Evans Family Foundation

Evans Family Foundation is a small, family-run Chicago private foundation (EIN 47-3505767) governed by Christine Evans (President), Michael Evans (Treasurer) and Ryan Kendall Pierce (Secretary) — all uncompensated, signaling a lean, hands-on operation rather than a staffed program office. The foundation's own website is unambiguous: it 'does not accept unsolicited letters of inquiry or proposals at this time.' This makes Evans a relationship-first, invitation-only funder, not an open-call one, and grant seekers should calibrate effort accordingly.

The grantee roster reveals two parallel tracks. One is grassroots, direct-service Chicago nonprofits addressing Education or Justice — The Dreamcatcher Foundation ($150,000), Breakthrough Urban Ministries ($100,000), Foster Progress ($50,000), OneGoal ($50,000), Healing to Action ($25,000), Link Unlimited Scholars ($25,000), Midwest Access Project ($15,000), Collective Initiatives ($10,000), and Union League Boys & Girls Clubs of Chicago ($5,000). The second is elite higher-education relationships — Northwestern University ($117,000) and MIT ($40,000) — almost certainly tied to family ties or scholarship legacy giving (a foundation news post credits 'Mike Evans '00, GrubHub co-founder' with shaping the family's giving philosophy). First-time applicants outside an existing personal or institutional relationship to the Evans family should not expect a cold LOI to succeed.

Published 2024 eligibility criteria sharpen the target profile further: nonprofits under eight years old, based in the Chicagoland area, working in Education or Justice, with preference for organizations headquartered in the communities they serve and/or led by BIPOC leadership. That criterion set pulled the 2024 grantee list — Ernestine's Daughter, GoodKidsMadCity-Englewood, Edovo, Gyrls in the H.O.O.D., Project OneTen, Foster Progress, and Healing to Action — toward smaller, younger, grassroots organizations and away from the large-university track seen in earlier years. The realistic path in is a warm introduction: through a current or past grantee, a shared board connection, or a recognized Chicago philanthropic intermediary (e.g., a funder collaborative or community foundation) that can vouch for fit before any conversation about funding begins.

Evans Family Foundation gave $557,000 in grants in FY2023 (total_giving $599,324 including overhead), down from a five-year peak of $594,200 in FY2021 and $587,000 in FY2022. The five-year run is $522,200 (2019) → $547,200 (2020) → $594,200 (2021) → $587,000 (2022) → $557,000 (2023) — a gentle plateau/decline after 2021's high-water mark, tracking a broader drawdown in the endowment: total assets fell from $6,994,384 (FY2020) to $5,325,216 (FY2023), and stood at $4,715,058 as of the most recent IRS record, meaning the foundation is spending materially more than its net investment income generates most years (net investment income was just $119,047 in FY2023 against $557,000 in grants paid).

Typical grant size, per the foundation's own reported figures, is a median of $45,000 with an average of $68,400 across a recent 8-grant sample, ranging from $10,000 to $167,200. The fuller 11-grant dataset used for this report (total $587,000, average $53,364) shows the same pattern: a handful of five- and six-figure anchor gifts (Dreamcatcher Foundation $150,000; Northwestern University $117,000; Breakthrough Urban Ministries $100,000) alongside a longer tail of $5,000-$50,000 grants to smaller direct-service groups.

Geographically, giving is almost entirely Illinois-concentrated: 10 of 11 tracked grants (91%) went to Illinois organizations, with a single Massachusetts grant (MIT, $40,000) as the exception — consistent with the foundation's explicit Chicagoland-only mandate paired with occasional out-of-state university relationships. By program area, grants split between Education (Northwestern, MIT, OneGoal, Foster Progress, Link Unlimited Scholars) and Justice/direct human services (Dreamcatcher, Breakthrough Urban Ministries, Healing to Action, Midwest Access Project), the same two buckets the foundation names on its website as Educational Equity and Access to Justice. No multi-year pledges or capital-campaign-scale grants appear in the record — this is a modest, steady, mid-five-figure funder, not a source of transformational capital.

