Hayswood Foundation Inc.

Hayswood Foundation is a hyperlocal Kentucky/Ohio community funder with roughly $10.3M-$12.9M in assets and $680K-$850K flowing out to grantees annually. It funds almost exclusively within a seven-county footprint (Bracken, Fleming, Lewis, Mason, and Robertson counties in Kentucky; Adams and Brown counties in Ohio) — database grantee records show 87 of 90 tracked grants (97%) went to Kentucky organizations, with only 3 in Ohio, confirming the geographic mandate is enforced in practice, not just stated on paper. First-time applicants should know the Foundation recognizes exactly two eligible purposes: mental/physical health and education. Projects outside those categories, however worthy, will not clear the initial screen regardless of geography, though in practice arts, historical-society, and community-development grants do get funded when framed as youth education or community health initiatives.

The Foundation runs two distinct funding tracks. Standard grants cap any single organization at 10% of the year's total distributable funds — with roughly $680K-$850K distributed annually, that ceiling lands near $70K-$85K in a typical cycle, consistent with the typical-grant data showing a $34,771 average and $10,000 median across a $3,000-$294,021 range. Major Capital Grants, reserved for construction or large capital improvements, follow a different formula: Hayswood will fund up to one-third of total project cost on a strict $1-for-every-$2 matching basis, capped at a five-year payout period. The largest capital commitments on record — the $1.43M Limestone Family YMCA expansion, the $1M Tom Browning Boys & Girls Club project, and the $750K Kentucky Gateway Museum Center gift — were all built up in installments rather than single checks.

This is a relationship-driven, single-annual-cycle funder, not a cold-LOI pipeline. Applications open in June, close August 1 (August 3 in 2026), undergo compliance review, go to Grant Committee in September, and are decided by the full Board in October. Religious organizations are categorically excluded except for their accredited schools applying for education-specific funding, and grants won't cover repairs to property the applicant doesn't own or endowment building. Recurring grantees — Tom Browning Boys & Girls Club, Limestone Family YMCA, Kentucky Gateway Museum Center, and the Downing Scholarship Program — each show four consecutive years of funding in the record, signaling that once an organization is accepted into the portfolio, Hayswood tends to renew rather than rotate its giving.

Grant sizes at Hayswood are modest and heavily skewed by a handful of large recurring commitments. Database typical-grant data puts the median at $10,000 and average at $34,771 across a $3,000-$294,021 range (n=20 sampled awards). At the grantee-relationship level, 90 tracked grants totaling $2,589,171 average $28,769 each, but the distribution is top-heavy: the Downing Various Scholarship Program alone accounts for $1,140,620 across 4 grants (44% of all tracked dollars), followed by Tom Browning Boys & Girls Club at $383,676 (4 grants), Kentucky Gateway Museum Center at $172,750 (4 grants), Maysville Players at $127,880, and Limestone Family YMCA and Wald Park Inc. tied at $103,000 each (4 grants apiece). Below that top tier, a long tail of grants runs $5,000-$40,000, with a number of one-time awards under $10,000 to smaller community groups; one entry (St. Augustine School, -$5,000) reflects a repayment or accounting adjustment rather than a new award.

Financial filings show total giving oscillating rather than trending in one direction: $826,149 (FY2019) to $740,310 (FY2020) to $666,285 (FY2021, the low point) to $852,836 (FY2022, the high point) to $829,809 (FY2023). Grants paid alone (excluding scholarship administration) ranged from $517,736 (2021) to $695,424 (2022). Total assets, by contrast, climbed steadily — $8.80M (2019) to $10.34M (2023 filing) to $12.87M in the most current valuation, a roughly 24% gain since the last filed Form 990. Officer compensation for Executive Director Lloyd Schiltz held flat at $35,000 across the two most recent filing years.

By purpose, education dominates (led by the $1.14M Downing scholarship fund plus school and college grants), community development is the second-largest bucket (Limestone YMCA, Wald Park, Maysville Initiatives, Ohio Valley Artist Guild, Limestone Ministries, Bracken County Historical Society — roughly $310K combined), youth recreation totals near $394K (led by the Boys & Girls Club), protection-of-youth programs (CASA, Buffalo Trace Children's Advocacy) total roughly $88K, and direct community health/welfare grants (Women's Crisis Center, Red Cross, Pregnancy Resource Center) are comparatively modest at roughly $42K combined.

