Goddard Family Foundation

The Goddard Family Foundation is a small, all-volunteer private family foundation (EIN 36-3499047, ruling date March 1987) run entirely by members of the Goddard family and a handful of trusted associates — A. John Goddard III (President/Treasurer), Christopher J. Goddard (Vice President), Dulcie Keckler (Secretary), Mercy P. Goddard (Asst. Secretary), Barbara Cullen, Sara Adler, and Katherine Viret Page all serve as uncompensated directors/officers. Multiple independent 990 trackers (Instrumentl, Grantmakers.io, Cause IQ, Grantable) confirm what the filings themselves state: the foundation 'only makes contributions to preselected charitable organizations.' There is no public grants portal, LOI process, or published guidelines — application_instructions in its own record is blank. Practically, this means cold, unsolicited proposals have a very low probability of success. First-time applicants should not expect to compete on a written proposal alone; the realistic path in is a personal or institutional connection to the Goddard family, to Loves Park/Rockford, Illinois (the foundation's home base), or to one of the national organizations it has funded in multiple consecutive years. The foundation's 71-grant sample spans Illinois (38 grants), DC (8), Tennessee (6), Virginia (3), Wisconsin (3), and smaller counts in Arizona, Kansas, Maryland, Minnesota, and West Virginia — a geographic footprint that tracks the family's own ties (Rockford business roots, a DC-area policy giving stream, and a Tennessee/Sewanee educational connection, likely tied to St. Andrew's-Sewanee School and The University of the South). Grantees skew toward organizations that already have multi-year relationships with the foundation: 24 of the 38 recipients in the sample received exactly two grants (consistent annual renewal) rather than one-off gifts. For an organization to be considered, warming a relationship through board introductions, shared alumni or church ties, or visibility in one of the foundation's known interest areas (K-12/higher ed, Rockford-area human services, veterans and health causes, and conservative public-policy organizations) is far more productive than submitting a cold LOI.

The most recent full-year filing (FY2024, per ProPublica) shows total assets of approximately $3.05 million, $205,315 in revenue (almost entirely investment income — dividends and realized gains), and $128,707 in charitable disbursements, which made up 81.5% of $157,943 in total expenses. The prior filing year (FY2023) recorded $121,500 in grants paid against $143,209 in total giving and $2,453,215 in assets. Third-party 990 aggregators put 2025 giving at roughly $104,300 across 41 grants, with a median grant of $2,333 — consistent with the foundation's own reported typical grant size (min $1,000, max $5,000, median $2,000, average $2,353 across a 17-grant sample). The DB's fuller 71-grant/$237,500 two-year sample shows an average grant of $3,345, with the largest single commitments going to Illinois Policy Institute ($25,000 across 2 grants), Middle Creek Church ($20,000), United Way of Rock River Valley ($20,000), The Heritage Foundation ($15,000), Rockford Area Arts Council ($12,000), and a cluster of $10,000 two-grant relationships with America First Legal Foundation, Hillsdale College, Judicial Watch, St. Andrew's-Sewanee School, and Turning Point USA. Below that tier, gifts drop quickly to the $2,000-$6,000 range for regional nonprofits (Rockford University, University of the South, Wounded Warrior Project, Shriners Hospital for Children, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Rockford Rescue Mission, Shelter Care Ministries) and down to $1,000-$2,000 for small community and cultural groups (Rockford Symphony Orchestra, Tinker Swiss Cottage Museum, YMCA of Rock River Valley, Chicago Lighthouse). By subject, the visible mix is roughly one-third national public-policy/advocacy organizations (Heritage Foundation, Judicial Watch, Turning Point USA, America First Legal, Illinois Policy Institute, Project Veritas — collectively over $50,000 of the sample), with the remainder split across education (Hillsdale, Rockford University, Rock Valley College, Sewanee-affiliated schools), Rockford-area human services and faith organizations, and health/medical causes. Total giving has grown from a $40,000-$70,000/year range in 2011-2020 to $121,000-$143,000/year in 2022-2023, following a one-time $1.5 million contribution received in FY2021 that nearly tripled the asset base.

