Galloway Family Foundation

The Galloway Family Foundation is a small, all-volunteer private trust run entirely by two individuals — Bruce and Susan Galloway of Bainbridge Island, WA — who serve as trustees without compensation. Ruled tax-exempt in December 2001, it holds roughly $1.14 million in assets and has no staff, published program officer, or grants office. Its only public web presence is a bare GoDaddy landing page reading 'Empowering Communities Through Giving,' with a two-field contact form and no listed programs, deadlines, or application instructions; the foundation's own registry data marks the application_instructions field blank and flags it as giving to a pre-selected set of recipients. This is the profile of a closely-held, relationship-driven funder, not an institution with a competitive RFP process. Its disclosed grantee list — Upaya Social Ventures (Seattle-based impact investor funding job creation in developing countries), MCE Social Capital (San Francisco-based loan-guarantee fund for microfinance institutions), and One Acre Fund (smallholder farmer support in Sub-Saharan Africa) — points to a consistent, narrow thesis: market-based, social-enterprise approaches to poverty alleviation in the developing world, not general local community giving. A fourth grant went to the family's own 'Galloway Family Charitable Fund,' suggesting some giving is routed through an internal donor-advised vehicle rather than directly to outside nonprofits. First-time applicants should treat this as an effectively closed, invitation-style funder: there is no LOI-to-full-proposal ladder, no site-visit process, and no evidence of active new-grantee sourcing in the filings — the same handful of mission-aligned organizations appear to be re-funded year over year. Organizations without a direct fit to microfinance, impact investing, or agricultural/economic development in low-income countries are unlikely to be a match regardless of approach. For those that do fit, the realistic path in is a short, personal introduction through the website's contact form or a warm connection to the Galloways, not a formal grant application.

Giving has been volatile and, in recent years, shrinking. Total giving by fiscal year: $76,587 (2019, the peak in the available data) → $54,458 (2020) → $56,504 (2021) → $17,850 (2022) → $14,232 (2023, the lowest level since 2014's $16,505). Grants paid tell the same story: $53,511 (2019) → $41,273 (2020) → $47,050 (2021) → $12,275 (2022) → $13,730 (2023) — roughly a 74% drop from peak to trough. Assets have held steady near $1.04-$1.14 million since 2019, built up from just $279,750 in 2011 via two large one-time contributions ($158,440 in 2013 and $45,471-$58,244 in 2019-2020); no new contributions have been received since 2020, so current giving is funded almost entirely by modest annual investment income ($10,020-$32,215/year). Among the four disclosed external and internal grantees (five total grants, $85,330 combined, averaging $17,066 each), individual grant sizes range from $8,250 (One Acre Fund, smallholder agriculture) to $38,800 (the foundation's own Galloway Family Charitable Fund, an internal transfer rather than an outside grant). Excluding that internal transfer, grants to outside nonprofits cluster tightly in the $8,250-$13,730 range — this is a modest funder writing small checks, not a major grantmaker. By program area, 100% of disclosed external giving (3 of 4 grantee relationships) supports market-based international poverty alleviation: microfinance loan guarantees, smallholder farmer support, and job-creation investing in developing economies. Geographically, grantee organizations are headquartered in WA (3), CA (1), and IL (1), though the underlying charitable work is concentrated overseas in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. With grants paid now running near or below a standard 5% payout on $1.1M in assets (~$55,000), prospective applicants should size expectations modestly and expect the available new-grant pool to be thin.

The Galloway Family Foundation sits in a cluster of similarly tiny, asset-matched private foundations, all classified under the same 'Philanthropy & Grantmaking' NTEE category and all holding right around $1.14 million in assets. None of the five closest peers by asset size disclose a website, so — like Galloway — they are effectively invisible outside their IRS filings.

The near-identical asset totals across all six entries reflect an asset-based peer match rather than shared programmatic focus — these foundations span five different states with no evidence of coordinated giving. Galloway is distinguishable from this peer set mainly by having an actual disclosed programmatic thesis (poverty alleviation via social-enterprise models) and a minimal but findable website; most peers of this size have no public footprint at all, which is typical for sub-$2M family foundations run by trustees rather than program staff.

No news coverage, press releases, leadership changes, or 2025-2026 announcements were found for the Bainbridge Island, WA Galloway Family Foundation (EIN 91-2110666) specifically — consistent with an extremely low-profile, unstaffed family trust that has never issued public communications about its grantmaking. Search results for 'Galloway Family Foundation' are dominated by an unrelated, similarly named foundation in Boulder, CO (EIN 26-1616992) focused on human rights, which reportedly made about 12 grants last year in the $500-$20,000 range; that organization's activity should not be attributed to the Bainbridge Island trust. The Bainbridge Island foundation's own website footer reads '© 2025 Galloway Family Foundation,' indicating the GoDaddy landing page was last touched in 2025, though it carries no dated content, news items, or grant announcements. The most recent verified financial data available (FY2023, per the foundation's own filings) shows total giving of $14,232 and grants paid of $13,730 — down sharply from the FY2019-2021 run rate of $47,000-$54,000 per year. Trustee leadership has been stable and unchanged since the foundation's 2001 founding: Bruce and Susan Galloway remain the sole trustees, both uncompensated, with no evidence of staff additions, new board members, or a shift toward a more formal grantmaking structure. In the absence of new public activity, the most useful 'recent' signal for applicants is the multi-year decline in grants paid, which suggests a foundation in a quieter giving phase rather than one actively expanding its grantee roster.

There is no formal application process to follow, so conventional grant-writing playbooks will not map cleanly onto this funder. A few concrete, funder-specific points: First, do not send a generic LOI or grant proposal expecting committee review — with no staff and a blank application_instructions field in the foundation's own registry data, any inquiry will land directly with Bruce or Susan Galloway personally via the website's Name/Email contact form, so brevity and a clear, personal opening line will outperform a formatted proposal packet. Second, lead with fit to the foundation's actual, narrow thesis: market-based approaches to global poverty — microfinance loan guarantees (MCE Social Capital's model), impact investing for job creation (Upaya Social Ventures' model), or smallholder agricultural support (One Acre Fund's model). A conventional 'community development' or domestic human-services pitch is a materially weaker match than the filings suggest the trustees actually fund. Third, calibrate the ask: excluding the internal transfer to the family's own donor-advised fund, disclosed grants to outside nonprofits run $8,250-$13,730 — a first-time relationship should realistically target that range rather than a five- or six-figure ask. Fourth, because the foundation is run by two individuals rather than a program office, a warm introduction through a mutual connection — Bainbridge Island civic or philanthropic circles, or contacts in the impact-investing/microfinance space — is likely to matter far more than the quality of a cold written proposal. Fifth, do not expect a multi-stage pipeline: nothing in the filings suggests an LOI-to-full-proposal-to-site-visit progression: the entire 'process' may be a single email or phone conversation. Sixth, a common and costly mistake would be conflating this foundation with the same-named Boulder, CO foundation (EIN 26-1616992) — verify EIN 91-2110666 before referencing 'Galloway Family Foundation' history or grant range in any materials, since the two funders have different focus areas, different typical grant sizes, and no organizational connection. Finally, given that total giving has fallen by roughly 74% from its 2019 peak, temper expectations about available new-grant capacity in any given year.