Glorias Foundation Inc.

Glorias Foundation Inc. (dba Gloria's Foundation), EIN 81-0867572, is not a conventional pass-through grantmaker that nonprofits can approach with a standard proposal. It is a small, all-volunteer operating foundation (six board members, zero officer compensation across all filed years) whose mission is to preserve Gloria Steinem's Manhattan home — occupied since 1967 — as a living archive and organizing space, and to "support writers, activists and itinerant organizers" nurturing the feminist movement. Governance is intensely personal: Gloria Steinem chairs and presides directly, with longtime collaborator Amy Richards as Secretary/Treasurer, alongside directors Abigail Disney, Judaline Cassidy, and historian Paula Giddings. There is no program officer layer, no published RFP, and (per its own IRS filing) no formal application_instructions on file — accepting_applications is flagged true, but in practice the only recurring funding vehicle is the annual Fellowship, which awards stipends to two individuals per year rather than grants to organizations. First-time applicants — meaning individual activists, writers, and organizers, not institutions — should understand there is no LOI-to-full-proposal-to-site-visit ladder here; it is a single-stage application plus reference check, decided directly by "Foundation leadership" (i.e., Steinem, Richards, and the board). Organizations seeking a relationship rather than a grant should instead pursue the Foundation's Partnership and Residency tracks: it has an active archival partnership with Google Arts & Culture, pursues school-curriculum partnerships domestically and abroad, and runs year-long Residencies for allies who are "already instrumental in crafting and leading programming aligned with the Foundation's mission" — currently prioritized around AI and women's voices in tech. A sharp asset jump from $1.82M (FY2021) to $4.44M (FY2022) on a one-year revenue spike of $2.8M signals a major one-time contribution (likely tied to securing the Upper East Side property or an endowment gift) that funded the Fellowship's 2024 launch and its subsequent expansion. Because the board is uncompensated and tiny, warm introductions through the Steinem/Richards feminist-organizing network — Ms. Foundation for Women, Third Wave Foundation, Equality Now, Women's Media Center, all of which trace roots to Steinem's home — will carry more weight than a cold inquiry.

Total giving has grown roughly 5x over five filed fiscal years: $91,055 (FY2019) → $98,133 (FY2020) → $131,956 (FY2021) → $260,319 (FY2022) → $453,900 (FY2023), tracking asset growth from $1.64M to $4.66M (current asset_amount on record is $5,236,398). Notably, the "grants_paid" line reports $0 in every filed year despite non-zero total_giving — consistent with a foundation that spends on program services and individual stipends rather than discrete, reportable grants to organizations. The one program area listed in its most recent filing shows $202,504 in program expenses, mapped directly to the mission statement (support of writers, activists, and itinerant organizers). The only concrete, sourced dollar figures for direct funding are Fellowship stipends: $2,500 per Fellow for the inaugural six-month 2025 cohort (two Fellows, $5,000 total), doubling to $5,000 per Fellow for the twelve-month 2026 cohort (two Fellows, $10,000 total) — meaning direct individual stipends account for only a small fraction (roughly 2%) of the $453,900 FY2023 total giving figure. The remainder funds home/archive operations, Talking Circle programming, and partnership/education initiatives (Google Arts & Culture digitization, school curriculum work). Revenue is contribution-driven rather than investment-driven: net investment income has been minor to zero in every year (peaking at $59,027 in FY2023), while contributions_received swung from $100,011 (FY2019) to a one-time $2,803,926 spike (FY2022) before settling near $434,744 (FY2023) — indicating an episodic major-donor or capital-gift funding model rather than steady endowment payout. There is no geographic breakdown to analyze beyond a hard NYC-Metro residency requirement for Fellows, and no field-of-interest split is meaningful since the mission is single-purpose (feminist movement support); the DB's grantee list is empty (0 tracked grants), which itself reflects the individual-stipend/operating-program model rather than a data gap.

Glorias Foundation Inc. sits among a cluster of small Arts & Culture-classified private foundations with near-identical asset bases (~$5.2M), but its actual practice — an operating foundation running a personal legacy archive and a two-person annual fellowship — diverges sharply from typical peer grantmaking behavior.

