Clare Rose Foundation Inc.

The Clare Rose Foundation is an invitation-only funder — it does not accept unsolicited proposals or cold LOIs, per GrantExec, Candid, and Instrumentl. Founded in 1997 by Valerie Vincent and led since 2007 by her daughter Anne Vincent (President), the Foundation is a small family operation (all four listed directors — Anne, William, and Edward Vincent, and Elise Furer — draw $0 compensation), which means relationships flow through the family and a tight circle of program staff rather than a formal review committee. The practical path in is indirect: the Foundation co-founded and funds the San Diego Creative Youth Development (CYD) Network and operates the Clare Rose Center for Creative Youth Development as a fiscal sponsor and philanthropic intermediary, so organizations active in that network are the ones most likely to surface for invited funding. The grantee list bears this out — of 153 recorded grants totaling $3.12M, 143 went to California recipients (almost entirely San Diego-area arts and youth-development groups), with only scattered awards to MA, NY, and WA. The Foundation is deeply relational and repeat-oriented: the Clare Rose Foundation Center for Creative Youth Development itself is the top grantee at $860,000 across 5 grants, and A Reason To Survive received 10 separate grants totaling $156,000, evidence that once an organization is inside the circle, funding recurs across multiple purposes (general operating, technical assistance, professional development, capital needs) rather than being a single transaction. First-time contacts should not attempt a direct proposal; instead, engage with the CYD Network, the Fieldstone Leadership Network (now consolidated into the national Fieldstone Network), or existing Foundation grantees to build visibility. The Foundation's own language describes a trust-based philanthropy model — 'collaborating with partners from a place of trust and transparency, recognizing that they are the experts in their fields' — which in practice means light reporting burdens and general operating support once a relationship is established, but a high bar to get discovered in the first place.

Total giving has been rising steadily even as the endowment shrinks: total_giving grew from $943,837 (FY2019) to $1,342,778 (FY2020), $1,540,108 (FY2021), $1,593,472 (FY2022), and $1,610,649 (FY2023) — a 71% increase in four years — while total assets fell from $10.5M (FY2019) to $2.94M (FY2024), indicating the Foundation is intentionally spending down principal rather than preserving an endowment in perpetuity. Grants paid (a narrower cash-basis figure) were $848,534 in FY2023, $877,500 in FY2022, and $797,900 in FY2021. Per the DB's own grantee-level data, median grant size is $10,000 with an average of $25,739 across a typical range of $1,600 to $200,000 (n=31 sized grants). Across the fuller 153-grant history, average grant is $20,415 and total is $3.12M. The distribution is sharply top-heavy: the top 9 recipients alone account for roughly $2.09M (67%) of total dollars, led by the Clare Rose Foundation Center for Creative Youth Development ($860,000/5 grants), Center for Hope and Strength Inc ($400,000/4 grants), National Guild for Community Arts Education ($216,800/3 grants), Trauma Foundation and Girls on the Run of San Diego (each $200,000/4 grants). Below that, a long tail of San Diego arts and youth nonprofits receive grants in the $1,000-$110,000 range, many earmarked as 'Clare Rose Sabbatical,' 'General & Unrestricted,' 'San Diego Arts and Culture Challenge,' or 'Short-term Emergency Assistance' (a $1,000 flat-rate emergency fund that appears repeatedly for individual grantees, e.g., B Soto, G Rodriguez, C Pena). Geographically, funding is almost entirely San Diego/California-concentrated (143 of 153 grants), with small satellite grants to Massachusetts (McLean Hospital/PEAR Institute, $25,000 for creativity-assessment research), New York (Cristo Rey New York High School, $50,000), and Washington. Purpose-wise, the two dominant channels are Creative Youth Development ($296,721 in reported program expenses) and the Fieldstone Leadership Network capacity-building program ($233,794).

