Chotin Foundation

The Chotin Foundation is a small, family-run private foundation based in Centennial, CO, established in 1994 by Steven and Robin Chotin as the charitable arm of the Chotin Group Corporation. Its own IRS record flags the foundation as 'preselected_only' — it funds a known circle of organizations rather than running an open, competitive grants process, and the DB shows no application form URL, no stated deadline, and no listed application instructions. Leadership is entirely uncompensated: Robin Chotin (President), Steven Chotin (former President), and Leslie Schaus (Secretary/Treasurer) — a three-person, unstaffed operation with no program officers to field cold inquiries. For grant seekers, this means the foundation behaves less like an institutional funder with an RFP cycle and more like a family giving vehicle that renews relationships year over year: its single largest cumulative grantee, Jewish Colorado, received $488,097 across three grants — nearly a third of all tracked giving — a pattern typical of an anchor institutional relationship built over many years, not a one-time competitive award. First-time, unsolicited applicants should expect long odds without a warm connection. The strongest paths in are: (1) a board or personal connection to Robin Chotin, Steven Chotin, or Leslie Schaus; (2) affiliation with the Denver Jewish community network — federations, day schools, or synagogues already in the grantee list (Jewish Colorado, Aish Denver, Mizel Institute, BMH-BJ Congregation); or (3) a Colorado arts, health, or education organization whose mission overlaps with existing grantees (Denver Center for the Performing Arts, Opera Colorado, Denver Art Museum, National Jewish Health, Aspen Academy). New relationships likely start small — the typical individual grant is modest (median $563, per the foundation's own 990-derived data) — with larger, sustained commitments reserved for organizations that have proven themselves as anchor partners over multiple cycles. Organizations without any Colorado or Jewish-community tie should treat this as a low-probability target and focus effort elsewhere.

Total giving has grown sharply: $259,730 (FY2020) → $352,958 (FY2021) → $464,444 (FY2022) → $830,692 (FY2023), with grants paid alone reaching $794,011 in FY2023 versus $211,551 in FY2020 — nearly a 4x increase in four years. Assets rose in step, from $4.31M (2020) to $5.08M (2023) to an estimated $5.99M by 2025, giving the foundation continued capacity to grow disbursements. Across the tracked 170-grant dataset (average $8,923/grant, $1,516,953 total), giving is highly concentrated: the top four grantees — Jewish Colorado ($488,097 over 3 grants), The Jewish Federations of North America ($134,184), Denver Center for the Performing Arts ($129,950), and National Jewish Health ($88,715) — total $840,946, or roughly 55% of all tracked dollars, to just four organizations. Beyond that anchor tier, the foundation's own reported typical-grant-size statistics (n=50) show a range of $100 to $64,597, a median of just $563, and an average of $4,231 — meaning the bulk of individual checks are small, recurring, sub-$5,000 gifts layered underneath a handful of six-figure flagship commitments. By geography, 110 of 170 tracked grants (65%) went to Colorado organizations and 29 (17%) to New York, with small numbers scattered across DC (7), Virginia (4), Missouri (4), California (5), New Jersey (3), Massachusetts (2), Kansas (1), and Florida (1) — reflecting both the family's Denver base and its New York ties. By cause, Jewish community and religious organizations dominate (Jewish Colorado, Jewish Federations, Aish Denver, Aish of the Rockies, Mizel Institute, BMH-BJ Congregation, Temple Emanuel), arts and culture form a strong secondary bucket (Denver Center for the Performing Arts, Opera Colorado, Denver Art Museum), medical/health research draws recurring smaller grants (National Jewish Health, Crohn's & Colitis Foundation, Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, Melanoma Research Foundation), and K-12/independent-school education appears steadily but modestly (Aspen Academy, Corey Elementary School, Colorado Academy, Williston Northampton Fund).

All five matched peers cluster within a few thousand dollars of Chotin's ~$5.99M asset base — an asset-banded cohort of small, single-family IRS 990-PF filers rather than a curated set of mission-aligned funders, and none disclose annual giving or focus details in the available data. What sets Chotin apart within this tier is transparency and scale of disbursement relative to assets: its FY2023 giving of $830,692 represents roughly 16% of assets paid out that year, a notably active payout rate for a foundation this size, while its published (if sparse) website and stated six-cause framework give applicants more to work with than most peers, which have no public web presence at all.

No foundation-specific news coverage, press releases, or leadership-change announcements for 2025-2026 turned up in web search — the Chotin Foundation maintains a minimal single-page website with no news or blog section, and no third-party press has covered it recently. The most current data available comes from aggregator snapshots (Cause IQ, GuideStar, Instrumentl) citing total assets of $5,989,053 and total revenue near $1,421,612 against expenses of roughly $931,709 in the most recent available filing year — consistent with the foundation's multi-year trend of rising assets and rising giving rather than any single newsworthy event. Leadership remains unchanged and uncompensated across all filed years: Robin Chotin as President (having also served as Vice President), Steven Chotin as prior President, and Leslie Schaus as Secretary/Treasurer throughout. The last confirmed major grant activity in the underlying data is the FY2023 filing, where grants paid reached $794,011 — the highest single-year total in the available record — concentrated in the same Jewish-community, arts, health, and education categories the foundation has supported since at least 2011. Absent new public announcements, the safest read for applicants is that the foundation is continuing its established, relationship-based giving pattern rather than launching new initiatives or opening a public grants process.

There is no public application form, LOI portal, or stated deadline for the Chotin Foundation — its own IRS record explicitly marks it 'preselected_only,' meaning grants go to a known circle of organizations rather than through open competition. Do not submit a generic, mass-distributed LOI; it will not reach a program officer because none exists. Instead: (1) Start with a warm connection — a board tie to Robin Chotin, Steven Chotin, or Leslie Schaus, or affiliation with the Chotin Group Corporation, is the single highest-leverage entry point. (2) Lean on the Denver Jewish community network — the foundation's single biggest relationship is with Jewish Colorado ($488,097 across 3 grants), and it recurringly funds Jewish Federations of North America, Aish Denver, Aish of the Rockies, Mizel Institute, and local synagogues; an introduction through any of these institutions carries real weight. (3) If you have no warm path, a direct phone call to (303) 741-0100 or a letter to 9100 E. Panorama Drive, Suite 100, Centennial, CO 80112 (the IRS filing lists 'c/o Helen M Dickens' as contact) is more likely to get a response than a web form, since none exists. (4) Keep the initial ask modest and specific — the foundation's own reported typical grant size ranges from $100 to $64,597 with a median of just $563, so a first-time, unconnected organization should propose a defined, fundable piece (a program, event, scholarship, or exhibit) rather than general operating support; six-figure gifts like the Jewish Colorado grants reflect years of accumulated trust, not a first ask. (5) Frame the request around the foundation's six stated priorities — Antisemitism, Education, Medical & Health ventures, Israel, Culture & the Arts, and Community Development — using language that echoes those exact categories. (6) The most common mistake would be treating this like a large institutional funder with a grants cycle: there is no RFP, no online portal, and no compensated staff to process unsolicited applications, so persistence via relationship-building over multiple years is more productive than a single polished proposal.