Global Leadership Foundation

Global Leadership Foundation (EIN 90-0950620) is a small, family-run private foundation at 353 East 58th Street in Manhattan, run entirely by three unpaid officers sharing a surname — Hee Nam Bae (President), Myung Soo Bae (Secretary), and Dae Kyung Bae (Treasurer) — a structure typical of a closely-held family vehicle, not a staffed institutional grants program with published guidelines. IRS records list the mission simply as "Legal Occupancy Repair Supplies," and the foundation's own reported program expenses — $204,340 for that category, $81,858 in interest, and $21,430 in occupancy costs in the most recent filing year — describe building upkeep and debt service, not charitable disbursements. Our database's grantee records show zero recorded grants paid in any fiscal year from 2013 through 2023, and this is corroborated externally: 990 analysis shows charitable disbursements equal to 100% of expenses in 2018-2019, then zero in every year since.

The practical takeaway is that this entity does not currently function as an active, outward-facing grantmaker. The 990-sourced application fields in our data literally read "DETAILS ARE NOT MADE AT THIS TIME" for deadline, instructions, and restrictions — the foundation's own filed language, not a data gap. Multiple third-party nonprofit databases (Charity Navigator, Impala, Grantable) independently describe it as relationship-based and not accepting unsolicited proposals, consistent with a family foundation whose giving, when it happens, flows to people the Bae family already knows. Compounding this, the balance sheet has deteriorated: net assets have gone from roughly flat to negative $755,235, with liabilities (~$4.4M) now exceeding assets (~$3.7M) — a profile consistent with carrying mortgage debt on real property rather than one positioned to fund new programs.

First-time applicants should treat this foundation as a very low-probability, invitation-only target. There is no LOI-to-proposal-to-site-visit pipeline to describe because there is no visible active pipeline at all. Anyone with a genuine personal connection to the Bae family could still test the water quietly, but a cold LOI or proposal has essentially no discoverable precedent of succeeding, and the multi-year zero-grant streak plus widening deficit argue for extremely low expectations and for periodically re-checking the public 990 record (typically filed each May per ProPublica) rather than investing sustained outreach effort now.

No grant-level dollar data exists to analyze — the grantee dataset returned zero grants and no recipient list, which is itself the central finding. What can be analyzed is revenue and expense flow. Contributions received (nearly all of total revenue each year) have been: $193,378 (FY2023), $222,494 (FY2022), $209,667 (FY2021), $102,087 (FY2020), and $191,592 (FY2019) — down from a reported 2016-2018 peak near $276,000-$330,000. Total assets have stayed flat around $3.6-3.9M for a decade: $3,709,563 (2023), $3,680,611 (2022), $3,650,400 (2021), $3,711,275 (2020), $3,654,506 (2019), up from $2,445,760 (2013) and $2,980,364 (2014) — a pattern consistent with a fixed real-property holding rather than an actively managed, growing endowment.

Total giving/expense lines — $262,256 (FY2023), $395,843 (FY2022), $291,078 (FY2021) — are consumed by occupancy, interest, and repair costs, not distributed as grants. The three "programs" on file in the most recent filing are "Legal Occupancy Repair Supplies" ($204,340), "Interest" ($81,858), and "Occupancy" ($21,430) — 100% property/overhead categories, 0% program grants. Net investment income and officer compensation are both $0 in every year on record, underscoring this is an unstaffed, bare-bones vehicle rather than an active philanthropy.

External 990 analysis (ProPublica) confirms the foundation is running a structural deficit: negative net assets widened from -$106,033 in 2019 to roughly -$755,235 in the most recent year, against liabilities of about $4.4M versus $3.7M in assets. There is no program-area or geographic breakdown to report by percentage, because there is no recorded grant-level giving underlying it. Grant seekers should not expect a "typical grant size" figure from this profile — the honest financial read is that essentially all outflow currently services the foundation's own property and debt rather than third-party charitable programs, a pattern that has held for at least five consecutive filing years.

