across every year on record (FY2023: $96,843; FY2011: $85,365), a modest, non-escalating overhead structure relative to giving. No grantee-level data (organization names, amounts, states) is available in this dataset — CCSF does not appear to publish a standard grantee list, consistent with its individual-educator (not organizational) funding model, which is also why standard grant databases show few, if any, itemized past awards.

CCSF sits among a cluster of similarly-sized private foundations classified under NTEE 'Philanthropy & Grantmaking,' matched here by asset size (all in the $8.8M-$8.9M range) rather than mission — none of the five closest asset peers publish a stated education focus, and their websites are not on file, underscoring how unusually specific and hands-on CCSF's Camden/Philadelphia educator-funding niche is by comparison.

Unlike its asset-matched peers, which appear to be general-purpose or single-family vehicles without a public program focus, CCSF is unusual in publishing an explicit theory of change, eligibility rules, and a defined application mechanism — that transparency itself is a competitive advantage for grant seekers, since most peers of this size give no public signal of how (or whether) they can be approached at all.

Public-facing activity is thin for 2025-2026. The most recent dated program found is the 'After School Program 2024-2025' grant listing on Zeffy's grant finder, which used a flat $25,000 award rather than the foundation's historical $10,000 individual-educator cap — a possible sign of an evolving, program-level grant alongside the older model. No specific 2025 or 2026 grant announcements, press coverage, or leadership changes turned up in web search; the board composition (Executive Director Jonathan M. Holmes, President Aline M. Holmes, VP Lisa Pack, Secretary David Bromley, and board members Rosemary Cataldi, Alfred Sacchetti, Sarah Fishman, and Ebony Welch, with Ralph Burnley appearing on an earlier filing) has been stable across recent IRS filings. The most notable current signal is qualitative rather than a discrete news event: multiple grant aggregators (Instrumentl, GrantExec) now describe the foundation as 'under transition,' with applications by invitation only — a change from the historically open, rolling-application posture described in older write-ups referencing the foundation's '18th year of funding.' That transition language, combined with the absence of any new public grant cycle since the 2024-2025 after-school round, suggests CCSF may be reassessing its grantmaking structure (possibly the shift from $10,000 micro-grants toward larger $25,000 program awards) rather than actively winding down. Grant seekers should treat the invitation-only status as current until they've confirmed otherwise directly with Pembroke Philanthropy Advisors.

CCSF's process rewards brevity and directness over polish, and punishes the opposite. Concretely: (1) Confirm eligibility first — the foundation only accepts requests from direct-service educators (teachers, counselors, front-line program staff) working in Camden or Philadelphia; submissions from principals, district administrators, or nonprofit executive directors are explicitly turned away regardless of merit. (2) Keep the initial pitch to about 250 words, sent as plain email text — no attachments, no links, no formal cover letter. The foundation's stated philosophy is to move against traditional grantmaking conventions, so a polished multi-page proposal package will likely read as a mismatch rather than a strength. (3) Be specific about the classroom or program need and name a dollar figure — the historical program cap is $10,000 per educator request, though a 2024-2025 program-level cycle used $25,000, so anchor the ask to the scale of the specific need rather than assuming a fixed ceiling. (4) Use the foundation's own language: 'in-school academic experience,' 'out-of-school-time supports,' and 'under-resourced communities' echo how CCSF and its advisor (Pembroke Philanthropy Advisors) describe their mission — mirroring this framing signals fit. (5) Expect fast turnaround: a confirmation email typically arrives within 48 hours; if the foundation is interested, the next step is a phone conversation, not a written follow-up round. (6) Because the foundation is currently flagged as invitation-only/under transition, the single most valuable action before applying cold is a direct call to (877) 260-4176 or outreach through Pembroke Philanthropy Advisors to confirm whether unsolicited applications are currently being accepted at all — applying into a closed invitation-only cycle wastes the narrow window this funder offers. (7) The most common mistake seekers make with funders like this is treating it like an institutional grants program (assuming a formal RFP, budget narrative, and multi-year reporting plan) when CCSF explicitly wants the opposite: a single educator's plain-language ask.