Cottonwood Foundation

Cottonwood Foundation (EIN 36-4156747) is a small, closed, family-controlled trust run by trustees Carol and William Hoffmann out of Chapel Hill, NC, administered through Brown Advisory (registered address: 1245 Environ Way, Chapel Hill). Both trustees draw $0 compensation, and the foundation's own record flags `preselected_only: true` with `application_instructions` explicitly blank — there is no grants page, application form URL, or deadline on file anywhere in the public or IRS filing data reviewed. Every one of the 5 grants in the matched grantee dataset — $360,000 total, averaging $72,000 each, all coded 'GENERAL SUPPORT' — went to a single recipient: the University of Notre Dame. This is not a diversified or competitively reviewed grants program; it is a personal philanthropic vehicle almost certainly built around a Hoffmann family affinity for Notre Dame (alumni status, trusteeship, or athletics/academic giving), channeled through a private foundation wrapper for tax efficiency. For the overwhelming majority of grant seekers, Cottonwood Foundation is not a realistic cold-outreach target: there is no open RFP, no listed program officer, and no track record of funding organizations outside the Notre Dame ecosystem in any year of data reviewed (2011-2025). Note also a data-quality trap: the website on file, cottonwood.org, actually resolves to an unrelated California megachurch — not this foundation — so that domain should never be used as a source of grant guidance. If your organization has any direct tie to the University of Notre Dame — a college, center, athletics program, or Notre Dame-affiliated nonprofit — the more productive path is not a direct approach to Cottonwood Foundation but a warm introduction through Notre Dame's own Corporate and Foundation Relations or Advancement office, since the Hoffmann family relationship almost certainly runs through the university rather than through any published foundation criteria. Absent that Notre Dame connection, first-time applicants should not expect a response to a general inquiry, and effort is better spent on peer funders in this report with genuinely open, documented application processes.

Grants paid have grown unevenly across the filing history reviewed: $40,000 (2011), $42,000 (2012), $46,000 (2013), $51,525 (2014), $57,000 (2015), $65,000 (2019), $75,000 (2020), $75,000 (2021), $80,000 (2022), $50,000 (2023), $51,225 (2024), and $141,639 in the most recent available filing (2025) — nearly triple the prior year. Total assets rose from $867,389 (2011) to $1,150,515 (2019), dipped to $1,040,172 (2020) amid a revenue loss of -$29,389 that year, recovered to roughly $1.08 million by 2021, then jumped to $1,983,295 (2022) after a $1,032,985 contribution — almost certainly a family gift replenishing the corpus rather than investment appreciation — and reached $2,410,743 in the most recent filing, matching the foundation's current on-file asset figure. Officer/trustee compensation is $0 in every year reviewed, confirming an all-volunteer trustee model with no paid staff. On the recipient side, the matched grantee dataset shows 100% concentration: 5 grants, $360,000 total, averaging $72,000 per grant, all to the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, all coded 'GENERAL SUPPORT' with no restricted or project-specific purposes recorded. There is no evidence of any other program area, geography, or grant size tier — this is a single-recipient foundation by every metric in the data reviewed, not a diversified 'Philanthropy & Grantmaking' program despite the T20Z NTEE classification. Payout discipline is conservative: in 2023, grants paid of $50,000 against assets of $2.06 million is roughly a 2.4% payout, and total giving (grants plus other charitable disbursements) of $60,939 that year against the same asset base is roughly 3.0% — both below the IRS 5% minimum-distribution benchmark for that single year in isolation, consistent with a foundation prioritizing corpus preservation over aggressive distribution. Revenue is investment-driven (net investment income of $50,950 in 2023, $100,763 in 2022, $114,493 in 2021), not contribution-driven in most years, apart from the 2022 capital infusion.

All five peers sit within roughly $130,000 of Cottonwood's $2,410,743 in assets and share its NTEE classification (T20Z, Philanthropy & Grantmaking), and none have a public website on file — a pattern typical of small, single-family trust foundations administered by wealth managers rather than program staff. None of the peers' individual application processes were independently verified in this research; the 'Likely invited only' designation reflects the near-universal norm for family foundations at this asset scale rather than confirmed policy. What sets Cottonwood apart even within this peer set is its documented 100% concentration on a single recipient (University of Notre Dame) across every recorded grant, versus the peers, whose grantee patterns were not available in the matched dataset for comparison.

No independent news coverage, press releases, or announcements tied specifically to EIN 36-4156747 were found in web research — expected for a two-trustee, all-volunteer family foundation with no communications function. The most concrete recent signal comes from IRS filing data via ProPublica: grants paid jumped to $141,639 in the most recent available filing, up from $51,225 the year prior and well above the $50,000-$80,000 range typical of 2020-2023. That increase follows a 2022 filing in which total assets nearly doubled (from about $1.08 million to $1.98 million) after a $1,032,985 contribution, suggesting the family added new capital to the trust that is now beginning to flow into higher distributions. No leadership changes were identified — Carol Hoffmann and William Hoffmann remain the sole trustees across every filing year reviewed, from 2011 through the most recent record, both at $0 compensation. No new program announcements, changes to funding focus, or additions to the recipient roster were found; the University of Notre Dame remains the only grantee visible in the matched dataset. Given the lack of any public-facing grants program, 'recent activity' for this foundation is best tracked through its annual Form 990-PF filing on ProPublica's Nonprofit Explorer rather than through news search.

There is no application process to optimize for here in the conventional sense — treat any engagement with Cottonwood Foundation as relationship-based, not proposal-based. First, confirm you are contacting the correct entity: web searches for 'Cottonwood Foundation' overwhelmingly surface an unrelated Minnesota grassroots/environmental grantmaker (EIN 41-1714008, cottonwoodfdn.org, which does publish 'call first' guidance and funds small grassroots grants) and an unrelated California megachurch at the cottonwood.org domain that happens to be listed as this foundation's website in public records — neither of those organizations' guidance, application tips, or funding priorities apply to EIN 36-4156747. Second, recognize the structural signal: `preselected_only: true` and a blank `application_instructions` field in the foundation's own record mean the trustees are not soliciting or reviewing unsolicited proposals — every dollar traced in the available grant history has gone to one recipient, the University of Notre Dame, for general operating support. The single highest-leverage move for a genuinely aligned organization is to work through Notre Dame's own advancement or corporate/foundation relations channels rather than approaching the Hoffmanns or Brown Advisory directly — a warm introduction through the university, referencing the existing Hoffmann/Cottonwood relationship, is far more likely to be productive than a cold letter of inquiry. If you do need to reach the foundation's registered contact, the phone number on file is (919) 913-3802 through Brown Advisory's Chapel Hill office — but frame any call as a relationship or informational inquiry, not a funding request, since this is the trustees' wealth-management contact, not a program office. The most common mistake grant seekers will make with a foundation like this is treating the T20Z 'Philanthropy & Grantmaking' NTEE code or the `accepting_applications: true` flag as an invitation to submit a standard LOI — in practice, both reflect this foundation's IRS classification and boilerplate defaults, not an active open-call program. Budget for no response to unsolicited outreach, and prioritize the peer foundations and any matched open opportunities elsewhere in this research instead.