Damico Family Foundation

The Damico Family Foundation is a small, unstaffed family foundation (EIN 01-0702653) administered out of the Cerity Partners (formerly HPM Partners) family-office in Cleveland, OH, but governed by a Damico/Bianco/Laidley family board that gives almost entirely to organizations with a personal connection — overwhelmingly in Illinois. There is no program officer, no public grants portal, no listed application form, and no published mission or program statement (the DB record shows mission, programs, application_process, and grants_page_url all null, with application_instructions explicitly marked '__none__'). This is a classic relationship-first, trustee-directed foundation: of the 42 tracked grants, 33 went to Illinois nonprofits, 5 to Virginia, and 4 to New York, with essentially every recipient receiving 'GENERAL SUPPORT' rather than restricted program grants. First-time, cold applicants have almost no realistic path in — the foundation's own site (damico.com) is currently a suspended hosting page, it has no social media presence, and no news coverage exists for 2025-2026. The most productive strategy is not a cold LOI but relationship-building: organizations already serving families in the Chicago/Lake Forest, Cleveland, or Northern Virginia areas — especially pediatric health, craniofacial/rehabilitation medicine, youth literacy, and family grief/counseling services — should look for board or advisory connections to the Damico, Bianco, or Laidley family names, or to Cerity Partners' Cleveland office, before investing in a formal proposal. The single largest grantee, Lurie Children's Hospital Foundation ($711,283 across 3 grants), suggests a long-standing personal or philanthropic anchor relationship that dwarfs all other giving; this is not a foundation seeking a diversified pipeline of new grantees so much as one that occasionally adds smaller organizations (many under $10,000) around a stable core of favored institutions.

Across the 42 tracked grants in the dataset, total giving is $1,413,283 at an average of $33,650 per grant — but that average is skewed hard by one outlier. Lurie Children's Hospital Foundation alone received $711,283 (3 grants), or 50% of all tracked dollars, followed by Northwestern Medicine – Lake Forest Hospital at $165,000 (3 grants) and Chicago Children's Choir at $135,000 (2 grants). Strip out the top recipient and the median grant is far smaller: most organizations on the list — Youth & Family Counseling, Northern Illinois Food Bank, Smile Train, Tutoring Chicago, Bernie's Book Bank — received $30,000-$45,000 cumulatively across 3 grants (roughly $10,000-$15,000 per gift), and the smallest gifts (Walk to End Alzheimer's, St Anne School) were $2,000-$5,000. The foundation's own typical_grant_size metadata confirms this bimodal pattern: median grant $10,000, average $26,073, ranging from $1,000 to $268,240. On an annual basis, total giving has been remarkably stable for over a decade before a recent jump: $224,187 (2011), $235,637 (2013), $480,502 (2015), $495,871 (2019), $448,568 (2020), $667,436 (2021), $489,723 (2022), $479,994 (2023), $552,846 (2024, per Instrumentl), and $1,266,107 in the most recent FY2025 filing — nearly triple the decade-long norm, likely reflecting a large one-time or multi-year commitment (plausibly tied to Lurie Children's Hospital). Assets have grown steadily from $4.1M (2011) to $9.98M (2025), funded by contributions from the family (ranging $2,500-$1.75M/year) plus investment income (~$150K-$410K/year). By geography, funding is concentrated in Illinois (33 grantees, likely Chicago/Lake Forest), with smaller footholds in Virginia (5) and New York (4). By purpose, essentially 100% of tracked grants are labeled 'GENERAL SUPPORT' — the foundation does not appear to fund specific programs, capital campaigns, or restricted projects.

The foundation's $9.98M in assets places it in a tight peer band of similarly sized private family foundations, all classified under Philanthropy & Grantmaking. None of these peers have public websites or disclosed application processes either, reinforcing that this asset tier is dominated by quiet, trustee-run vehicles rather than staffed grantmaking programs.

