Childrens Chance For Life

Children's Chance For Life (CCFL) is a small, family-run private foundation based in Bonney Lake/Lake Tapps, Washington, with roughly $1.43 million in assets. It is operated entirely by members of the Teeter family (Roger C. Teeter and Jennifer M. Teeter, succeeded in the presidency by Rylie Teeter and Rylie Leier around January 2021), all serving without compensation — a hallmark of a hands-on, personally-directed giving vehicle rather than an institutional grantmaker with program staff. CCFL's own messaging emphasizes that '100% of every donation goes 100% to the children' because overhead is covered by separate anonymous gifts, signaling a donor base that wants to see dollars flow directly to frontline child-welfare work, not administration. The foundation's internal data flags it as 'preselected_only' — meaning its giving is concentrated among a small, known set of partner organizations rather than distributed through a competitive, publicly advertised RFP process, even though its public record technically shows 'accepting applications' as true. Fellowship Bible Church and Medical Teams International each received four separate grants totaling $256,000 and $181,100 respectively, and Family Literacy Project (under two name variants) received three to four grants totaling roughly $120,000 — these repeat, multi-year relationships, not one-off awards, are the clearest signal of how CCFL actually operates. First-time applicants should not expect a traditional LOI-to-full-proposal-to-site-visit pipeline; there is no grants page, no application form URL, and no posted deadline. The most realistic path in is the general 'Contact Us' form on ccfl-online.org, which explicitly asks inquirers to state their purpose and their own deadline. Organizations most likely to resonate are explicitly Christian or faith-aligned, serve impoverished or orphaned children (its flagship partnership supports orphan care in Underberg, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa), or run feeding, literacy, education-subsidy, or foster-care/therapy programs domestically. Secular organizations, large institutions, or groups without a direct child-welfare or faith-based service delivery model are a poor fit and should expect this to be a long-shot, low-probability outreach rather than a core prospect.

CCFL's visible grant history (40 grants totaling $991,646, averaging $24,791 per grant) is heavily concentrated: the top four recipients — Fellowship Bible Church ($256,000), Medical Teams International ($181,100), Food For The Hungry ($90,000), and Cabo English Church ($90,000) — account for roughly 62% of all recorded giving, while 15 of the 40 recorded grants are for $5,000 or less, down to as little as $500. The foundation's own typical-grant-size data (drawn from its most recent Form 990-PF schedule) shows a median grant of just $6,250 against an average of $34,781 and a range of $500 to $150,000 — a wide spread that reflects a mix of small, recurring support gifts and a handful of large, concentrated awards to core partners. Annual grants paid have swung sharply year to year: $154,000 (FY2012), $214,300 (FY2013), $258,100 (FY2014), $352,500 (FY2015), $202,500 (FY2019), $252,000 (FY2020, the year it also received a one-time $2,548,680 contribution that pushed assets to $2.36 million), $556,500 (FY2021, its largest giving year on record), then a steep pullback to $88,050 (FY2022) and $90,500 (FY2023), before recovering to $168,546 in FY2025 against total assets of $1,429,548. Total assets have been in gradual decline since the FY2020 contribution spike — from $2.36 million to $1.43 million — meaning payout in recent years has outpaced new contributions received ($0 in both FY2023 and FY2025 per the data). Geographically, recipient organizations cluster in Washington (11 of 40 grants), California (8), and Oregon (6), though this reflects the location of U.S.-based partner organizations that often channel funds internationally (South Africa) rather than the ultimate beneficiary geography. By program, feeding and general operating support for 'poor children' dominates the purpose field across nearly every recorded grant, with a secondary thread of literacy/education-subsidy support tied to the South Africa partnership.

CCFL sits in a tightly clustered peer group of roughly $1.43-1.44 million in assets, all tagged Human Services, suggesting the platform's peer-matching is grouping foundations primarily by asset size within the same NTEE category rather than by giving behavior. Annual-giving and application-process data for the peer foundations was not available in the source dataset (only asset totals and NTEE category were provided), so no direct payout-rate or accessibility comparison can be made; this itself is a useful data point — like CCFL, most small family foundations in this asset tier do not maintain public grant-making disclosures, which is consistent with CCFL's own lack of a grants page or application portal.

No news coverage, press releases, or social-media announcements for Children's Chance For Life were found in four targeted web searches covering 2025-2026 grants, application guidance, general news, and funding priorities — the organization appears to maintain no active media presence beyond its own website and listed Twitter (@CCFLfoundation) and Facebook (ChildrensChanceForLife) accounts, neither of which surfaced recent public posts in this research. The most concrete 'recent activity' signal comes from its own financial filings: total assets have declined from a FY2020 peak of $2,358,399 (following a $2,548,680 contribution that year) to $1,429,548 as of the FY2025 filing, while annual grants paid have moved from a low of $88,050 (FY2022) back up to $168,546 (FY2025) — roughly a 91% year-over-year increase in payout, though still well below the $556,500 distributed in FY2021. The only identifiable leadership change on record is the presidency passing from Roger C. Teeter (noted in filings as serving 'thru Jan 2021') to Rylie Teeter, with Jennifer M. Teeter continuing as Secretary/Treasurer and Rylie Leier serving as Vice President/Member — all unpaid, reflecting a continuously family-operated structure with no indication of staff hires, new program launches, or public announcements in the past two fiscal years.

Because CCFL has no posted grant application, no portal, no LOI template, and no published deadline, applicants should treat this foundation as relationship-driven rather than process-driven — the 'preselected_only' designation in its own records indicates it primarily sustains a known circle of partners (several of which, like Fellowship Bible Church and Medical Teams International, have received four separate grants apiece over the years) rather than running an open competitive cycle. The single documented entry point is the 'Contact Us' form on ccfl-online.org, which explicitly instructs inquirers to state 'the purpose of your inquiry and your deadline' — take this literally: lead with a one- or two-sentence statement of what you're requesting and name an actual decision date, since the foundation appears to use that information to triage responses. Mirror their own language: they describe their mission as 'defending, preserving and restoring the innocence of children through education, therapy, opportunity and community development,' and they emphasize that administrative costs are covered separately so '100% of every donation goes 100% to the children' — proposals that speak to direct, measurable, per-child impact (CCFL's own materials cite roughly $50/month per child for school uniforms and attendance costs as a reference point) are more likely to resonate than overhead-heavy budgets or general capacity-building asks. A faith-based identity or framing is a meaningful signal given CCFL's explicit self-description as a Christian organization; secular human-services groups without an explicit child-welfare service delivery model are a weak fit. The clearest common mistake to avoid is treating this like a conventional foundation with a formal RFP: there is no grants page, no eligibility criteria document, and no cycle to track, so cold, generic LOIs mimicking a standard foundation submission are unlikely to get traction. Given giving volatility (from $556,500 in FY2021 down to under $95,000 in FY2022-2023), timing a request to a specific, time-bound need (e.g., tied to a school term or feeding-program cycle) rather than open-ended general operating support may also align better with how the foundation appears to allocate in any given year.