Gorny Foundation

The Gorny Foundation is a small, closely-held family foundation with $7.26M in assets, run entirely by its two founders — Tomas Gorny (President, Director, Secretary) and Aviva Gorny (Director) — with zero paid staff and $0 in officer compensation across every filing on record. It is administered through Foundation Source, a back-office compliance platform widely used by high-net-worth family foundations, which handles IRS filings rather than grant review. Web research confirms what the underlying data implies: the foundation "only makes contributions to preselected charitable organizations," it typically selects grantees rather than reviewing unsolicited proposals, and there is no published RFP, LOI, deadline, or application form anywhere in the record (the foundation's own application-instructions field is empty, and application_deadline/application_form_url are both unpublished). Cold applications should be expected to go nowhere.

Grantee history shows two dominant relationship channels. First, Tomas Gorny's business base: he is co-founder and CEO of Nextiva, a Scottsdale, AZ cloud-communications company, which explains why 11 of the 41 grants on record went to Arizona organizations, including a joint $100,000 gift with "Nextiva Cares" to Barrow Neurological Foundation for glioblastoma research, and support for Phoenix Children's Hospital Foundation. Second, the Gornys' Jewish communal identity drives the largest dollar volume: American Israel Education Foundation ($300,000 across 3 grants), and a wide network of Chabad-affiliated congregations, day schools, and causes across New York, Arizona, Texas, and Illinois (Intown Chabad $96,000/4 grants, Congregation Beth Tefillah of Arizona $74,000/4 grants, Colel Chabad $50,000, Chabad of North Texas $20,000), plus Jewish Book Trust ($61,000) and the Algemeiner ($50,000).

First-time prospects should treat this as a relationship-driven funder, not a proposal-driven one. The realistic way in is a warm introduction through the Nextiva/Scottsdale business network, an existing Chabad or Jewish-communal connection, or an institutional tie to Barrow/Phoenix Children's — not a generic cold pitch. Multiple grantees (AIEF, Intown Chabad, Barrow, Pardes Jewish Day School, several congregations) received 2-4 separate grants over time, indicating that once a relationship starts, it tends to persist and grow rather than remaining a one-off gift.

The foundation's asset base has held in a narrow band — $7,173,340 (FY2023) to a peak of $8,492,718 (FY2021, following a one-time $6,054,160 contribution that year) — after growing from a $500,000 seed gift in 2011. Annual giving has fluctuated with investment performance rather than following a fixed payout formula: total giving was $428,220 (FY2019), $329,696 (FY2020), $477,935 (FY2021), $483,721 (FY2022), and $333,251 (FY2023), with actual grants paid running somewhat lower each year ($337,150 / $252,000 / $397,905 / $314,035 / $240,700 respectively). Net investment income swung from $5,149,596 in FY2021 down to $180,799 in FY2023, and third-party trackers report FY2024 total revenue of $350,992 (up 67.5% year-over-year, per CauseIQ) with 16 grants totaling roughly $265,236.

Across the 41 grants captured in the platform's grantee history, total tracked giving is $880,070 at an average of $21,465 per grant — but the distribution is highly skewed. The top three recipients alone — American Israel Education Foundation ($300,000/3 grants), Barrow Neurological Foundation ($103,000/2 grants), and The Intown Chabad ($96,000/4 grants) — account for roughly 57% of all tracked dollars. Grant sizes range from $1,000 gifts (Merkos Chabad-Lubavitch Organization, Beyond Vision Music Foundation) up to individual gifts within AIEF's larger $300,000 relationship and Barrow's $100,000 joint gift; the platform's own "typical grant size" calculation (n=9) shows a median of $5,000, an average of $28,000, and a range of $1,000-$100,000, consistent with a foundation that makes many small recurring gifts alongside a handful of large anchor commitments.

Geographically, grant count by state is New York 16, Arizona 11, Texas 6, Illinois 3, District of Columbia 3, and California 2 — a two-pole pattern reflecting Jewish-communal networks concentrated in NY and the Nextiva/Scottsdale AZ business base. By cause, the largest share of dollars and grant count goes to Jewish communal and Chabad-affiliated organizations (congregations, day schools, Passover/Pesach funds, Shlichim programs), with a second cluster in health research (Barrow Neurological, Phoenix Children's Hospital, Leukemia & Lymphoma Society) and a smaller allocation to education/literacy and advocacy causes (AIPAC, the Algemeiner, Jewish Book Trust).

