Helios Foundation Inc.

Helios Foundation Inc. is a closely held, multi-branch family foundation based in Neenah, Wisconsin, administered day-to-day by Schaper Benz & Wise Investment Counsel (paid $75,930-$80,110/year for administrative services) rather than by in-house program officers. Its 10-member, largely unpaid volunteer board spans the McLoughlin, Jacob, Siddall, Kelly, Aalfs and Thomson family names, with John Buchanan serving as Director/President for a flat $20,000. This is less a competitive open-RFP funder and more a family giving vehicle where individual directors appear to sponsor causes in their own home communities — visible directly in grantee geography: Connecticut (22 of 148 tracked grants, concentrated in the Mystic/Stonington/Groton area — Avalonia Land Conservancy, Denison Pequotsepos Nature Center, Fishers Island Land Trust), Minnesota (22, Minneapolis-area arts and public media), Wisconsin (16, home-base Fox Valley), Colorado and Idaho (14 each, Crested Butte/Gunnison Valley and Sun Valley/Ketchum respectively), Iowa (10, Sioux City human-services cluster), and Washington (10, Seattle-area food and housing groups).

For applicants, fit matters more than polish. This is not a foundation built to process a large unsolicited pipeline: the Form 990-PF lists no submission deadline, no application instructions, and 'NO RESTRICTIONS OR LIMITATIONS,' but also shows no evidence of a published portal, staff reviewer, or formal LOI process. Grant sizes cluster modestly — $10,000 to $30,000 covers the large majority of listed gifts — with occasional larger, multi-year commitments reserved for organizations a director appears to have a personal or long-standing connection to (Process Studies International received $190,000 across two grants; Rosecrance Foundation $100,000). Most recipients in the top-50 list show a grant_count of 2, indicating the foundation renews support for existing relationships more often than it funds new applicants.

First-time applicants have the best odds if their organization operates in one of the seven core states above, requests general operating or program support (the overwhelming majority of listed purposes read simply 'GENERAL SUPPORT'), and can identify — through board bios, local press, or a warm introduction — which director's community they align with. A cold digital application with no geographic or relational tie to the board is unlikely to break through.

Assets have grown steadily from $7.74M (FY2019) to $8.06M (FY2024), while total giving has roughly doubled over the same window: $629,532 (2019), $626,347 (2020), $843,277 (2021), $809,484 (2022), and $1,004,571 (2023). Grants paid (checks cut, a slightly narrower figure than total giving) followed the same arc: $525,000 (2019-2020), $720,000 (2021), $690,000 (2022), $890,000 (2023). Longer-run 990 history shows the foundation was much smaller a decade ago — $259,000-$393,500 in annual grants paid across 2012-2015 against $2.8M-$3.1M in assets — so both the asset base and the giving budget have roughly tripled since then.

Notably, Helios pays out well above the 5% federal minimum: total giving equaled 13.2% of assets in 2023, 10.3% in 2022, 10.6% in 2021, and 8.0-8.1% in 2019-2020. That is a generous payout rate relative to corpus size and signals the foundation is not simply preserving principal — a meaningful positive signal for grant-seekers.

The grantee-level dataset covers 148 grants totaling $1,380,000, averaging $9,324 per grant. The visible top-50 recipient list ranges from $10,000 up to $190,000, with $10,000-$30,000 the dominant band for repeat, general-support relationships; the lower system-wide average implies a long tail of additional smaller gifts (likely under $10,000) not captured in the top-tier list. The single largest relationship is Process Studies International at $190,000 across two grants (purpose: 'OORD & FULLER'S PROJECT'), followed by Rosecrance Foundation at $100,000 (recreation therapy at its Jackson Centers) and Ocean Community YMCA-Naik Family Branch at $70,000 across four grants.

Subject matter is broad rather than sector-focused: land conservation and environment (Avalonia Land Conservancy $40,000, Groton Open Space Association $20,000, Trees Water & People $30,000), arts and culture (Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minnesota Public Radio, Center for the Arts, each $10,000-$14,000), human services and hunger relief (World Central Kitchen, Second Harvest Heartland, The Hunger Coalition, each $10,000-$20,000), health and substance-abuse programs (Siouxland Cares About Substance Abuse $30,000, Catholic Charities Diocese of Sioux City mental health services $20,000), animal welfare (Animal Rescue League of Boston, Neenah Animal Shelter), and one international grant (Empowers Africa's Botswana project, $10,000). No single sector accounts for a majority of dollars — this reads as a general-purpose family foundation, not a thematic one.

