Collingwood Foundation

The Collingwood Foundation is a Los Angeles-based private foundation established in 1994 by Daniel H. Renberg (1934-2014), a California businessman, financier, and prominent LGBTQ philanthropist. The foundation is named after a location meaningful to Renberg and his partner of 53 years, Eugene Kapaloski, who now serves as the sole officer — President, Secretary, and Treasurer — on a voluntary basis without compensation. Renberg was a trailblazing figure in LGBTQ philanthropy; he and Kapaloski earned the GLSEN Lifetime Achievement Award in 2010. The foundation concentrates its grantmaking in five interconnected program areas: LGBTQ Rights and Services (primary focus — the Los Angeles LGBT Center alone receives approximately $600,000 annually), Civil Rights and Legal Advocacy (ACLU Foundation at $300,000/year, Southern Poverty Law Center), Health and Human Services (Project Angel Food, Jewish Family Service of LA, Planned Parenthood LA), Education (Northwestern University's Renberg Chair, UCLA Williams Institute), and Arts and Culture (Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestras, A Noise Within). All grantmaking decisions are made personally by Kapaloski. The foundation distributes approximately $1.35 million annually through roughly 40 grants, with a median grant size of $25,000 and a maximum of $200,000, exclusively as unrestricted operational support.

The Collingwood Foundation's financial trajectory reflects deliberate endowment management with periodic asset rebalancing. Total assets stood at $16,301,695 in fiscal year 2024, down from a peak following a significant asset sale in 2023 that generated $11.5 million in revenue. Revenue in 2024 was $1,157,237, comprising dividends ($492,175, 42.5%), sales of assets ($655,615, 56.7%), and interest income ($9,447, 0.8%). Total expenses were $1,633,761, with charitable disbursements of $1,356,158 representing approximately 83% of total expenditures. The foundation maintains zero liabilities and receives no external contributions, operating solely from its investment portfolio. Historical trends show fluctuating asset levels: from $8.5 million in 2019 to $7.4 million in 2020 (reflecting market losses during the pandemic), then recovering significantly. Annual grant disbursements have grown steadily from $711,000 in 2019 to $874,000 in 2020 and $1,350,000 in 2024, representing a near-doubling of grant output over five years. The foundation's payout rate of approximately 8.3% of assets exceeds the IRS-required 5% minimum distribution for private foundations. Operating without paid staff, the foundation achieves an exceptionally low administrative cost ratio, directing virtually all spending to charitable purposes. Grantmaking is geographically concentrated in California (23 of 40 annual grants), with additional support to organizations in New York, Washington D.C., Illinois, and Florida.

The Collingwood Foundation operates within the LGBTQ philanthropy landscape alongside several peer foundations of varying scale:

Collingwood occupies a distinctive niche: larger than Bohnett in assets but smaller in annual grantmaking, and far more focused geographically than the global Arcus Foundation. Compared to Horizons, Collingwood has lower assets but comparable annual grant output, though Horizons operates as a community foundation with open applications while Collingwood remains strictly invitation-only. The Bohnett Foundation, despite smaller assets, distributes nearly three times as much annually — reflecting a spend-down trajectory versus Collingwood's endowment-preservation approach. Within LA's LGBTQ funding ecosystem, the Collingwood Foundation is recognized as a reliable, long-term supporter of anchor institutions, particularly the LA LGBT Center, where its multi-grant annual support of $600,000 represents one of the largest private foundation commitments to that organization.

In 2024, the Collingwood Foundation distributed $1,355,000 across 41 grants, its highest annual grantmaking total in recent years. The largest recipients were the Los Angeles LGBT Center (three grants of $200,000 each, totaling $600,000) and the ACLU Foundation (three grants of $100,000 each, totaling $300,000). The foundation maintained its longstanding support for Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund at $50,000 — building on a landmark $1 million gift in 2018 that established the Daniel H. Renberg Legal Fellowship, created to mark Lambda Legal's 45th anniversary. Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism continues to benefit from the Daniel H. Renberg Chair in social justice and LGBTQ media studies, endowed by Renberg and Kapaloski. At UCLA, Kapaloski remains an Ambassador Emeritus at the Williams Institute, which houses the Daniel H. Renberg Senior Scholar position focused on sexual orientation and gender identity law and policy research. The foundation's most recent 990-PF was filed November 5, 2025, showing continued stable operations under Kapaloski's sole stewardship. Grant levels have nearly doubled since 2019 ($711,000), suggesting an intentional increase in philanthropic output even as the foundation operates from its original endowment without new contributions.

The Collingwood Foundation explicitly states that it "only makes contributions to preselected charitable organizations and does not accept unsolicited requests for funds." There is no public application process, website, email address, or phone number for grant inquiries. All grantmaking decisions are made personally by Eugene Kapaloski, who serves as the foundation's sole officer without compensation. Organizations seeking funding from this foundation should understand that: (1) The foundation has no formal application mechanism — cold outreach is unlikely to succeed; (2) Recipients tend to be established, nationally recognized organizations rather than grassroots startups; (3) The strongest pathway to consideration is through relationship-building within LA's LGBTQ philanthropic community, particularly through organizations already funded (Los Angeles LGBT Center, Lambda Legal, ACLU, Williams Institute); (4) The foundation favors unrestricted operational support exclusively — it does not make project-specific or restricted grants; (5) Grant sizes range from $1,000 to $200,000, with a median of $25,000; (6) Organizations aligned with LGBTQ rights, civil liberties, health services, or higher education research on LGBTQ issues are the most natural fit; (7) The foundation's address of record is 1925 Century Park East, 16th Floor, Los Angeles, CA, but correspondence without a prior relationship is unlikely to receive a response.