Global Leadership Foundation sits within a cluster of similarly small, International-focus (NTEE "Q") private foundations with asset bases in the $3.5-3.9M range, but its financial trajectory diverges sharply from what a healthy small foundation of this size should show.

Asset size alone puts Global Leadership Foundation squarely in the middle of this peer set, but it is the only one of the six with a documented multi-year run of zero charitable disbursements and a negative, worsening net-asset position. Peers such as Azimuth World Foundation at least maintain a public website, giving grant seekers a legitimate first point of contact that does not exist for this funder. Grant seekers targeting this asset tier of International-focus foundations should treat the peer set — not this specific foundation — as the more productive research pool until this foundation's 990 record shows renewed grantmaking.

No foundation-specific press coverage, leadership announcements, or program news tied to EIN 90-0950620 was found in web search — which is itself consistent with an unstaffed, three-person family foundation that does not maintain a public communications presence. The only substantive "activity" signal available is the 990 filing trend itself: charitable disbursements at 100% of expenses in 2018 and 2019, followed by zero recorded charitable disbursements in every filing year since, alongside a widening deficit (net assets moving from roughly -$106,033 in 2019 to approximately -$755,235 in the most recent year on record) and liabilities (~$4.4M) that now exceed total assets (~$3.7M).

A notable research finding worth flagging directly: the website listed for this foundation in public records, globalleadershipfoundation.com, actually belongs to an unrelated Melbourne, Australia-based leadership-coaching B Corp with no stated tie to this entity. Separately, a much larger and more visible "Global Leadership Foundation" (g-l-f.org), an international network of former heads of state and government chaired by Helen Clark and built on F.W. de Klerk's founding legacy, has had genuine 2025-2026 activity — new Fellows and Members, a Head of Operations hire, and a UNGA-week visit by its Chair — but nothing in the available records ties that organization to EIN 90-0950620. Grant seekers researching "Global Leadership Foundation" should be careful not to attribute that unrelated organization's news, website, or programs to this New York foundation. For this specific EIN, the last known major activity of any kind is the 2018-2019 period of full charitable pass-through spending; nothing comparable has recurred since.

Given the absence of any recorded grants since 2019 and 990-listed application fields that read only "DETAILS ARE NOT MADE AT THIS TIME," the most important "tip" for this funder is to verify, before investing outreach time, whether it is currently making grants at all. Pull the foundation's most recent Form 990-PF via ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer (EIN 90-0950620) and check Part XV/Schedule I for any listed grant recipients — none have appeared in any year from 2013 through the most recent filing reviewed here.

Do not submit a cold letter of inquiry or unsolicited proposal through a general contact form; no such channel is documented, and multiple third-party funder databases (Charity Navigator, Impala, Grantable) independently characterize this type of small, closely-held family foundation as relationship-based, funding only where the Bae family already has a personal connection. If your organization or a board member has a genuine, direct relationship with Hee Nam Bae, Myung Soo Bae, or Dae Kyung Bae, that personal introduction is the only realistic path in — cold outreach through the wrong website (globalleadershipfoundation.com, which is an unrelated Australian company) or through generic "International" grant-seeking channels will not reach this foundation.

A common and avoidable mistake would be to research the wrong organization entirely: this EIN is neither the Melbourne-based leadership-coaching B Corp at globalleadershipfoundation.com nor the internationally prominent NGO at g-l-f.org chaired by Helen Clark. Confirm you are looking at EIN 90-0950620 specifically (address: 353 East 58th Street, 3rd Floor, New York, NY 10022) before drafting any materials or citing any of those other organizations' priorities, staff, or news in an application narrative.

Given the foundation's own negative and worsening net-asset position (roughly -$755,235 most recently, with liabilities exceeding assets), it is reasonable to conclude the foundation currently lacks discretionary capital to deploy on new grants even if a relationship existed. The most productive use of time for most grant seekers is to redirect effort toward similarly-sized, actually-active International-focus peer foundations (see the peer comparison table) and to re-check this foundation's public 990 filing roughly once a year for signs that grantmaking has resumed.