Evans Family Foundation sits in an asset tier ($4.7M) essentially identical to five other small, family-controlled foundations nationally, all classified under the same Philanthropy & Grantmaking NTEE code — a peer cohort defined purely by balance-sheet size rather than by shared program focus, since the comparison data available does not disclose these peers' giving levels, focus areas, or application posture. What distinguishes Evans within this tier is transparency and specificity: it is one of the few in this asset class to publish a mission statement, named focus areas (Access to Justice, Educational Equity), a public grantee list, and explicit eligibility criteria (Chicagoland-based, under eight years old, Education or Justice mission) rather than operating as a silent pass-through vehicle. Grant seekers evaluating this peer set should treat the other five as low-probability, low-information targets unless independent research surfaces their own websites or 990 grant schedules — Evans, by contrast, at least offers a documented (if invitation-only) profile to plan around.

The most recent documented grantmaking cycle is 2024, when Evans Family Foundation distributed $450,000 to seven Chicago-area organizations: Ernestine's Daughter (harm reduction and trafficking-survivor support), GoodKidsMadCity-Englewood (community violence prevention), Edovo (education for incarcerated individuals), Gyrls in the H.O.O.D. (reproductive health and sex education for Black girls), Project OneTen (high-school transition support for Black and Brown boys), Foster Progress (college access for youth in foster care), and Healing to Action (trauma-informed leadership training for survivors of gender-based violence). That list reflects a tighter alignment to the foundation's Access to Justice and Educational Equity language than the university-heavy grants seen in the FY2022 IRS filing (Northwestern $117,000, MIT $40,000).

No 2025 or 2026 grant announcements, press coverage, leadership changes, or new program launches turned up in available web sources — the foundation's own News page has not been updated since the May 2023 'Horizon Benefit 2023' post authored by President Christine Evans. An October 2022 feature, 'Giving Across Generations,' profiled Mike Evans '00 (GrubHub co-founder) discussing how his own scholarship experience shaped the family's giving, which is the clearest available signal of the wealth source and motivating story behind the foundation. Governance has been stable across the IRS filings reviewed: Christine Evans (President), Michael Evans (Treasurer), and Ryan Kendall Pierce (Secretary) all appear consistently, uncompensated, across the available filing years. Grant seekers should not expect a public RFP or newly announced funding round in the near term; the foundation's activity pattern is quiet, annual, and relationship-driven rather than campaign-driven.

Do not submit a cold LOI or proposal — the foundation states directly that it 'does not accept unsolicited letters of inquiry or proposals at this time,' and every third-party aggregator (Grantable, Cause IQ, Zeffy) that has profiled Evans repeats the same finding. Sending an unsolicited packet wastes effort and will not be reviewed.

Instead, invest in fit and visibility before any direct ask. The 2024 published eligibility criteria are specific and should be treated as a hard filter: nonprofits must be Chicagoland-based, less than eight years old, and working in Education or Justice. Organizations that are older, based outside metro Chicago, or working outside these two program areas are not realistic prospects regardless of relationship strength. Within that filter, the foundation shows a documented preference for organizations headquartered in the communities they serve and/or led by BIPOC leadership — reflected in its 2024 slate of Ernestine's Daughter, GoodKidsMadCity-Englewood, Edovo, Gyrls in the H.O.O.D., and Project OneTen.

Build the relationship through intermediaries, not the foundation directly. Because the foundation is small (three uncompensated officers, no program staff visible in filings), the most credible paths in are: (1) an introduction from a current or former grantee — Dreamcatcher Foundation, Breakthrough Urban Ministries, Foster Progress, OneGoal, Healing to Action, Link Unlimited Scholars, Midwest Access Project, and Collective Initiatives are the known relationship network to tap; (2) Chicago philanthropic convenings or funder collaboratives where family foundation principals are likely to be present; or (3) a direct, personal connection to Christine Evans, Michael Evans, or Ryan Kendall Pierce.

When a conversation does open, lead with outcomes language that mirrors the foundation's own framing — 'direct services,' 'lift up and empower,' 'marginalized communities,' 'compassion, trust, equity' — and be ready to speak concretely to organizational age, Chicago-community roots, and leadership demographics, since those are the explicit screening criteria the foundation has published. Given typical grant sizes ($10,000-$167,200, median $45,000), position any ask as a single-year, mid-five-figure partnership rather than a multi-year or capital-scale request; nothing in the giving history suggests appetite for grants above roughly $150,000.