Durrani Foundation

The Durrani Foundation is a small, family-run private foundation headquartered in Saginaw, Michigan, controlled by Dr. Naveed Mahfooz (President), Asfia Mahfooz (Vice President), and directors Maha Naveed, Misha Naveed, and Anjum Azimi. With $3.68M in total assets (FY2023) but only $27,700-$71,922 in annual giving depending on how 'giving' is measured, this is not a foundation built for open competitive grantmaking — it is a personal philanthropic vehicle for the Mahfooz/Naveed family, and its IRS record shows application_instructions marked '__none__' with a preselected-only grantee pattern. Across the 8 grants on file (totaling $130,900, averaging $16,363 each), every identifiable recipient traces to either a direct family or community connection: the Islamic Center of Saginaw (4 grants, $62,400 combined) and Continuous Charity, a microloan/mentoring nonprofit (3 grants, $8,500 combined). The one outlier, a single $60,000 grant to Great Lakes Health Foundation for 'abroad assistance,' shows the foundation is capable of a large one-time award when a cause resonates personally with the family. First-time applicants should not expect a published RFP, portal, or LOI process — none exists on the record, and third-party trackers (Instrumentl, Grantable) independently confirm zero live open opportunities. The realistic path in is a warm introduction: through the Islamic Center of Saginaw's network, through Saginaw's medical/physician community (Dr. Mahfooz's likely professional circle), or through a shared interest in health access, Muslim community institutions, or small-scale economic self-sufficiency programs (microloans, mentoring). Organizations without a Michigan or Pakistani-American/Muslim-community tie, or without a direct relationship to a director, should treat this as a long-shot, low-probability prospect rather than a core pipeline funder, and should focus limited grant-seeking effort on the state-and-cause-aligned peers below instead.

On the record, the Durrani Foundation has made 8 tracked grants totaling $130,900, averaging $16,363 per grant. The distribution is concentrated in just three known recipients: Islamic Center of Saginaw ($62,400 across 4 grants, 47.7% of tracked giving, purpose listed as 'religious offerings'), Great Lakes Health Foundation ($60,000 in a single grant, 45.8% of tracked giving, purpose 'provide abroad assistance'), and Continuous Charity ($8,500 across 3 grants, 6.5% of tracked giving, purpose 'interest-free loans & mentors'). Geographically, 5 of 8 grants went to Michigan recipients and 3 to Texas recipients — consistent with a Saginaw, MI base plus a secondary family or community tie in Texas. Total annual giving (which includes officer compensation and overhead, not just grants paid) has ranged from $6,300 (FY2012) to $141,336 (FY2022) over the 2011-2023 filings on record, while grants paid alone have ranged from $4,500 (FY2012) to $77,100 (FY2020). Total assets have grown roughly 5.5x, from $668,146 (FY2011) to $3,678,354 (FY2023), driven by episodic large contributions rather than investment returns: $1,003,000 in FY2022, $400,000 in FY2019, and $294,860 in FY2021, against near-zero net investment income in most years. FY2023, the most recent filing, shows total revenue of just $10 (i.e., essentially no new contributions that year) against $71,922 in total giving and $25,114 in officer compensation — signaling the foundation is drawing down reserves rather than fundraising in flush years. There is no visible multi-year program budget, no published payout target beyond the IRS 5% minimum (~$180K on current assets), and no evidence of grants above $62,400 in the tracked history — grant seekers should size any prospective ask well under six figures, and likely in the $5,000-$20,000 range unless proposing something as personally compelling as the $60,000 Great Lakes Health Foundation gift.

The Durrani Foundation sits in a cluster of similarly-sized small private foundations classified under the IRS 'Health' NTEE category, all holding roughly $3.6-3.7M in assets — but none of these peers, including Durrani, publish an open application process.

Durrani is the only foundation in this peer set with a public website domain (durranifoundation.org, though currently returning no retrievable content) and the only one with detailed grantee-level data available, which itself signals these peers are similarly quiet, low-disclosure vehicles rather than actively promoted grant programs. Grant seekers who strike out with Durrani due to lack of a Michigan or family/community connection should not expect materially better odds from this peer group — all five are asset-matched but likely equally closed; a hospital-system-linked trust (Iowa Specialty Hospital Foundation Clarion) or a medical-specialty foundation (Saadi And Salwa Medical Foundation, National Foundation Of Emergency Medicine) may be marginally more approachable if the applicant has a direct institutional or clinical tie, but none of these should be treated as reliable open-competition prospects.

No news coverage, press releases, or announcements about the Durrani Foundation were found for 2025 or 2026 in web search — this is consistent with a foundation that has no communications function and does not publicize its giving. The most recent verifiable activity is the FY2023 Form 990-PF, which reported $71,922 in total giving (including $27,700 in grants paid and $25,114 in officer compensation) against total assets of $3,678,354, essentially flat from $3,617,138 the prior year. The last major capital event on record was a $1,003,000 contribution received in FY2022, which followed a $294,860 contribution in FY2021 and a $400,000 contribution in FY2019 — the foundation appears to receive periodic large infusions (likely from the Mahfooz family's own resources) rather than running ongoing fundraising or public campaigns. Leadership has been stable across the available record: Naveed Mahfooz as President and Asfia Mahfooz as Vice President draw no compensation, while directors Maha Naveed and Misha Naveed have drawn compensation since FY2021 (a change from the no-compensation pattern of FY2011-FY2020). No new program announcements, website relaunch, leadership transition, or public grant cycle was identifiable. Grant seekers should treat this as a dormant-but-solvent foundation: assets are intact and growing via contributions, but there is no indication of an active, expanding, or newly-opened grants program to time an approach around.

There is no published application process for the Durrani Foundation — its own IRS filing lists application_instructions as none, third-party trackers (Instrumentl, Grantable) show zero live open opportunities, and the foundation's website did not return usable content on any page checked (home, about, grants, how-to-apply) during this research. Treat any 'apply now' claim about this funder with skepticism and verify the website is live before referencing it. Given that, the realistic strategy is relationship-first, not form-first: (1) Look for a genuine connection point — a Muslim community, South Asian/Pakistani-American, or Saginaw-area institutional tie is the strongest predictor of fit based on the one clear pattern in the grant history (4 grants to Islamic Center of Saginaw). (2) If your organization does health-related work with an international or 'abroad assistance' component, note that the foundation's single largest disclosed grant ($60,000 to Great Lakes Health Foundation) was exactly this kind of gift — frame outreach around a specific, tangible overseas health need rather than general operating support. (3) Keep any ask modest and concrete: nothing on record exceeds $62,400 in cumulative gifts to one recipient, and the average single grant is $16,363 — asks in the $5,000-$20,000 range are far more plausible than five- or six-figure requests. (4) Do not send a cold, generic LOI to the c/o Dr. Naveed Mahfooz mailing address (3714 Prairie Creek Ln, Saginaw, MI) as a first move — a personal introduction through a shared community or professional (medical) contact is far more likely to be read. (5) Because the foundation appears to fund off periodic large personal contributions (e.g., the $1M inflow in FY2022) rather than steady investment income, its capacity to give may vary sharply year to year — a modest, low-friction ask has better odds than a multi-year funding request. (6) The most common mistake to avoid: treating this like a standard institutional foundation with published guidelines and a review calendar — it isn't one, and time spent preparing a formal LOI packet without a relationship in place is unlikely to be productive.