Foundation Medici

Foundation Medici is not a conventional grantmaker to be pitched with a cold LOI — it is a private operating foundation whose sole IRS-registered mission is 'to provide funds to operate an art museum in Warren, OH' (the Medici Museum of Art in neighboring Howland). Its most recent Form 990 checks the box confirming it 'only makes contributions to preselected charitable organizations and doesn't accept unsolicited applications for funds.' In practical terms, the foundation exists to bankroll its own affiliated institution, not to fund a portfolio of outside nonprofits.

Historically it has made occasional third-party disbursements — $191,000 in 2019, $150,000 in 2015, $50,000 in 2013 — but grants_paid to outside organizations was $0 in 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023, with virtually all of the reported $205K-$357K in annual 'total giving' functioning as an operating subsidy to the museum itself rather than external grants. First-time applicants unaffiliated with the museum's board should expect no response to a standard grant proposal.

One important data-quality note for anyone using this profile: the website on file (medici.org) actually belongs to the unrelated Medici Archive Project, a Florence/NYC Renaissance-archive research institute. Foundation Medici's real affiliated web presence is medicimuseum.art.

Who actually has a shot: Ohio and Trumbull County arts organizations, sculpture artists and estates, and institutional partners capable of offering exhibitions, collections, or co-programming — not cash-grant seekers. The realistic entry point is the museum's executive director, Katelyn Amendolara-Russo (in role since 2021), or its board (Phyllis Cafaro, Ron Klingle, Ned Gold, Sterling Williams, Sam Miller, Chuck George), not a foundation program officer. The relationship progression here runs through exhibition partnership conversations and in-kind collection gifts — as with the two donated Carole A. Feuerman sculptures valued at a combined $1.5M — rather than an LOI-to-full-proposal grant cycle.

Total giving has ranged from a low of $32,232 (2014) to a high of $357,252 (2023), tracking a foundation that spends down capital rather than growing an endowment: 2023 total giving ($357,252) exceeded that year's total revenue ($201,905) by 77%, drawing on principal. The pattern repeats in 2022 ($343,664 giving vs. $307,894 revenue) and 2021 ($347,104 giving vs. $1.83M revenue, inflated by a one-time $1.36M contribution that briefly pushed assets to $7.1M before settling back to $5.35M by 2024).

Assets have held steady in the $5.3M-$5.7M band across 2020-2024 (2024: $5,350,812; 2023: $5,503,953; 2022: $5,657,995; 2020: $5,288,108), funded mainly by net investment income ($119K-$434K/year) plus modest new contributions ($33K-$70K/year in most years). Officer compensation is $0 in every year on file except 2019-2020, when a treasurer role drew $33,529-$43,057 — the board otherwise serves unpaid.

Critically, grants_paid to outside organizations (as opposed to internal program/operating spend) was recorded as $0 in 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023, versus $191,000 in 2019, $150,000 in 2015, and $50,000 in 2013. Where third-party disbursements have occurred, the range ($50,000-$191,000) suggests mid-five- to low-six-figure checks rather than small or micro-grants, but there is no evidence of a recurring, budgeted external grants program — these look like episodic, board-directed gifts rather than a competitive grant cycle.

By program area, 100% of the foundation's charitable purpose as filed is a single line: operating the art museum (one program listed, $130,236 in reported program expenses in the filing year captured). There is no geographic or sector diversification to analyze — this is a single-purpose vehicle for one institution in one Ohio county (Trumbull), and the museum itself, not any outside grantee population, is functionally 'the grant.'

The five peers below were matched purely on asset size (all ~$5.35M) and shared NTEE classification (Philanthropy & Grantmaking) — they are not necessarily comparable in mission, since IRS/990 data does not surface a philosophically similar peer set for a single-museum operating foundation. None of the peer records in this dataset include disclosed annual giving, focus-area detail, or application posture beyond the category label, so those cells are marked accordingly rather than guessed.

