Colin Family Foundation

Colin Family Foundation is a small, closely held family vehicle run entirely by Samuel F. Colin (President/Treasurer/Director) and Ann A. Colin (Secretary/Director), both uncompensated, with day-to-day administration outsourced to Sterling Foundation Management LLC of Reston, VA (the (703) 437-9720 number on file traces to Sterling, not the Colin family directly). The foundation's own IRS filing marks it "preselected only," and Sterling's other client foundations consistently describe themselves as invitation-only, non-accepting of unsolicited proposals — there is no reason to expect Colin to be an exception. The tracked grantee list bears this out: every recipient traces to a personal or family connection rather than an open competition. Education gifts go to the Colins' apparent alma maters and their children's schools — Dartmouth College ($27,500 across four gifts tagged "Parents & Grandparents Fund"), Washington University in St. Louis ($22,500, "Arts & Sciences Parents Fund"), Emory University ($50,000), and Rye Country Day School ($43,000 across three gifts, again citing a parents/grandparents fund) — the exact naming convention used by university and school annual funds for parent donors, not a competitive grants program. Religious and community giving flows to Westchester Jewish Center ($35,000, including a rabbi's discretionary fund) and the Louis Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law ($50,000), pointing to the family's home congregation in Westchester County, NY. For an organization with no personal tie to the Colins, the realistic odds of a cold application succeeding are effectively zero — there is no published application form, no grants page, no deadline, and no program officer to court. The only viable path in is a warm introduction: through Dartmouth, Washington University in St. Louis, Emory, or Rye Country Day School alumni/advancement offices; through Westchester Jewish Center's clergy or lay leadership; or through a board or volunteer connection at Louis Brandeis Center, NYU Langone, or ImpactIsrael. Organizations serving those same institutional communities should prioritize relationship-building over proposal-writing here.

Across the 20 grants captured in the platform's database (totaling $252,500, average $12,625), the pattern is unrestricted, relationship-driven giving rather than programmatic grantmaking. Purpose codes are almost entirely "for operations" and "general support" — no restricted project grants, no multi-year program commitments, no RFP-based awards. By dollar volume: the two largest single gifts are $50,000 each to The Louis Brandeis Center and Emory University; Rye Country Day School received $43,000 across three payments; Westchester Jewish Center received $35,000 across three payments; Dartmouth College received $27,500 across four payments; Washington University in St. Louis received $22,500 across three payments; and smaller one-time gifts went to NYU Langone ($10,000), Winnebago Alumni Association ($7,000, two gifts), ImpactIsrael Inc ($5,000), and The Alliance for Positive Change ($2,500) — the smallest tracked award. By category, education dominates at roughly 57% of tracked giving (~$143,000 to Dartmouth, Washington U St. Louis, Emory, and Rye Country Day), followed by Jewish/religious and Israel-related causes at roughly 36% (~$90,000 to Westchester Jewish Center, Louis Brandeis Center, and ImpactIsrael), health at 4% (NYU Langone), and human/social services at 1% (Alliance for Positive Change). Geographically, giving concentrates in New York (8 grantees) with secondary clusters in New Hampshire (4, tied to Dartmouth), Missouri (3, tied to Washington U St. Louis), Virginia (2), and single grantees in DC, Georgia, and Maryland — a footprint set by family/institutional ties rather than a stated regional mandate. Year-over-year, total giving rose from $10,000 (2 grants, FY2021) to $71,994–$36,000 (5 grants, FY2022) to $170,500–$180,134 (8 grants, FY2023) to $105,000–$110,604 (14 grants, FY2024), then spiked to roughly $8.7M (14 grants) in FY2025 as reported by Instrumentl and ProPublica, with year-end net assets falling from $6.7M to $0 — almost certainly a large one-time or terminating distribution rather than a new baseline giving level. Typical individual gift size in the steady-state years (2021-2024) sits in the $2,500-$50,000 band.

Colin Family Foundation sits among a cluster of small, closely held Philanthropy & Grantmaking foundations of nearly identical asset size (~$6.7M), several of which — like Colin — are third-party administered and closed to unsolicited applications.

Four of the five peers, like Colin, have no public website on file, reinforcing that this asset tier of family foundation (~$5-7M) is dominated by administrator-run, invitation-only vehicles rather than open grantmakers. St Augustine Foundation is the one exception with an active site and is the only peer in this set worth approaching with a cold inquiry; the rest, including Colin, require a personal or institutional connection to even identify a contact.

The most notable recent development is financial rather than programmatic: FY2025 filings referenced by Instrumentl and ProPublica show total giving jumping to roughly $8.7M (still recorded as 14 grants) while year-end net assets fell to $0, down from $6.7M in assets at the close of FY2024. That combination — a giving spike sized in the millions alongside assets landing at zero — is consistent with either a single very large pass-through/terminating distribution or the foundation winding down its corpus; it is not evidence of an expanded or newly competitive grants program, and grant seekers should not read it as a sign the foundation has opened its doors. No news coverage, press release, leadership change, or new-program announcement was found in any general web search for the foundation from 2025-2026 — its only public footprint is the required IRS Form 990 disclosures reflected on ProPublica, Instrumentl, and Grantmakers.io. The foundation itself is young: its IRS ruling date is July 2022, and Samuel F. Colin and Ann A. Colin remain the sole officers/directors, both uncompensated, unchanged across all filings reviewed. There is no social media presence, no dedicated grants page, and the domain most closely matching its name (colin.org) belongs to an unrelated Santa Barbara consultant, not the foundation. Absent a major new signal, the safest planning assumption is that Colin will continue its historical pattern of small, relationship-based gifts to the same handful of institutions once any 2025 distribution event resolves.

There is no published application process for this foundation — the platform's own data field for application instructions is empty, and Sterling Foundation Management's other client foundations consistently state they do not accept unsolicited proposals. Treat any generic "how to apply" advice with caution; the honest, funder-specific guidance is about access, not proposal mechanics. First, do not submit a cold LOI or grant application through a general inquiry channel — there is no form, portal, or listed deadline to submit to, and Sterling's standard model for small family-foundation clients is to route all preselected disbursements without soliciting new applicants. Second, focus on institutional affinity: if your organization is Dartmouth College, Washington University in St. Louis, Emory University, Rye Country Day School, Westchester Jewish Center, Louis Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, NYU Langone, or ImpactIsrael Inc — or works closely with one of them (e.g., a Dartmouth-affiliated program, a Westchester Jewish Center partner agency, or a Brandeis Center-adjacent civil rights initiative) — you already sit inside the family's known giving circle and a direct approach through that institution's advancement or clergy office is far more likely to reach the Colins than a cold letter. Third, if your work touches Jewish community life, Israel-related causes, or antisemitism/civil-rights advocacy (echoing the Louis Brandeis Center and ImpactIsrael gifts), or serves populations experiencing homelessness in New York (echoing the Alliance for Positive Change gift), you have thematic alignment worth mentioning if you do secure an introduction. Fourth, if you must make contact, route it through Sterling Foundation Management LLC (Reston, VA; the (703) 437-9720 number on file is Sterling's, not a direct family line) rather than guessing at a family email — but set expectations low, since administrator-managed preselected foundations typically decline to forward unsolicited inquiries to the family. Fifth, avoid over-investing staff time here: given the tiny grant count (2-14 per year) and the strong pattern of repeat, personally connected recipients, this is not a productive target for organizations without an existing tie to the Colin family, Dartmouth, Washington University in St. Louis, Emory, Rye Country Day School, or Westchester Jewish Center. A better use of grant-seeking bandwidth is typically the funders in the peer set with actual public application infrastructure, such as St Augustine Foundation.