All five foundations sit in a remarkably tight $7.25M-$7.26M asset band and share the same generic "Philanthropy & Grantmaking" NTEE classification, but Gorny stands out within this peer set for actually operating a public-facing website (gornyfoundation.org) with a named, describable programmatic focus — four of the five peers have no website on file at all, suggesting even more closed, personal-network-only vehicles than Gorny. For a grant seeker without an existing tie to the Gorny family's Nextiva/Scottsdale or Jewish-communal networks, this comparison is a useful reality check: this entire tier of ~$7M single-family foundations operates on relationships rather than open competitions, and none of the five publishes an application process, so a generalized cold-outreach campaign aimed at this asset tier carries low expected return regardless of which specific foundation is targeted.

The most substantive documented activity remains a May 30, 2018 gift: Nextiva Cares (the corporate giving arm of Tomas Gorny's company) and the Gorny Foundation jointly donated $100,000 to Barrow Neurological Foundation's Brain Tumor Research Center, earmarked for a Phase 0/2 clinical trial targeting glioblastoma. Gorny was quoted expressing hope the funding would help identify a cure within a decade. Despite targeted searches, no foundation-specific news or press announcements from 2025 or 2026 surfaced — the Gorny Foundation's own grantmaking stays largely undocumented in press beyond occasional grantee-side acknowledgments, in contrast to Tomas Gorny's high public profile as Nextiva's co-founder and CEO, which is covered extensively in trade press through 2026.

The most recent hard financial data available is CauseIQ's FY2024 figures: total revenue of $350,992 (up 67.5% year-over-year), composed of $243,127 in investment/dividend income and $107,865 in asset-sale gains, funding 16 grants totaling approximately $265,236. Notable FY2024 grants cited include $75,000 to The Intown Chabad and $25,000 each to Phoenix Children's Hospital Foundation and Chabad of the Park Cities in Dallas. This tracks consistently with the foundation's own FY2023 filing ($333,251 total giving, $240,700 in grants paid) — a foundation whose annual output rises and falls with investment performance rather than a fixed grants budget (net investment income was $5.15M in FY2021, the year of a $6.05M capital contribution, versus just $180,799 in FY2023). No leadership changes have occurred: Tomas and Aviva Gorny have been the foundation's only directors since its 2011-2012 founding, and no new program areas or initiatives have been announced.

This is a closed, invitation-based funder, and the single most important tip is procedural: do not submit a cold letter of inquiry or full proposal expecting a review process — none exists. There is no listed deadline, no online portal, and the foundation's own records show a blank application-instructions field, consistent with web research confirming the foundation "only makes contributions to preselected charitable organizations."

The productive paths in run through three channels visible in the grant history. First, the Nextiva/Scottsdale, AZ business and civic network: Tomas Gorny's company runs "Nextiva Cares" and has previously co-funded gifts (the $100,000 Barrow Neurological grant in 2018), so organizations with an existing Nextiva corporate relationship or a Scottsdale-area civic profile have a documented precedent. Second, Jewish communal and Chabad-movement channels: the plurality of both grant count and dollars flows to Chabad-affiliated congregations, day schools, and Jewish causes across NY, AZ, TX, and IL, so an introduction through a rabbi, an existing grantee (Merkos Chabad-Lubavitch, a past recipient, is itself a Chabad umbrella body), or a shared communal event is far more likely to be effective than a direct cold approach. Third, Phoenix-metro health institutions with an existing relationship: Barrow Neurological and Phoenix Children's Hospital have both received multi-year support, matching Nextiva's Scottsdale headquarters.

Repeat funding, not one-off gifts, is the norm — American Israel Education Foundation, The Intown Chabad, Barrow, Pardes Jewish Day School, and several congregations each received 2-4 separate grants over time, suggesting that a modest first gift with diligent stewardship reporting can open the door to larger, recurring support rather than a single ask needing to succeed all at once.

Because Foundation Source is a compliance administrator, not a grant-review office, any inquiry should go to the foundation's own Contact page (gornyfoundation.org/site/contact) rather than to Foundation Source generally. The clearest common mistake to avoid is treating this like an open competitive grants program — following up about a nonexistent "deadline," or submitting a generic proposal unconnected to the Gornys' known networks — since the foundation's own stated practice is to fund organizations it already knows. When reaching out, mirror the foundation's own four published pillars verbatim — community, health research, education programs that invest in youth, and global advocacy for interfaith understanding — since that is the language the family itself uses to describe fit.