What stands out is that Foundation Medici is the only one of the six with a named, single-purpose beneficiary (its own museum) rather than a discretionary grants budget — a structural difference that matters more than the coincidental asset match. Grant seekers evaluating this cohort should treat Foundation Medici as an outlier: its 'peers' by balance sheet size are far more likely, on the whole, to run conventional discretionary grantmaking than Medici is.

Foundation Medici's defining recent event remains its 2019 split from the Butler Institute of American Art, which had operated the Trumbull Branch building on West Market Street in Howland since 1995; that management contract terminated effective December 6, 2019 after a dispute over displaying a $100M Norman Rockwell collection owned by the Boy Scouts of America (which the Butler declined amid BSA's sexual-abuse litigation exposure) and a separate court fight over ownership of a Pierre Soulages ceramic-tile mural. The building reopened in January 2020 as the independent Medici Museum of Art.

Since then, leadership has stabilized around executive director Katelyn Amendolara-Russo, in place since 2021, who oversaw a doubling of the museum's physical footprint via an annex completed around 2021. As reported in Business Journal Daily on March 24, 2025, founding-era foundation director John Anderson stepped down for health reasons, with programming direction now centered on Amendolara-Russo and a board that includes Phyllis Cafaro, Ron Klingle, Ned Gold, Sterling Williams, Sam Miller, and Chuck George.

On the programming side, 2025 brought 'Science Fiction & Hollywood: The Art of John Zabrucky' (through June), the 42-artist 'ZODIAC: Mysterious Power of the Creative' show (opened April 30, 2025, running through January 11, 2026), and Mara Sfara's 'The Light of Tomorrow' solo exhibition (opened July 11, 2025). Looking to 2026, the museum was selected to anchor Ohio's statewide 'America 250'/'Ohio Goes to the Movies' celebration with a fall 2026 exhibition, 'Frequency and Vibration: Soundtracks and Music by Ohioans in Movies' — a high-visibility, state-government-linked partnership rather than a foundation grant announcement.

The single most important tip is also the most counterintuitive: do not submit a standard grant proposal to Foundation Medici. Its most recent Form 990 explicitly states it only funds preselected organizations and does not accept unsolicited applications — there is no LOI form, portal, RFP calendar, or published deadline, and none was found on either medicimuseum.art or in any of its 990 filings.

For arts organizations, individual artists, or institutions that do want to engage, the realistic path runs through the Medici Museum of Art's own operations, not the foundation's grants office (which does not functionally exist as a separate unit). Contact the museum directly — info@medicimuseum.art or (330) 856-2120 — and propose something the museum can act on operationally: a loaned collection, a co-curated exhibition, a sponsorship tied to a named show, or a partnership modeled on the Carole A. Feuerman Sculpture Foundation relationship (two sculptures donated at a combined $1.5M valuation, now anchoring the outdoor sculpture garden).

Because the foundation's own contributions received are modest ($33K-$70K in most years) relative to its $205K-$357K in annual outflow, it is not positioned to be a large outside funder even if it wanted to be — most of its 'giving' is really its own museum's operating budget. Grant seekers hoping for a cash award should redirect energy toward Ohio-specific arts funders with open, competitive cycles (e.g., the Ohio Arts Council, which the museum itself lists as an affiliate) rather than treating Medici as a prospect.

Where Medici genuinely is reachable is as a programming partner: its selection as the exhibition anchor for Ohio's 2026 'America 250' initiative shows the museum actively pursuing high-visibility, state-coordinated collaborations. Organizations with a project that fits that model — statewide cultural programming, film/music history, sculpture, or regional artist showcases — have a more credible opening than any group filing a conventional grant application. Given recent board turnover (John Anderson's 2025 departure), a warm introduction via a current board member (Phyllis Cafaro, Ron Klingle, Ned Gold, Sterling Williams, Sam Miller, or Chuck George) or through the Trumbull County/Ohio Arts Council network is more likely to get a response than a cold written proposal mailed to the Warren, OH address on file.