Hedco Foundation

Hedco Foundation operates as a closed, relationship-driven funder: DB records mark it "preselected_only," and independent trackers (Instrumentl, Grantable, GrantExec) confirm it "does not accept unsolicited requests for funds." There is no LOI process, no application portal, and application_instructions are blank in the foundation's own records — this is not a funder that responds to cold outreach or a polished cover letter alone. The foundation is small and family-governed: Derek Jernstedt (Executive Director) has drawn steady compensation near $60,500-$60,750 across the last three filed years, Dorothy Jernstedt serves as President, and Jaci Jernstedt as Assistant Foundation Manager, alongside a largely unpaid board including CFO David Dornsife, Secretary Rena Brantley, and directors Roger Schwab, Robert Lowitz MD, Allen Dobbins, Tom Herman, and James Appleton. Several directors' professional backgrounds (medicine, finance) likely inform the health- and hospital-heavy portion of the giving pattern seen in the grantee data. First-time seekers should treat this as a network-in funder: the realistic path is a warm introduction via an existing grantee, a shared board connection, or a professional relationship with the Jernstedt family or another director — not a direct application. Once inside the relationship, the data shows Hedco favors capital and equipment-specific asks (trucks, medical equipment, disinfection robots, construction financing) over general operating support, and it funds a very wide range of causes rather than one narrow niche — 107 tracked grants span hospitals, food banks, homelessness services, higher education, wildlife rehabilitation, and disability services. Organizations should not expect a single-year relationship; the recurring grantees in the data (e.g., Save Mount Diablo and Extollo International each received grants in two separate years) suggest Hedco favors renewing support to organizations it has already vetted over funding one-off requests from new entrants.

Hedco's own most recent grant-cycle statistics show a typical award of $62,912 (median), averaging $56,106, ranging from $11,087 to a $100,000 cap, across 31 grants. The broader multi-year grantee dataset (107 grants, $5,970,974 total, $55,803 average) confirms this is a mid-five-figure funder with a hard ceiling near $100,000 — of the top 50 grants reviewed, sixteen were awarded at exactly $100,000, suggesting that figure functions as an effective per-grant cap rather than a typical award. Geographically, giving is heavily concentrated in California (74 of 107 tracked grants, roughly 69%) and Oregon (24 grants, roughly 22%), matching the foundation's stated geographic_focus of CA and OR; the remaining 9 grants are scattered single awards across TX, CO, DC, GA, NV, VT, and WA. By cause, the pattern skews toward human services and health: homelessness and shelter organizations (Homeward Bound of Marin, Bay Area Rescue Mission, Central City Concern, Bethlehem Inn — all $55K-$100K), food security (Oregon Food Bank, San Francisco Food Bank, White Pony Express, Food For Lane County), hospital/medical equipment (Sequoia Hospital Foundation's disinfection robot, Pacific Vision Foundation's cataract equipment, Houston Methodist's Alzheimer's research), and higher education (St. Mary's College, University of San Francisco, University of Redlands). At the foundation level, total giving has trended down from a $2,958,493 peak in FY2012 and a more recent $2,708,643 in FY2020 to $1,879,774 in FY2023 — a roughly 31% decline in five years — tracking a matching decline in total assets from $18.7M (2012) to $8.0M (2024), more than a 55% contraction. Net investment income has also become more volatile, swinging from $1.19M in FY2021 to $597,606 in FY2023. Grant seekers should read this as a foundation with a shrinking but still real annual budget (roughly $1.7M-$1.9M in grants paid most recent years) rather than a growing one — timing and relationship strength matter more here than in an expanding funder.

Hedco has no peer set pre-matched in the underlying data, so this table draws on comparably structured invitation-only family foundations identified through independent 990-PF research.

Hedco sits in the middle of this group by asset size — far smaller than the Smidt Family Foundation's $69M, but many times larger than the Yih Family Foundation's sub-$3M corpus — and its $56K average grant size is closer to Sills' $10K-$25K range scaled up than to Smidt's much larger seven-figure-adjacent awards. All four foundations share the same governance pattern: family leadership, no open application, and outreach conducted almost entirely through existing relationships, reinforcing that this is standard practice for small California-oriented family foundations rather than something unique to Hedco.

No 2025-2026 news coverage, press releases, or program announcements specific to the Danville, CA Hedco Foundation were found in web search — this is a low-public-profile family foundation that does not appear to issue press materials, consistent with its closed, invitation-only grantmaking model. Notably, the website URL on file (hedco.org) actually belongs to an unrelated organization, the Hiawatha Economic Development Corporation in Iowa, so it should not be treated as a source of foundation news or guidance. The most concrete recent data point is financial rather than editorial: total assets fell from $9,276,021 (FY2023) to $8,038,190 (FY2024), continuing a decade-long contraction, while FY2024 total revenue was reported at $1,138,176. Leadership has been stable — Derek Jernstedt has served as Executive Director across at least the three most recently reported fiscal years (2021-2023) with compensation holding steady near $60,500-$60,750, and the same core board (Dorothy Jernstedt, David Dornsife, Rena Brantley, Roger Schwab, Robert Lowitz MD, Allen Dobbins, Tom Herman, James Appleton) has persisted across the same period with no reported turnover. Grant seekers should not expect to find this foundation in the news cycle; the most current view of its activity is the 990-PF grant list itself, which shows an ongoing, steady cadence of mid-five-figure awards concentrated in California and Oregon rather than any new initiative or programmatic pivot.

There is no formal application to optimize — Hedco's own records leave application_instructions blank and mark the foundation preselected-only, so the standard grant-writing playbook (polished LOI, online portal, deadline tracking) does not apply here. The single most important step is securing a warm introduction: identify whether your organization, board, or leadership has any existing tie to a current Hedco grantee (the data shows repeat funding to organizations like Save Mount Diablo and Extollo International, suggesting Hedco builds ongoing relationships rather than funding once and moving on), to a director's other institutional affiliations, or to the Jernstedt family's broader philanthropic and business network in the Danville/East Bay area. Once a relationship exists, position the ask as a specific, capital-oriented request rather than general operating support — the grant data is dominated by discrete, describable purchases and projects (a Kenworth T370 truck, Skytron disinfection robot, cataract surgery equipment, resident transfer systems, condo construction support) rather than open-ended budget gaps; funders like this respond to concrete, verifiable uses of funds. Calibrate the ask size to $50,000-$65,000 as a realistic median expectation, and treat $100,000 as a practical ceiling — sixteen of the top 50 tracked grants land at exactly that figure. Geographic framing matters: California and Oregon organizations account for 91% of tracked grants (74 CA + 24 OR of 107), so out-of-region applicants should expect a materially harder path unless the organization has a clear California or Oregon tie (as with the Texas and other single-state grants that appear to be exceptions rather than a pattern). A common mistake to avoid is treating this like an open-call funder — cold LOIs or unsolicited proposals sent to the foundation's PO Box (PO Box 339, Danville, CA 94526) are unlikely to be reviewed given the explicit preselected-only posture confirmed across multiple independent grant trackers. Because the foundation's asset base and giving have both been trending downward for over a decade, seekers should also set realistic expectations about renewal size — this is not a funder positioned to significantly scale up any single relationship.