Fleischmann Foundation

The Fleischmann Foundation is a small, unstaffed, family-directed private foundation (EIN 31-6025516, ruling date July 1941) run entirely by Fleischmann and Schlessinger family members as volunteer trustees — Noah Fleischmann (Trustee, Treasurer & President), Blair S. Fleischmann (Trustee & Secretary), Charles Fleischmann IV, Louisa Fleischmann, and Burd B. Schlessinger — none of whom draw compensation. There is no program staff, no dedicated grants website (fleischmann.org actually belongs to an unrelated library-software company), and no online application portal. This is a classic "insider" family foundation: roughly 90% of its ~147 tracked grants over the past several years went to a stable, recurring roster of organizations clustered in the towns where trustees live — Indian Hill/Cincinnati, OH (Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Cincinnati Art Museum, Indian Hill Church, Cincinnati Country Day School) and Chatham, MA on Cape Cod (Chatham Orpheum Theater, Friends of Chatham Waterways, Eldredge Public Library, Chatham Conservation Foundation), with a secondary Vermont cluster (Sterling College, Vermont Center for Photography, Spring Lake Ranch). First-time, cold applicants without a personal or geographic tie to the trustee family should treat this as a long-shot prospect rather than a competitive open RFP funder. The most realistic path in is a direct relationship: a board or staff connection to a current trustee, or an organization located in one of the three core geographies. The application_instructions on file are minimal and traditional — a description of the organization, mission statement, proof of 501(c)(3) tax exemption, and a statement of purpose/use of funds — submitted by mail (PO Box 532120, Cincinnati, OH 45253) or phone inquiry ((513) 621-1384), not a portal. There is no published LOI-to-full-proposal pipeline or site-visit process; given the size and informality of the foundation, expect a single-step paper/mail submission reviewed at the trustees' discretion, most likely on an annual cycle tied to the calendar-year 990-PF filing.

Total foundation assets sit at $7,010,636 (most recent filing), with income of roughly $1.37M in the latest reported year, most of it investment income rather than new contributions — this is a mature, closed-corpus foundation, not one actively fundraising. Annual grants paid have run $139,675-$261,957 in typical years (2011-2022 average ≈ $200,000), but two outlier years break the pattern: FY2013 ($997,955 in grants, coinciding with a $2,465,186 contribution received that year, likely an estate or family transfer into the corpus) and FY2023 ($1,139,130 in grants against total giving of $1,210,232, with net assets falling from $7.70M to $6.76M — a drawdown funding year, not a contribution year). Across the ~147 grants captured in the most recent multi-year snapshot (total $1,616,505, average $10,997/grant), one gift dominates: a single $974,130 award to Dumbarton Oaks accounts for over 60% of all dollars distributed in that window. Strip that outlier out and the real "typical" grant is much smaller: the foundation's own reported typical_grant_size shows a median of just $1,500, an average of $4,754, and a range of $250-$25,000 across 31 individual awards. Recurring grantees generally receive $2,000-$13,000/year, often paid in near-identical installments across 3-4 consecutive years (e.g., Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra $70,000 across 4 grants ≈ $17,500/year; Massachusetts Audubon Society and Project Yoga each $51,125 across 4 grants ≈ $12,781/year; Kestrel Land Trust $31,750 across 4 grants ≈ $7,938/year). Geographically, Massachusetts absorbs 61 of 147 grants (41%), Ohio 37 (25%), with single-digit counts in Connecticut, North Carolina, Vermont, DC, Kansas, Maryland, New York, and Maine. By cause, giving spans environment/conservation (Mass Audubon, Kestrel Land Trust, Nature Conservancy, NRDC, Union of Concerned Scientists), animal welfare (SPCA of Wake County, Harmony Animal Rescue Clinic), arts/culture (Cincinnati Symphony, Spoleto Festival USA, WGBH, NPR Foundation), education (Bates College, Smith College, Miss Porter's School, Sterling College), and religion/human services (Indian Hill Church, Inter Parish Ministries, Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts) — reflecting personal trustee interests rather than a stated program theory.

