Faraway Foundation

Faraway Foundation is a small, closed-door family foundation run entirely by unpaid family officers — Betsy Hall McKinney (President & Treasurer), John McKinney (Director), and Ulli Sir Jesse (Secretary) — out of a PO Box in Tetonia, Idaho, with a Bay Area (415) phone number that hints at a dual Idaho/California family base. Both the foundation's own database flags (preselected_only: true, application_instructions: "__none__", no application_form_url or deadline) and third-party trackers (Instrumentl lists zero live grant opportunities) confirm this is not an open-call funder: it gives almost exclusively to organizations already known to the McKinney family, and cold LOIs or unsolicited proposals are unlikely to be read, let alone funded. The official IRS program description talks about a democracy-infrastructure initiative ("Its Time Network"), but that program received only $4,763 in the referenced filing year — a rounding error next to total disbursements — so applicants should not over-index on that language; it does not reflect where the money actually goes. Actual grantee behavior tells the real story: 66 recorded grants worth $465,143 skew toward general-support checks (nearly every grant purpose recorded is simply "General Support," no restricted program grants) to a mix of large national/regional advocacy organizations (Women Donors Network, NRDC, Mental Health Colorado) and small, hyperlocal Teton Valley, Idaho and Colorado nonprofits (Friends of the Teton River, Teton Valley Trails & Pathways, Teton County Search & Rescue, Community First Foundation). For a first-time applicant with no prior relationship, the realistic path in is indirect: build visibility through the intermediary donor-advised platforms this funder already uses (Community First Foundation, Colorado Gives) or through the women's philanthropy network (Women Donors Network) that has received the largest single grants on record ($110,000 across three gifts). Organizations working in the Teton Valley/eastern Idaho region, or in Colorado conservation, community development, or women's rights, are the closest fit to the observed giving pattern. Expect a relationship-first, multi-year cultivation timeline rather than a competitive proposal process.

Across the 66 grants captured in the foundation's grantee history, total disbursed giving is $465,143 at an average of $7,048 per grant — but the distribution is heavily skewed by a handful of large gifts. The foundation's own typical-grant-size metadata puts the range at $500 (minimum) to $20,000 (maximum) with a median of $10,000 and an average of $10,838 across its 8 most-recognized award sizes; third-party tracking (Instrumentl) independently reports a similar but slightly wider band of $500-$50,000. The largest documented recipient is Women Donors Network at $110,000 across three grants, followed by Women's Donor Network ($40,000, one grant) and Tanzania Well Project ($40,000 across three grants) — together those top three relationships account for roughly 42% of all recorded giving. Below that tier, awards drop quickly: NRDC and Mental Health Colorado each received $20,000, and the bulk of the remaining ~55 grantees received $500-$10,000 general-support checks. Geographically, Colorado dominates with 29 grants, followed by California (16), Idaho (6, concentrated in the Teton Valley towns near the foundation's mailing address), Arizona and Texas (3 each), and single grants scattered across New York, North Carolina, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Wyoming — a footprint that tracks the foundation's stated geographic_focus tags of CA, NY, TX, CO, and HI, though the actual grant data shows CO and CA carrying far more weight than the others. Total annual giving has been volatile: $75,668-$86,700 in FY2019-2020, rising to $126,950-$164,417 in FY2018-2019, spiking to an outlier $2,647,950 in FY2014 (paired with $300,000 in officer compensation that year, versus $0 in every other year on record — likely a one-time distribution or transition event), and then most recently jumping from just $80,698 in FY2024 to $350,744-$366,550 in FY2025, a 4-5x year-over-year increase. Net assets have held steady in the $5.1M-$6.4M range for the past decade, currently $6,425,048.

Faraway Foundation sits in a peer cluster of small, closely-held family foundations with $6.3M-$6.6M in assets — a tier where giving is almost always relationship-driven rather than application-driven, and public grant infrastructure (websites, portals, published guidelines) is the exception rather than the rule.

Four of the five peers (all but Daycroft School) have no public website and no NTEE classification on file, meaning they are functionally as closed as Faraway Foundation — this is a normal pattern for sub-$10M family foundations, not an anomaly specific to Faraway. Daycroft School is the outlier with a public web presence, suggesting it may be a program-operating entity rather than a pure grantmaker; grant seekers should not expect Faraway or the other four peers to publish guidelines, and should instead prioritize warm introductions over cold outreach across this entire peer set.

The most recent available filing (fiscal year ending in the period reported as FY2025 by both ProPublica and Instrumentl) shows a notable acceleration in Faraway Foundation's giving: $366,550 in charitable disbursements per ProPublica (Instrumentl reports a close $350,744 figure for total giving, with 39 awards distributed), up from just $80,698 in FY2024 — roughly a 4-5x increase. Revenue for the same period was $425,091 against $405,261 in expenses, producing modest net income of about $19,830, and net assets held essentially flat at $6.4M-$6,425,048. Leadership remains unchanged and entirely uncompensated: Betsy Hall McKinney continues as President and Treasurer, John McKinney as Director, and Ulli Sir Jesse as Secretary — the same three names appear consistently across every filing year in the record, with no indication of a leadership transition. No press releases, news coverage, or social media activity specific to this foundation were found in web search results; the "Faraway" name is dominated online by an unrelated Web3 gaming company (Faraway/FChain, backed by Lightspeed Venture Partners) and a similarly-named UK autism charity, neither of which are connected to this grantmaker. Absent public announcements, the FY2025 giving spike is the single most concrete recent signal available: it suggests either a larger asset draw-down, a bequest, or a deliberate decision to increase payout, any of which could mean more capacity for new relationships in the current and coming grant cycles.

This is a closed, preselected-only funder — the foundation's own data flags confirm no public application form, no published deadline, and no accepted unsolicited LOIs, and Instrumentl independently lists zero live grant opportunities for it. Do not send a cold proposal to the PO Box in Tetonia, ID (83452-0147) or call the (415) 408-8160 number expecting a response to an unsolicited pitch; treat any outreach as relationship-building, not application submission. The most productive strategy is indirect: (1) if your organization already has a relationship with Community First Foundation or the Colorado Gives platform, both of which appear as actual grant intermediaries/recipients in this foundation's own giving history, use that channel — it's a documented path money has flowed through before; (2) if your work touches women's philanthropy or donor organizing, note that Women Donors Network and Women's Donor Network together received $150,000 of the $465,143 in tracked giving — the single largest concentration in the dataset — so alignment with that network's mission and member base is a strong signal; (3) organizations physically based in or serving the Teton Valley region of Idaho (Driggs, Tetonia, Victor) have an outsized chance given the foundation's local roots — six of the smaller peer-region grantees (Friends of the Teton River, Teton Valley Trails & Pathways, Teton County Search & Rescue, Downtown Driggs Association) are hyperlocal community organizations that would not otherwise be visible to a national funder. Avoid pitching restricted or program-specific asks: essentially every recorded grant purpose is "General Support," suggesting the foundation prefers to fund organizations' core operations rather than discrete projects. Common mistake to avoid: assuming the 990's stated mission (a democracy-reform "Its Time Network" platform) reflects current funding priorities — it received a token $4,763 in program expense in its filing year versus the six-figure sums flowing to environmental, women's rights, and community-development grantees, so leading a pitch with democracy-reform framing is likely to misfire. Given the FY2025 payout spike, timing outreach for early-to-mid 2026 (ahead of the next filing cycle) may catch the foundation in an active giving phase.