Clare Rose sits in an asset tier ($2.9-2.95M) nearly identical to all five listed peers, but its annual giving of roughly $1.6M is unusually large relative to that asset base — a payout rate well above the 5% IRS minimum, consistent with the spend-down pattern seen in its financials. Unlike the peer foundations, which appear to be generalist family funds with no public grantmaking infrastructure, Clare Rose has built durable field-level infrastructure (the CYD Network, the Clare Rose Center for Creative Youth Development, the Fieldstone Leadership Network partnership) that functions almost like a mid-size community foundation despite its small balance sheet. None of the peers have public websites, making Clare Rose comparatively transparent and well-documented, but its invitation-only posture puts it on equal footing with the peers in terms of practical access for an unconnected outside applicant.

The most concrete, dated recent-activity signal is structural: the Foundation's longtime partner organization, Fieldstone Leadership Network San Diego, now redirects visitors to Fieldstone Network's national site, suggesting a consolidation of the San Diego leadership-development program into a broader entity — worth confirming directly before referencing 'Fieldstone Leadership Network San Diego' by name in any outreach. The Clare Rose Sabbatical Program, the Foundation's flagship leadership-respite grant for nonprofit executive directors, is between cycles, with its next application window anticipated to open in January 2027; the program requires applicants to commit to at least 5 more years as a full-time executive director. Financially, FY2024 total revenue was $478,960 against total assets of $2,941,231 — down sharply from $10.5M in assets as recently as FY2019 — confirming a multi-year, apparently deliberate spend-down trajectory rather than a one-time market loss (FY2020 shows a -$2.26M total revenue figure reflecting investment losses during that year specifically). Third-party 990 aggregators (Instrumentl) place the most recent full giving year at $743,700 across 74 grantees, a lower per-grantee figure than the DB's own $20,415 average, suggesting either a down year in 2024 or a broader/shallower distribution than in the peak 2021-2023 years. No new program launches, leadership transitions, or major press announcements specific to Clare Rose Foundation were found in general news search for 2025-2026 — the Foundation maintains a low public-facing media profile consistent with its small, family-run, invitation-only structure.

Do not send an unsolicited proposal: this is the single most important fact for any grant seeker to internalize, confirmed by GrantExec, Candid/Foundation Directory, and the Foundation's own website, none of which publish an open application form, portal, or deadline. The realistic path to funding runs through the Foundation's two flagship intermediary programs. First, if you run a San Diego-area organization working in youth arts, youth voice, racial equity, or social justice through creative practice, engage with the San Diego Creative Youth Development Network and the Clare Rose Center for Creative Youth Development — the Foundation is a co-founder and backbone funder of both, and visibility inside that network is the most plausible route to an invited grant. Second, if you are a nonprofit executive director in San Diego County committed to staying in your role for at least 5 more years, watch for the Clare Rose Sabbatical Program (via the Fieldstone Network) to reopen its next cycle around January 2027 — this is the one component with a defined, periodic, name-your-own-timeline application process, though it explicitly discourages leaders who are planning to retire, change roles, or leave the sector within 5 years. When funded, expect general operating or purpose-flexible support rather than restrictive project grants — 'General & Unrestricted' is the single most common grant purpose in the Foundation's own history, and grants recur across multiple purposes (operating support, technical assistance, professional development, capital/equipment, event sponsorship) for the same organization over time, indicating the Foundation prefers deepening a small number of relationships over funding many one-off projects. Use the Foundation's own trust-based philanthropy language — 'partners,' 'collective action,' 'field-building,' 'youth voice,' 'racial equity,' 'social justice' — if and when you do get an introduction or invitation, since this vocabulary appears consistently across the Foundation's site and its Center for CYD materials. A common mistake to avoid: treating this as a typical open-call foundation and spending time drafting a cold LOI or full proposal — third-party databases are unanimous that this effort will not be reviewed. Instead, invest that time in relationship-building with CYD Network partners, Fieldstone Network San Diego-area contacts, or a warm introduction from an existing Clare Rose grantee such as A Reason To Survive, Get Empowered Today, or Transcendance Youth Arts Project, all of which have received grants across multiple years and purposes.