All six foundations sit within roughly $5,000 of each other in total assets ($9.977M-$9.983M), which suggests this comparison set was built on asset proximity rather than mission overlap — none of the five peers have a public website on file, matching Damico's own lack of an accessible grants presence. The practical takeaway for applicants is that this entire tier of ~$10M family foundations behaves similarly: no formal RFP process, board-directed giving, and a strong bias toward organizations the trustees already know personally, whether in Illinois (Damico, Shiffick, Fuchs), Pennsylvania (Berwind), Florida (Rosswood), or New York (Youngwall).

No news articles, press releases, leadership announcements, or media coverage of the Damico Family Foundation were found for 2025 or 2026 — consistent with its profile as a small, unstaffed, non-public-facing family vehicle. The most concrete recent signal comes from its own IRS filings: a Form 990-PF was filed and processed in November 2025, and financial data reflecting the fiscal year was last updated by third-party trackers on January 11, 2026. That filing shows a marked increase in giving — $1,266,107 in charitable disbursements against $1,710,616 in revenue, versus $479,994 given in the prior tracked year (2023) — a roughly 2.6x jump. Net assets stand at $9,981,721, up from $9,240,601 in 2023 and more than double the $4.1M held in 2011. Given that the tracked grantee data shows Lurie Children's Hospital Foundation as the single largest historical recipient ($711,283 across three prior grants), the most plausible explanation for the FY2025 spike is a further large gift or multi-year pledge to that same anchor relationship, though this cannot be confirmed without the underlying 990-PF grant schedule. Leadership has been stable: Joseph F Damico continues as President & Treasurer and Pamela C Damico as Vice President, with Christine V Damico, Joseph D Damico, Lauren D Laidley, Luke G Laidley, Joseph E Bianco, and Lindsay D Bianco serving as trustees/secretary — no changes in officers were identified in available records, and all report $0 compensation, consistent with a purely volunteer family board.

There is no evidence this foundation accepts or reviews unsolicited applications: its DB record lists application_process, application_deadline, application_form_url, and opportunities_url as all null, application_instructions as literally '__none__', and grants_page_url as null, while its website (damico.com) is currently a dead, suspended hosting page with zero content. Do not attempt to submit a cold LOI through a web form — none exists. Practical steps for organizations that believe they have a genuine fit: (1) Identify any board, volunteer, medical-staff, or donor connection to the Damico, Bianco, or Laidley families, or to Cerity Partners' Cleveland, OH office (1001 Lakeside Ave E, Ste 1620) — this is a trustee-directed fund, and warm introductions are almost certainly the only viable entry point. (2) If your organization is a pediatric hospital, children's health/rehabilitation nonprofit, craniofacial or cleft-care organization (echoing existing grantees like Lurie Children's Hospital, Shirley Ryan AbilityLab, Operation Smile, and Smile Train), or a youth-education/literacy nonprofit serving the Chicago/Lake Forest, IL area (echoing Tutoring Chicago, Bernie's Book Bank, Chicago Children's Choir), you sit closest to the foundation's demonstrated pattern. (3) Expect general operating support rather than restricted program funding — essentially all tracked grants carry the purpose code 'GENERAL SUPPORT,' so a proposal built around a narrow project may be a mismatch for how this funder actually gives. (4) Size expectations appropriately: outside of the anchor Lurie Children's relationship, typical awards cluster at $10,000-$15,000 per grant cycle (median $10,000), with a small number of gifts under $5,000 — do not lead with a six- or seven-figure ask unless you already have a multi-year relationship. (5) Because there's no published deadline or cycle, and Form 990-PF filings arrive roughly a year after the fiscal year closes (the FY2025 return was filed November 2025), do not expect timely acknowledgment of outreach; plan for a long, relationship-building runway rather than a single-cycle campaign. The single biggest mistake would be treating this like an open, competitive grant program — it functions much closer to a family's personal giving vehicle administered for tax and investment purposes by its wealth manager.