Farfy Foundation

Farfy Foundation is a small, founder-directed private foundation ($7.22M in assets) built around a singular thesis, stated in its own words, that education is "the best equalizer and stabilizer for the development of society." Since its 2019 ruling and first full grant year in 2020, it has funded exactly eight organizations across 18 grants totaling $789,808 — a strong signal that this is a relationship-driven funder, not an open-solicitation grantmaker. Executive Director Liqun Wang (unpaid through 2023) and Director Marco Londei (compensated $105,000-$140,000 as the foundation professionalized in FY2022-23) appear to source and vet grantees personally rather than through a competitive RFP; the foundation's own website lists no application form, no deadline, and no grants portal, and third-party aggregators (Instrumentl) confirm "0 live grant opportunities" and describe the funder as operating by preselection.

The grantee roster clusters around two archetypes: elite research/graduate institutions (UC San Diego, Scripps Research) receiving $130,000-$190,000 in cumulative, multi-year support for women's research fellowships and student apprenticeships, and independent K-12/college-prep schools (The Bishop's School, La Jolla Country Day School, The Menlo School — all San Diego/Bay Area) receiving smaller, recurring tuition-assistance grants ($31,000-$95,000) for underprivileged girls. A single grant to Do Good USA ($100,000, female entrepreneurship) and one to the World Federation of Hemophilia ($20,000, women's health education) round out the portfolio, showing the foundation will fund outside its core K-12/STEM lane when the women's-empowerment thread is strong enough.

For applicants, the practical takeaway is that Farfy behaves like a founder's personal giving vehicle scaled into a 501(c)(3): 72% of grant count goes to California-based organizations (13 of 18), most recipients have 2-3 renewed grants rather than one-time gifts, and every funded mission ties directly to girls' or women's access — education, research, entrepreneurship, or health. First-time applicants without an existing warm connection to Wang or Londei, or without a clear tie to San Diego/La Jolla, face long odds; the strongest entry point is a direct, personalized email introduction to inquiry@farfyfoundation.org rather than a generic proposal, ideally referencing a specific program serving girls or women that mirrors the foundation's existing grantees.

Across the 18 grants captured in IRS Form 990 filings (FY2019-FY2023) totaling $789,808 to eight organizations, the average grant is $43,878 and the median per-organization cumulative total is $97,500 (the midpoint between The Bishop's School's $95,000 and UC San Diego's $100,000-tier awards). Per-organization totals range from $20,000 (World Federation of Hemophilia, one grant) to $190,000 (UC San Diego, two grants) — a range corroborated by UCSD's own 2024 announcement of a $90,000 gift for a student music festival layered on top of a $100,000 apprenticeship-program grant from 2022, meaning Farfy's "large" awards are typically two $90K-$100K installments to the same institution rather than a single check.

Geographically, California dominates: 13 of 18 grants (72%) go to CA-based organizations — UC San Diego, Scripps Research, and three La Jolla/Bay Area private schools — with Massachusetts (Science Club for Girls, 3 grants/$130,858, 17%) and New York (2 grants, 11%) as the only other states funded. By program area, girls'/women's K-12 and college-prep education (Science Club for Girls, Bishop's School, La Jolla Country Day, Menlo — $349,808, 44%) and graduate/research support for women in STEM (UCSD, Scripps — $320,000, 41%) together account for 85% of all giving; female entrepreneurship (Do Good USA, $100,000, 13%) and women's health education (World Federation of Hemophilia, $20,000, 3%) fill the remainder.

Total giving has grown sharply and unevenly: $29,043 (FY2019, its first filing year) to $188,394 (FY2020) to $179,644 (FY2021) to $487,732 (FY2022) to $528,702 (FY2023), before settling to $322,493 across 6 grants in FY2024 per third-party 990 reporting — still roughly 11x FY2019 levels but down from the FY2023 peak. Assets have grown steadily from $6.03M (FY2019) to $7.22M (current), funded mostly by strong investment returns ($503,118 net investment income in FY2021 alone) rather than new contributions — the foundation received $0-$13,000 in outside contributions in any filed year, confirming it is funded almost entirely by its founders.