The Fleischmann Foundation sits at the small end of the family-foundation spectrum even compared to its closely related sibling entities, which share trustees and Cincinnati/Boston geography but differ in program focus.

All of the Fleischmann-named entities are unstaffed, trustee-run vehicles with no competitive RFP process and heavy reliance on personal/family relationships rather than open applications — this is a category-wide trait, not unique to the Cincinnati foundation. The Cincinnati Fleischmann Foundation is the largest by assets among the direct-comparison set but the smallest in terms of accessible, cold-applicant opportunity, since its giving is concentrated on a fixed, recurring grantee list.

Public information on this specific entity is sparse — there is no dedicated foundation website (fleischmann.org resolves to an unrelated library-software vendor), no press coverage, and no social media presence found in this research. The most recent verifiable activity is the FY2024 Form 990-PF, filed June 19, 2025, reporting $165,200 in charitable disbursements against $489,401 in revenue and $7,010,636 in net assets — consistent with the foundation's long-run baseline giving level. The more notable recent event is buried in the FY2023 filing: a $974,130 grant to Dumbarton Oaks, the Harvard University research institute and gardens in Washington, DC, which pushed that year's total grants paid to $1,139,130 (versus a typical $150K-$230K) and drove a net-asset decline from $7.70M to $6.76M. No leadership changes are evident — Noah Fleischmann has held Trustee/Treasurer/President continuously across the filings reviewed, alongside Blair S. Fleischmann, Charles Fleischmann IV, Louisa Fleischmann, and Burd B. Schlessinger; the filings also list a deceased former trustee (Charles Fleischmann III) and his estate as a prior board member, indicating a generational board transition happened at some point but no specific date was found in available records. No new program announcements, RFPs, or strategic-plan changes surfaced in this research — this remains a low-visibility, steady-state family foundation.

Because this foundation has no staff, no public grants portal, and no formally published deadline, standard grant-writing playbooks (LOI templates, portal navigation, program-officer calls) do not apply — treat it more like reaching a family office than a foundation with program staff. First, confirm genuine geographic or relational fit before applying: the data shows an overwhelming preference for organizations in Indian Hill/Cincinnati, OH and Chatham, MA (Cape Cod), with a smaller but real Vermont cluster — an organization outside these areas without a personal connection to a Fleischmann or Schlessinger family member faces long odds regardless of proposal quality. Second, keep the submission simple and match exactly what application_instructions specify: a description of the organization, a mission statement, proof of 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status, and a statement of the purpose and intended use of the grant — do not over-engineer this into a 10-page narrative; the foundation's own paperwork suggests they want a concise packet, not a full grant application. Third, mail or call rather than search for an online form — send materials to PO Box 532120, Cincinnati, OH 45253-2120, or call (513) 621-1384 to confirm the foundation is still reviewing and to ask about timing, since no deadline is published (accepting_applications is marked true in available records, but with no defined cycle). Fourth, aim for a modest, renewable ask: the typical individual grant is $250-$25,000 (median $1,500, average $4,754), and the strongest pattern in the data is small, steady, multi-year support (3-4 consecutive years of near-identical grants) rather than one-time large awards — a first-time applicant is far more likely to land a $1,000-$5,000 award than a five- or six-figure one, and should frame the ask as the start of an ongoing relationship, not a one-off project grant. The one documented six-figure-plus grant (the $974,130 gift to Dumbarton Oaks in FY2023) appears to be a legacy/capital gift tied to a specific family interest, not a template for typical funding — do not anchor expectations on it. Finally, common mistakes to avoid: submitting through a general online grant database contact form (this foundation does not appear to monitor those), pitching a national or unfamiliar cause with no local tie, or expecting a program-officer relationship or site visit — none of that infrastructure exists here.