Guttenplan Family Foundation Inc.

Guttenplan Family Foundation Inc. is a small, family-directed private foundation based at 100 State Route 36 E in N Middletown, NJ, run entirely by three unpaid trustees — Jack, Patsy, and Adam Guttenplan (the family behind Guttenplan's Frozen Dough, the Middletown bakery-supply manufacturer founded in 1908, which shares the foundation's address). With total assets of $5.15M (FY2023) and no paid staff, no dedicated foundation website, no listed grants page, and application instructions on file that resolve to "none," this is not a funder built to process unsolicited proposals — it is a personal philanthropic vehicle whose giving tracks the trustees' own faith commitments, hometown ties, and family network. Of 74 tracked grants totaling $670,907, spending is dominated by evangelical Christian ministries and churches (roughly 55% of dollars, led by three gifts totaling $202,200 to Park Church), with the balance split between Monmouth County, NJ community and human-service groups (about 19%, e.g., Family and Children's Service, Lunch Break, Riverview Medical Center Foundation), NJ/NY coastal environmental work (Clean Ocean Action, $90,000 across three years, ~13%), a handful of national health causes (Memorial Sloan Kettering, The V Foundation, American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, ~10%), and small arts/civic gifts (Count Basie Theatre, Two River Theatre, local fire and police departments). First-time applicants with no pre-existing relationship to the Guttenplan family, their church network, or Monmouth County civic life should treat this as a low-probability, relationship-first target rather than a standard grants program: there is no LOI portal, no published deadline, and no evidence of a formal review committee. Organizations most likely to break in share one of three profiles: (1) evangelical/Christian ministries, camps, or campus organizations with a personal connection to a trustee; (2) Monmouth County (Red Bank, Little Silver, Middletown) nonprofits serving families, health, or public safety; or (3) coastal/environmental groups protecting the NJ-NY shoreline. Realistic entry points are a warm introduction through an existing grantee (e.g., Park Church's network) or a concise, personally addressed letter to Jack Guttenplan rather than a generic proposal.

FY2023 (most recent filed year): total assets $5,149,665, total giving $246,820, grants paid $206,705, funded by $776,139 in total revenue ($445,100 net investment income plus $290,924 in contributions received — meaning the family actively re-funds the foundation rather than living off endowment returns alone). Total giving has been essentially flat to slightly down over five years: $255,972 (2019) → $281,239 (2020, pandemic-era peak) → $271,629 (2021) → $243,119 (2022) → $246,820 (2023), a net -12% pullback from the 2020 high but roughly stable in the $240-280K band. Assets, by contrast, have grown steadily from $4.61M (2019) to $5.15M (2023), and dramatically from $1.23M in 2011 — the foundation has more than quadrupled in size over twelve years even as annual grants paid grew more modestly (from $42,400 in 2011 to ~$207-255K in recent years). Per the multi-year grantee ledger (74 grants, $670,907 total, average $9,066): the median single grant is $5,000 and the typical range runs from $102 to roughly $68,500 (the foundation's own reported typical-grant-size band is min $300 / median $5,000 / max $68,500 / average $11,087 across 23 recent grants). By cause, faith-based ministries and churches take ~55% of dollars ($368,450), led overwhelmingly by Park Church ($202,200 across 3 gifts — nearly a third of all giving tracked); local Monmouth County human-services and community groups take ~19% ($125,132, e.g., Family and Children's Service $46,230, Lunch Break $30,000); NJ/NY coastal environmental work takes ~13% ($90,000, entirely to Clean Ocean Action); national health causes take ~10% ($70,000, split among Memorial Sloan Kettering, Riverview Medical Center Foundation, The V Foundation, and suicide-prevention groups); and arts/civic causes take the remaining ~3%. Geographically, 31 of 74 grants (42%) went to New Jersey organizations and 11 (15%) to New York, with the remainder scattered in small dollar amounts across NC, CO, VT, CA, NH, TX, IL, and PA — almost certainly reflecting the trustees' personal ties to specific churches, camps, and colleges in those states rather than a deliberate multi-state program.