Four of the five listed peers have no public website on file, making Glorias Foundation Inc. comparatively transparent by virtue of its active site and Substack presence, even though its funding mechanism (individual stipends, not org grants) is narrower than most Arts & Culture funders its size. Grant seekers evaluating this peer set should treat Clover Fields Preservation Foundation as the more conventional inquiry target and reserve Glorias Foundation Inc. specifically for individual-activist Fellowship applications or institutional partnership proposals rather than direct funding requests.

The Fellowship — Gloria's Foundation's flagship funding program — launched in 2024 with an inaugural six-month cohort (January–June 2025) carrying a $2,500 stipend per Fellow. It was expanded for the 2026 cohort to a full twelve-month term (January–December 2026) with the stipend doubled to $5,000 per Fellow. That 2026 application window opened October 13, 2025, closed November 10, 2025 at 11:59 PM ET, and the two selected Fellows were notified by November 21, 2025 — meaning the window is fully closed as of this report (August 2026); the next cycle would be expected to open around mid-October 2026 for a 2027 cohort, following the established pattern. Since the Fellowship's 2024 inception, past Fellows have worked on disability justice, feminist literature, climate activism, Native maternal health policy, and art — signaling the Foundation values thematic diversity within a justice/organizing frame rather than a narrow issue focus. Beyond the Fellowship, the Foundation has stood up a second track of year-long "Residencies" reserved for allies already leading mission-aligned programming, with the inaugural residency cohort focused on artificial intelligence and ensuring women's perspectives shape the technology — a notable and recent priority addition given AI's absence from the Foundation's original 2016 mission language. Institutionally, the Foundation maintains an active archival partnership with Google Arts & Culture for digitizing and exhibiting materials from Gloria Steinem's home and career, and a retail-giving partnership with e-commerce platform Olivela. No board or leadership changes were identified in this search window; Gloria Steinem remains Chair and President and Amy Richards remains Secretary/Treasurer, the same leadership structure reflected across all filed 990s.

There is no general grant application for organizations at Glorias Foundation Inc. — treat any outreach expecting a standard proposal process as a dead end, and instead pursue one of two channels. First, for individual activists, writers, artists, or organizers: watch for the Fellowship window, which has opened consistently in mid-October (Oct 13 in the most recent cycle) and closed by November 10, with decisions by November 21 — set a calendar reminder for October each year rather than checking the site reactively. Applications require a professional reference, so identify and confirm that reference well before the window opens. A hard eligibility filter that trips up many applicants: Fellows must already have, or be able to independently secure, housing in the NYC Metropolitan area for the full term, and the Foundation explicitly will not assist with housing — factor this into any go/no-go decision before investing time in an application. In your materials, mirror the Foundation's own framing — "human connectivity, empathy, and the generosity of spirit" and work centered on "justice" — rather than generic empowerment or advocacy language; past selected Fellows spanned disability justice, feminist literature, climate activism, Native maternal health policy, and art, so specificity and a clear personal project (not an organizational program) is what gets funded. Second, for organizations and institutions: the more realistic path is a Partnership or Residency proposal, not a grant request. The Foundation's existing partnerships (Google Arts & Culture for archival digitization, school curriculum partnerships domestic and international) suggest it responds to proposals that offer to extend or amplify Gloria Steinem's archive and legacy rather than requests for direct funding. The newer Residency track — reserved for "allies and partners who have already been instrumental in crafting and leading programming aligned with the Foundation's mission" — is explicitly not open-call; it favors organizations with an existing track record and relationship with the Foundation, currently weighted toward AI and women's representation in tech. Given the tiny, uncompensated, all-volunteer board (Steinem, Richards, Disney, Cassidy, Giddings, Levine), a warm introduction through the broader feminist-organizing network that grew out of Steinem's home — Ms. Foundation for Women, Third Wave Foundation, Equality Now, Women's Media Center — will materially outperform a cold email to hello@gloriasfoundation.org. Avoid submitting unsolicited proposals for programmatic or operating grants; the Foundation's own filings list no formal application_instructions outside the Fellowship, and program funding is directed internally to home/archive operations and Talking Circle programming rather than external grants.