No matched peer foundations were returned in the underlying data bundle, so this comparison draws on the Wisconsin/regional funding landscape and general private-foundation benchmarks (Candid/Foundation Center norms for foundations in the $5M-$10M asset range) rather than a specific matched peer set.

Helios sits at the small end of the private-foundation spectrum in absolute assets, but its 8-13% recent payout rate runs meaningfully above the typical 5-6% norm for similarly sized family foundations — it is a generous spender relative to its size. Unlike the Fox Valley community foundation or Wisconsin Humanities, both of which run open, published, competitive rounds, Helios offers no visible portal, deadline, or RFP; access appears to run through board relationships and shared geography rather than open competition, which is the single biggest strategic difference for applicants weighing where to spend limited proposal-writing time.

No 2025-2026 press releases, leadership announcements, or program launches were found for Helios Foundation Inc. in web searches — consistent with a foundation that has no communications staff or public-facing grants office. (Searches also surfaced the unrelated, much larger Helios Education Foundation in Arizona/Florida, which should not be confused with this Neenah, WI organization.)

The most concrete recent signal is financial: FY2024 total assets reached $8,060,338, up from $7,615,218 in FY2023, on FY2024 revenue of $1,262,949 (versus $798,556 in FY2023) — growth that appears driven by investment performance rather than new contributions, since the foundation reported $0 in contributions received in FY2023 and FY2021. External aggregator data (Instrumentl) shows the most recently filed year at $690,000 distributed across 70 awards, while the foundation's own FY2023 990-PF data (as captured in this platform's database) shows $890,000 in grants paid across the same approximate award count; the discrepancy likely reflects differing fiscal-year-vs-filing-year labeling between sources rather than a real change in giving level, and should be treated as directional rather than precise.

Board composition (10 directors spanning the McLoughlin, Jacob, Siddall, Kelly, Aalfs, and Thomson family names, plus President John Buchanan) appears stable across the most recent filings available, with no turnover indicated in the data. There is no evidence of a new program, geographic expansion, or strategic pivot — the foundation's most recent behavior looks like continuity of its long-standing pattern of renewing general-support relationships in its seven core states.

Because Helios Foundation Inc. publishes no formal guidelines, portal, or deadline, the realistic path in is a concise letter of inquiry — not a full online application — sent to the foundation's registered administrative address: Helios Foundation Inc., c/o Schaper Benz & Wise Investment Counsel, PO Box 628, Neenah, WI 54957-0628, phone (920) 727-1137. Do not expect a grants-management system or a named program officer to respond; the foundation is run by its volunteer board with administrative support from an investment counsel firm, not a philanthropy staff.

Geography is the single strongest signal of fit. The grant history clusters overwhelmingly in seven states — Connecticut (especially the Mystic/Stonington/Groton area), Minnesota (Minneapolis), Wisconsin (Fox Valley/Neenah), Colorado (Crested Butte/Gunnison Valley), Idaho (Sun Valley/Ketchum), Iowa (Sioux City), and Washington (Seattle) — almost certainly tracking where individual directors and their extended families live. An organization with no presence in or connection to these communities should not expect this to be a high-probability prospect regardless of mission alignment.

Lead with general operating support, not a narrow restricted-use ask. The Form 990-PF explicitly lists 'NO RESTRICTIONS OR LIMITATIONS,' and the overwhelming majority of purposes in the grant history simply read 'GENERAL SUPPORT.' Where the purpose is more specific (recreation therapy, land acquisition, refugee services, substance-abuse data systems), it tends to correspond to a program at an organization the foundation has already funded more than once — suggesting these are negotiated, relationship-driven asks rather than responses to a public call for proposals.

Calibrate the request size to the typical band: most recent gifts fall between $10,000 and $30,000. Six-figure grants (Process Studies International at $190,000, Rosecrance Foundation at $100,000) appear reserved for long-standing, multi-grant relationships, not first-time asks. The most common mistake a first-time applicant could make is treating this like an open, competitive national funder — sending an unsolicited full proposal packet with no geographic tie or personal connection to the board is unlikely to get traction; a warm introduction through an existing grantee, a Neenah/Fox Valley community contact, or a director's known community (per board bios) is the more realistic route.