This peer set was matched purely on asset size (all cluster within $2,500 of $5.37M) and shared NTEE classification (Philanthropy & Grantmaking), and none of the five peers has a public website, grants page, or disclosed giving total in the available data — a pattern consistent with Guttenplan's own profile of a small, unstaffed, family-run vehicle. Applicants should not expect any of these six foundations to behave like a mid-size community foundation with published guidelines; all six require either private research (Form 990-PF grant schedules) or a personal connection to identify fit, and none appears to run an open competitive process. At an estimated 5% minimum IRS payout on ~$5.37M in assets, peer annual giving is likely in the same $240-270K range as Guttenplan's actual $246,820.

No news coverage, press releases, leadership changes, or public program announcements were found for this foundation for 2025 or 2026 — expected, since it has no communications presence beyond its IRS filings and does not appear in any philanthropy trade press. The most recent verified financial data is the FY2023 Form 990-PF (filed in 2024), showing $206,705 in grants paid against $246,820 in total giving and a $5,149,665 asset base, funded partly by $290,924 in new contributions from the Guttenplan family that year — indicating the family was still actively topping up the foundation as of the last filing rather than winding it down. Leadership has been stable and unchanged across the filings referenced in this dataset: Jack, Patsy, and Adam Guttenplan remain the sole trustees, all uncompensated, with no evidence of new trustees, an executive director hire, or a shift to professional grants staff. The largest identifiable relationship on record, Park Church ($202,200 across three separate gifts), and the second largest, Clean Ocean Action ($90,000 across three gifts), both point to sustained multi-year commitments rather than one-off awards, suggesting the foundation's practical modus operandi is to renew support to a small, trusted circle of grantees year over year rather than to fund new organizations through open cycles. Grant seekers should treat the absence of any 2025-2026 news not as inactivity but as consistent with a foundation that has never had a public profile — the best forward-looking signal will be the next Form 990-PF filing (typically covering the prior fiscal year and filed 10-11 months after fiscal year-end) rather than any press announcement.

There is no formal application process to game here — application_instructions on file are literally "none," there is no grants_page_url, no application_form_url, and no deadline of record, and the foundation's own domain resolves to the family's dough-manufacturing business rather than a philanthropy site. Treat this as a closed, trustee-directed funder and adjust tactics accordingly: (1) Do not submit a cold LOI through a generic grant portal — none exists, and aggregator sites (Instrumentl, GrantAdvisor, Grantable) show zero applicant reviews or documented response patterns, meaning even seasoned grant-seekers have found no consistent public intake channel. (2) The single strongest lever is relationship and alignment: the grantee ledger is dominated by evangelical Christian ministries (Park Church, Summit Church, Camp Berea, Fellowship of Christian Athletes, Jews for Jesus, Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, Cru) — organizations with an existing tie to one of these groups, or to a Monmouth County NJ church network, have a materially better shot than an unaffiliated national nonprofit. (3) Local geography matters nearly as much as faith alignment: 42% of grants by count go to New Jersey, concentrated in Middletown/Red Bank/Little Silver — a hyper-local Monmouth County service organization (fire, police, hospital foundation, food pantry) fits the observed pattern even without a religious angle. (4) Gift sizes are modest and should be requested accordingly — median $5,000, with the $60-70K ceiling reserved for the family's closest, longest-standing relationship (Park Church); a first-time ask above roughly $10,000 is out of step with 90% of the grant history. (5) Because there's no published cycle, timing outreach to align with the foundation's fiscal year-end and its pattern of taking in fresh family contributions (largest inflow years: 2019, 2020, 2023) may modestly improve odds, but there is no evidence of a seasonal review calendar to exploit. (6) The most realistic path in is a short, personal letter mailed to "Jack Guttenplan" at the foundation's registered address, referencing any shared community, church, or personal connection — not a boilerplate proposal packet — since every signal in this profile points to trustee discretion rather than committee review.