Gift Of Good Foundation

Gift Of Good Foundation is a young, family-run private foundation (IRS ruling date February 2023) established by Shay Goodfellow (President) and Chad S. Goodfellow (Treasurer/VP), with Tia Hanchett as Secretary — all three serve uncompensated, meaning there is no paid staff or program office. The Delaware address on its IRS filings (501 Silverside Rd, Wilmington) is simply its Foundation Source administrative agent; the foundation's actual home and giving focus is Kihei, Maui, Hawaii (P.O. Box 220, Kihei, HI 96753). Its mission statement — to 'support programs & initiatives that help our community thrive' through 'humility, integrity, and generosity' — reads as intentionally broad, but its real behavior is narrow and local: every dollar of tracked giving has gone to Maui-based organizations, and its current public-facing priority is explicit relief for communities affected by the August 2023 Maui wildfires. This is a classic Foundation Source-administered vehicle for a single family's personal, community-anchored giving, not an institutional grantmaker building a national portfolio. The `preselected_only` flag in IRS/administrative data confirms what the absence of any application form, deadline, or RFP process on giftofgood.org already suggests: this funder gives to organizations it already knows or discovers through its own relationships, not through open competitive review. First-time applicants should not expect a formal LOI-to-full-proposal pipeline — there is no stated multi-stage process. Instead, the realistic path in is a warm introduction (a board member, a shared Maui community connection, or direct personal outreach that demonstrates local presence) followed by a short, plain-spoken pitch rather than a grant-writing showcase. Given both directors carry Maui addresses in effect and the foundation's grant history skews toward education and youth-serving institutions (a Montessori school, a college-prep academy, a YMCA) plus an arts nonprofit, organizations that can frame their work as part of Maui's post-fire community rebuilding — especially those serving children, families, and cultural continuity — are best positioned. General operating/unrestricted requests appear well received; the foundation's single largest documented grant ($50,000) was unrestricted general support, not a program-specific ask.

Grantmaking here is still small and ramping up. Per IRS Form 990-PF data, grants paid rose from $0 in FY2021 to $5,000 in FY2022 to $58,500 in FY2023, while total giving (including any administrative/programmatic costs) went from $919 to $43,891 to $91,397 over the same period — a foundation building its giving cadence rather than running a mature annual program. Cumulative grantee-level records show 6 grants totaling $68,500 to 4 unique Maui organizations, an average of $11,417 per grant relationship. Individual award sizes ranged from $1,750 up to $50,000, with a median single-grant size of roughly $5,000. The distribution is top-heavy: one $50,000 general-support grant to Montessori Of Maui Inc accounts for 73% of all documented dollars; the remaining $18,500 was spread across three smaller relationships — Hui Noeau Visual Arts Center ($10,000 across two 'Charitable Event' grants), Maui Preparatory Academy ($5,000 for a 'Therapy Services Fund'), and Maui Family YMCA ($3,500 across two grants for a 'Charitable Event' and a 'Music Program'). Geographically, 100% of tracked giving stayed in Hawaii — there is no evidence of any mainland or national grant. By purpose, the pattern favors general/unrestricted operating support and youth/education-adjacent programming (a Montessori school, a college-prep academy, a youth-serving Y) alongside one arts-sector grant, consistent with a family funder anchoring its giving in Maui's education and cultural institutions during post-wildfire community recovery. On the balance-sheet side, total assets nearly tripled — from $1.87M (FY2022) to $3.96M (FY2023) to $10.6M in the most recent record — and 2023 contributions received alone were $2.1M, implying meaningfully larger giving capacity ahead than the historical $5,000-$58,500 annual grant totals suggest. Net investment income has also been a significant revenue source in some years ($1.25M in FY2021 alone), giving the foundation some income independent of new family contributions.

Gift Of Good sits within a cohort of small, single-family, Philanthropy & Grantmaking-classified private foundations clustered right around the $10.6M asset mark — likely grouped by asset bucket rather than true programmatic similarity, since none of the five publish a website or public grants program either.

What distinguishes Gift Of Good from this peer set is transparency and a discoverable identity: it is the only one of the six with a live public website, a stated mission, and any disclosed grant-level activity, even though its actual giving apparatus is just as informal and relationship-driven as its unlisted peers. For grant seekers, that makes Gift Of Good a comparatively more approachable target within this asset tier — the others offer no visible entry point at all — but seekers should not mistake a website for an open-door application process; all six foundations in this tier operate as closely held, founder-directed giving vehicles rather than institutional grantmakers.

Targeted web searches for 'Gift Of Good Foundation' news, grant announcements, and funding-priority coverage in 2025-2026 returned no dedicated press coverage, blog posts, or third-party reporting about this foundation — expected for an organization of this size with no paid communications function. The most current signal available is the foundation's own homepage, which as of this research still leads with an active appeal: 'Join Gift of Good in supporting Maui Fire Relief efforts!', referencing the August 2023 Lahaina/Maui wildfires. That the messaging has not been updated to a new campaign suggests fire recovery remains the foundation's operative frame for its community giving, even as it also funds adjacent education and arts organizations. The most notable factual development is financial rather than programmatic: total assets grew from $3.96M at FY2023 year-end to $10.6M in the most recent record on file — nearly a 3x increase — which, combined with FY2023 contributions received of $2.1M, points to a significant new infusion of family capital. No leadership changes were identified; the same three officers (Shay Goodfellow, Chad S. Goodfellow, Tia Hanchett) appear across all available filings with no turnover. No new named program, RFP, or public grant cycle was found. Grant seekers should treat the absence of news coverage as normal for this funder type rather than as a sign of inactivity — the foundation's giving history shows real, if modest and non-public, grantmaking activity in each of the last two fiscal years.

There is no formal application, LOI, or RFP process — `application_instructions` and `application_form_url` are both blank in every available record, and the website itself offers only a general contact form/email. Applicants should abandon the mindset of 'submitting a proposal' and instead pursue direct, personal outreach to giftofgoodfoundation@gmail.com or (808) 359-1951, ideally preceded by a warm introduction through a shared Maui community connection, since the foundation's classification as 'preselected only' indicates it typically identifies and vets recipients through its own network rather than through inbound applications. Given all three officers serve without compensation and there is no program staff, expect any communication to be read and decided on personally by the Goodfellow family rather than routed through a grants department — so favor a short, sincere, specific message over a lengthy formal narrative. Lead with Maui/Kihei geographic ties first: every dollar of documented giving has gone to Hawaii-based organizations, so applicants without a genuine Maui presence or connection are unlikely to be competitive regardless of mission fit. Align language with the foundation's own stated frame — community resilience, wildfire recovery, and helping 'our community thrive' — rather than generic national grant-seeking language. Ask sizes should be calibrated to what this funder has actually given: the median individual grant is about $5,000, and even the largest documented award was $50,000, so request amounts in the low five figures are realistic while six-figure asks are not, absent evidence of the foundation's expanded post-2023 asset base translating into larger typical grants. General operating/unrestricted support requests appear to perform well — the foundation's single largest grant carried no program restriction — so applicants need not over-engineer a narrowly scoped project if unrestricted funding better reflects their actual need. Because there is no disclosed funding cycle or deadline, timing outreach around the fire-relief anniversary (August) or in connection with the start of the Hawaii school year may resonate given the foundation's education-sector grant history, but this is inference rather than a confirmed cycle. The most common mistake to avoid is treating this like a large institutional foundation with formal review stages — over-formalizing the ask, or leading with a mainland/non-Hawaii pitch, is likely to be a poor fit.