The Goddard Family Foundation sits in the middle of a cluster of small, uncompensated, all-volunteer Rockford, IL-area family foundations. Three comparably sized local peers, each identified through public 990 data, illustrate the range:

All four foundations self-report the identical NTEE-style focus mix of Education, Philanthropy/Voluntarism/Grantmaking, and Human Services within Illinois — a strong signal that Rockford's small-foundation ecosystem draws from the same regional donor pool and likely the same overlapping grantee base (local United Ways, hospitals, colleges, and churches). Goddard is roughly 3x the asset size of Rydell and 15x Gummow, but well under a third of Kjellstrom's — placing it as a mid-tier player capable of writing $10K-$25K anchor gifts that smaller peers like Gummow likely cannot match, while still operating with no paid staff or formal application infrastructure, unlike larger regional funders.

No news coverage, press releases, or public announcements were found for the Goddard Family Foundation for 2025-2026 — this is a low-visibility funder that does not appear to issue statements or maintain an active public communications presence. The most concrete recent signal is financial: the foundation's latest available Form 990-PF (covering the period ProPublica lists as its most recent filing, reflecting activity into 2025) shows total assets of approximately $3.05 million, up from $2.45 million in the FY2023 filing, with $205,315 in FY revenue and $128,707 distributed in grants — 81.5% of total expenses. Leadership has been stable across the filings reviewed (2020-2024 vintages): A. John Goddard III has held President/Treasurer/Director continuously, with Christopher J. Goddard as Vice President and a consistent slate of family and associate directors (Mercy P. Goddard, Dulcie Keckler, Barbara Cullen, Sara Adler, Katherine Viret Page). One notable historical transition visible in the officer records: Paul D. Goddard, listed in an earlier filing as Vice President/Director, is noted as deceased (12/29/20), with Christopher J. Goddard and Sarah/Mercy Goddard taking on expanded roles afterward. The defining recent financial event remains the $1.5 million contribution received in FY2021, which nearly tripled the foundation's asset base and appears to be funding the higher $121K-$143K annual grant levels seen in 2022-2024, compared to the $40K-$70K/year the foundation distributed for most of the 2011-2020 period. Grant seekers should not expect a new initiative, program change, or public RFP to materialize — this foundation's pattern is quiet, consistent, relationship-based giving rather than newsworthy program launches.

This is not a funder that responds to a cold, well-written LOI — it is a preselected-giving foundation with no public application portal, no published guidelines, and no listed program officer or grants staff (application_instructions on file is blank, and officer compensation is $0 across all directors, confirming an all-volunteer, low-overhead operation). The single most important strategic step is establishing a real-world connection before submitting anything in writing: look for board, alumni, church, or business ties to A. John Goddard III, Christopher J. Goddard, or the other listed directors, and to the Loves Park/Rockford, Illinois community specifically — 38 of the 71 sampled grants (more than half) went to Illinois organizations. A secondary path is visibility within the foundation's recurring national-policy giving stream: organizations like Heritage Foundation, Judicial Watch, Turning Point USA, America First Legal Foundation, and Illinois Policy Institute have each received funding in at least two consecutive cycles, suggesting the foundation renews commitments to aligned free-market/conservative policy organizations rather than making one-time gifts to new ones in this category — a new entrant here would need a strong existing reputation in that space rather than a first-time pitch. A third viable lane is the education/scholarship track: St. Andrew's-Sewanee School and The University of the South (Sewanee) both appear as repeat grantees, suggesting a personal family or alumni connection to that institution specifically, alongside more local Rockford University and Rock Valley College gifts. Common mistakes to avoid: submitting an unsolicited general LOI (there is no evidence one has ever been accepted — the foundation is a repeat-gift-to-known-grantee model); requesting a grant size above the $5,000-$25,000 range the data supports (only a handful of relationships, like Illinois Policy Institute at $25,000 total, break into five figures, and no single grant in the sample exceeds $10,000 in one payment); and treating this as a program-area-driven funder — the actual driver appears to be personal/family relationship and geography, not a stated mission-fit thesis (the foundation's own website field and mission text in public data actually belong to an unrelated NYC nonprofit, Goddard Riverside Community Center, an artifact of a likely data-matching error — do not reference that mission language when approaching this funder). If an organization already has a warm connection, the most productive approach is a brief, direct letter (not a full formal LOI packet) referencing the specific relationship and requesting a modest amount ($1,000-$10,000) consistent with past giving levels.