Farfy sits in a peer set matched almost exactly on asset size ($7.21M-$7.22M) but not on transparency or mission: none of its five closest asset peers maintain a public website, so their giving levels, focus areas, and application processes are undocumented in any source checked.

All five peers are labeled "Philanthropy & Grantmaking" (NTEE) in this dataset, which likely reflects a data-matching artifact (matched on asset size) rather than a true competitive set, since none share Farfy's actual NTEE code (T22, education) or its public web presence. That makes Farfy unusually transparent for its size tier — it is the only one of the six with a live grants-focused website, a stated mission, and identifiable named grantees — but it also means applicants have no way to benchmark Farfy's selectivity against comparable funders; the foundation's own grant history (8 recipients over 5 years) is effectively the only available reference point.

The most concrete recent activity is a $90,000 gift to UC San Diego's Department of Music announced September 3, 2024, funding a new undergraduate course culminating in "The Arcades: An Undergraduate Music Festival," a student-produced concert themed "Living in the Natural World: The Soundscape of San Diego" staged at the Conrad Prebys Music Center in May 2025. That builds on a $100,000 grant Farfy made in 2022 to launch a UCSD student apprenticeship program training eight undergraduates in recording, production, post-production, and archiving as paid student employees — together these two gifts account for the $190,000 in cumulative UCSD funding visible in the foundation's IRS filings.

Executive Director Liqun Wang, quoted in UC San Diego's release, said: "Supporting education is the central theme of our foundation. We believe the arts and music heighten a person's sensitivity to creativity." This signals the foundation is willing to extend its "girls' and women's education" mission into adjacent arts programming when a strong institutional partner is already in place.

Third-party 990 tracking (Instrumentl) shows Farfy distributed $322,493 across 6 grants in FY2024, indicating continued active giving beyond the FY2023 IRS filing captured in this data bundle, though at a lower level than FY2023's $528,702. No leadership changes, new program announcements, or public 2025-2026 grant activity surfaced in web search; Marco Londei (Director) and Liqun Wang (Executive Director) remain the sole officers of record, and there is no indication of any new focus area beyond the founding girls'/women's education mission.

Because Farfy Foundation runs no public application portal (application form and deadline fields are blank on its own site, and Instrumentl lists "0 live grant opportunities"), the single actionable channel is a direct, personal email to inquiry@farfyfoundation.org or a call to (858) 333-4712 — treat this as relationship-building outreach, not a form submission. Timing: with FY2023 giving concentrated in the $487K-$529K range and FY2024 easing to $322,493, the foundation appears to set its annual giving budget based on investment performance (net investment income swung from $503,118 in FY2021 to just $217 in FY2022), so proposals framed with flexible, multi-year asks are more likely to fit its variable cash flow than single-year, fixed-amount requests.

What they look for: every funded organization ties directly to girls' or women's access to education, research, entrepreneurship, or health — a generic "underserved youth" pitch without a specific girls/women's angle is a mismatch. Geographic proximity matters: 72% of grants go to California organizations, and La Jolla/San Diego institutions (UCSD, three local private schools) receive the largest and most repeated awards, suggesting the foundation values in-person relationships and site visibility over remote/national programs. Recipients are renewed 2-3 times on average rather than funded once, so a realistic first ask should be modest ($20,000-$50,000) with an explicit path toward a multi-year relationship, rather than requesting the $90,000-$190,000 amounts reserved for established partners like UCSD and Scripps.

Common mistakes to avoid: submitting a standard LOI template with no personalization (there is no LOI process to submit to); pitching co-ed or boys'-inclusive programming without a distinct girls/women's component; and approaching the foundation as an institutional bureaucracy — with only two officers of record (one unpaid through 2023) and total assets of $7.2M, Farfy operates more like a founder-directed family giving vehicle than a staffed grantmaking institution, so proposals should be addressed to Liqun Wang and Marco Londei by name and echo the foundation's own language about education as "the best equalizer and stabilizer for the development of society."