Grace Us

Grace Us is a small, closely-held private family foundation (IRS 990-PF filer, EIN 75-3093558) run out of Bay Harbor Islands, FL by a four-person board — Caren Callahan (Director/President), Joe F. Pedreira (Treasurer), Frank Letton (Director), and Beth Maizes (Director/Secretary, the only paid officer at $6,535-$11,270/year). There is no program staff, no public RFP, no application form, no listed deadline, and the foundation's own data flags grantmaking as preselected/invitation-driven. The domain listed as its website, graceus.org, actually resolves to an unrelated NYC operations-consulting studio called 'Grace Us Impact Studio' — this is almost certainly a coincidental name match rather than the funder's real site, and applicants should not submit anything there or assume it represents the foundation. Despite the absence of a formal channel, the grant data shows a foundation that funds consistently and repeatedly: 16 of its 22 largest recipients received grants in 2 or 3 separate years, and its giving is heavily concentrated (73% of grant count, and the large majority of dollars) in a single rural corridor — Sonoma, Mendocino, and Humboldt Counties, California, centered on the Petaluma-to-Whitethorn/Garberville 'Lost Coast' area. First-time applicants should read this as a foundation built around personal and geographic relationships rather than a competitive proposal process: the realistic path in is a warm introduction from an existing grantee, a board member, or a community partner already active in that footprint (e.g., Community Foundation of Mendocino County, Trees Foundation partner network), followed by a short, direct outreach email to the foundation rather than a formal LOI. Organizations outside Northern California should not expect a response unless they can point to a specific personal or professional tie to one of the four directors — the small number of out-of-region grants (Colorado, Arizona) look like board-connection exceptions, not open categories.

Grace Us paid $335,675 in grants in FY2019, rising to $404,069 (FY2020), $509,982 (FY2021), and $524,140 (FY2022), then easing to $431,737 (FY2023); ProPublica's FY2024 filing summary shows charitable disbursements back up to roughly $606,863. Across its top 22 disclosed relationships (48 total grants, $1,558,262 cumulative, average $32,464 per grant), the median single grant is $29,150 and the range runs from $9,580 to $75,000 (per the foundation's own typical_grant_size record, n=16). By theme, health and illness-coping funding is the largest bucket at roughly 51% of top-recipient dollars — Cancer Resource Centers of Mendocino ($225,000 across 3 grants), Southern Humboldt Community Health ($200,000/2 grants), Ebeauty Community Inc.'s wig-exchange program ($150,000/3 grants), Heart of the Redwoods Community ($92,604/3 grants), and Abode Contemplative Care for the Dying ($75,000/3 grants) anchor this category. Youth development, arts, and sport account for roughly 22% (North Bay Rowing Club $136,102/3 grants; Ceres Community Project $50,000/3 grants; Creative Sanctuary $54,000/1 grant; Lighthouse Writers Workshop $40,000/3 grants — the one notable out-of-region grantee, based in Denver). Environmental/land conservation is roughly 16% (The Sanctuary $86,000/2 grants; Sanctuary Forest $75,000/3 grants; Mattole Restoration Council $37,556/3 grants; Friends of Lost Coast $34,500/2 grants). The remainder funds rural community infrastructure — a boat-building nonprofit (Petaluma Small Craft Center, $80,000/2 grants), a school kitchen upgrade (Whale Gulch Education Assn, $34,000), and a volunteer fire department's digital radios (Whitehorn Volunteer Fire Department, $16,500/2 grants). Geographically, 35 of 48 tracked grants (73%) went to California organizations, with single-digit counts trickling to AZ, CO, MD, MI, and TX — almost certainly personal-network exceptions rather than open geography.

Grace Us sits in a cohort of small, single-family private foundations clustered tightly around $6.6M in assets — a size band where philanthropy is typically informal, board-run, and non-competitive rather than staffed and RFP-driven.

All five peers are classified under the same "Philanthropy & Grantmaking" NTEE umbrella and match Grace Us almost exactly on asset size, but none publish grantee or giving detail in the available data, and only two (Forum Foundation, W W Reynolds Foundation) maintain a public website at all — underscoring that Grace Us's opacity (no listed deadline, no application form, no funding cycle) is the norm for this peer set, not an outlier. Grace Us is distinguished from this cohort mainly by the transparency the underlying grantee data provides: a decade-long, geographically concentrated giving pattern that a cold applicant can reverse-engineer even without a published program description.

No foundation-specific news coverage, press release, or announcement was found for Grace Us in 2025-2026 web searches — consistent with a foundation that has no communications function and files only the legally required Form 990-PF. The most recent verified financial signal is the FY2024 filing (per ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer): total assets of roughly $6.51M-$6.6M, FY2024 revenue of $490,252 (down from $581,800 in FY2023, driven by a swing in asset-sale and 'other income' lines), and charitable disbursements of approximately $606,863 — the highest single-year giving total in the available record, ahead of FY2022's $524,140. The board composition (Callahan, Pedreira, Letton, Maizes) has been stable across every filing year in the dataset, with no reported officer or director turnover. Given the foundation's small size and lack of any public-facing program office, grant seekers should not expect a press cycle, annual report, or social presence — the 990-PF filing itself, released roughly 10-11 months after each fiscal year-end, is the only reliable public record of new activity, and the most current one (FY2024) is already reflected above.

Because Grace Us has no published deadline, no application portal (application_form_url is blank), and no formal opportunities page, the standard LOI-then-full-proposal playbook does not apply here — treat this as direct, relationship-first outreach. First, ground any approach in geography: the foundation's dollars overwhelmingly serve Sonoma, Mendocino, and Humboldt County, CA (Petaluma to the Whitethorn/Garberville 'Lost Coast'), so an organization based there — or delivering programs there — starts with a real advantage; anything outside that footprint should lead with a specific, named connection to the board (Caren Callahan, Joe Pedreira, Frank Letton, or Beth Maizes) rather than a generic mission pitch. Second, mirror the funder's demonstrated categories precisely in framing: cancer/illness support and coping services, hospice and end-of-life care, environmental/land conservation (especially watershed and forest protection), youth arts and sport, and small-scale rural infrastructure (volunteer fire equipment, school facility upgrades) — these five buckets cover essentially all of its disclosed giving. Third, size the ask to the data: the median grant is $29,150 and the observed range is $9,580-$75,000; a first-time ask above roughly $75,000 has no precedent in the record, while a modest, specific ask (e.g., program equipment, a named renovation, a defined community-health initiative) matches what has actually been funded. Fourth, since 16 of 22 top recipients were funded across 2-3 separate years, position any initial grant explicitly as the start of an ongoing relationship, not a one-time project — the foundation's own pattern rewards continuity. Fifth, do not attempt outreach via graceus.org — that domain belongs to an unrelated NYC consulting firm and is not this foundation's channel; the only verified contact points are the IRS-listed correspondent ("% J Pedreira") and the foundation's Bay Harbor Islands, FL mailing address (1045 Kane Concourse Ste 214, Bay Harbor Is, FL 33154), phone (305) 867-6141. A short, personal letter of inquiry by mail — rather than a mass-distributed grant application — best matches how this foundation appears to operate.