The five foundations the database surfaces as peers are asset-matched — each within roughly $12.86M-$12.88M, essentially identical to Hayswood's $12.87M — but none share its Kentucky/Ohio geographic footprint or health/education mandate, and none list a public website in the record, suggesting closed or family-run operations with no discoverable application process.

Despite the near-identical asset size, Hayswood stands apart as the only foundation in this set with a documented, public grant program: published deadlines, a stated matching formula for capital grants, an online recent-recipients list, and a traceable giving history dating back to its 1973 founding as Hayswood Hospital Foundation. That transparency is itself a strategic advantage for applicants — a funder that publishes exact deadlines and match ratios is far easier to plan a proposal calendar around than a closed family vehicle with no public intake process. Grant seekers outside Hayswood's seven-county service area should treat these five as asset-bracket comparables only, not as alternative funding leads.

Hayswood's most concrete recent activity is the 2025 grant cycle, whose recipient list (posted on hayswood.org) shows roughly two dozen awards across the service area: American Red Cross - Bluegrass Area for post-fire family assistance, Cancer Fighters United for cancer-support supplies, Maysville Hands of Hope for facility rent assistance, ION Center for Violence Prevention for a storage building and parking expansion, and continuing support for long-standing partners like the Tom Browning Boys & Girls Club, Limestone Family YMCA, and Kentucky Gateway Museum Center. Per the Foundation's standard governance calendar, those awards were vetted by the Grant Committee in September 2025 and approved by the Board in October 2025.

The Foundation opened its 2026 grant cycle in June 2026 with application forms available on its website and a submission deadline of 5:00 p.m. Monday, August 3, 2026 — shifted two days later than the standard August 1 date because it fell on a weekend. Scholarship applications for 2025 were also posted for the Foundation's seven named programs (Downing, DeSpain, Stahl, Moore, Reetz, Ruble, and Browning), continuing a scholarship initiative that has distributed nearly $4 million to more than 172 students since 2000, funded originally by a $3M+ estate gift from benefactor Elsie Hatfield Downing.

No major leadership announcements, new program launches, or capital campaigns surfaced in current news searches beyond the routine annual cycle. The Foundation's ongoing John W. McNeill, III Performance Series Fund, which has organized musical performances for the Maysville community since 2010, continues as a standing program alongside the grant and scholarship tracks.

Timing is everything with Hayswood: forms become available in June and the window closes August 1 (August 3 in 2026) with no rolling submissions and no second chances — organizations that wait until late July to start assembling documentation routinely run out of runway, especially for Major Capital Grant applications that require matching-fund documentation already in hand.

The Foundation looks for two things above all: a clear tie to mental/physical health or education (not general operating support untethered from those categories), and a project located within, or demonstrably benefiting, its seven-county Kentucky/Ohio service area. Proposals that lean on generic community-benefit language without naming a health or education outcome are a common and avoidable mistake — even the arts and historical-preservation grants that get funded (Kentucky Shakespeare, Ohio Valley Artists Guild, Bracken County Historical Society) are framed around youth education or community programming, not art for its own sake. A second common mistake is requesting funds for repairs to a building the applicant doesn't own, or for endowment — both are explicit disqualifiers stated in the grant guidelines.

For capital requests, come prepared with the exact match math: Hayswood funds up to one-third of total project cost at a $1-for-every-$2 ratio, and only cash, marketable securities, or appraised land count as qualifying matching funds — government grants, in-kind donations, and service pledges do not. Recipients get up to 18 months to submit matching receipts, and grants exceeding $100,000 face biennial special reviews, so multi-year capital asks should build that review cadence into the project timeline.

Relationship-wise, this is a small-town, phone-and-email funder — hfound@att.net is the stated preferred contact channel over the office phone line. The Foundation's track record shows a strong preference for renewing existing relationships: four of its top-tracked grantees (Boys & Girls Club, Limestone YMCA, Kentucky Gateway Museum Center, Downing Scholarship) show four consecutive years of funding, so a modest, well-executed first grant is a more realistic entry point than a large first ask, and can open the door to sustained annual support.