Herbert Foundation

The Herbert Foundation is a small, young, founder-family private foundation (IRS ruling August 2022) headquartered at the Herbert family's personal address in East Lansing, MI, with total assets of $5.47M. Every officer is a family member: James L. Herbert (founding President, deceased March 2024), Judith A. Herbert (Vice President, now President per third-party filings), Melissa K. Herbert (Assistant Treasurer/VP), James S. Herbert (Assistant Trustee), and Richard C. Lowe (Assistant Secretary). None draw compensation, typical of a closely-held family vehicle rather than a staffed grantmaking institution. CauseIQ and Instrumentl both describe the foundation as selecting its own grantees rather than running an open application process, and the foundation's own IRS record lists application_instructions as none on file — a strong signal this is a relationship-driven, invitation-style funder, not a cold-LOI target. The family's personal giving history is the best predictor of fit: Jim and Judi Herbert (both cancer survivors) personally donated $2.5M in 2014 toward the Sparrow Herbert-Herman Cancer Center and a further $5M to Sparrow Health System in 2023 — the largest gift in that system's history — before this foundation became active. That pattern suggests healthcare access, cancer care, and causes tied to their lived experience and the Greater Lansing/MSU community are far more likely to receive funding than generic proposals. First-time applicants should not expect a portal or published RFP; the realistic path in is a warm introduction through a shared board, the Sparrow Health System network, or a Lansing-area civic connection (the family has ties to the Lansing Regional Chamber and MSU-adjacent institutions such as the Neogen-founded MSU Research Foundation orbit), followed by a short, specific ask rather than a full unsolicited proposal. Given Jim Herbert's death in 2024 and the leadership shift to Judith and Melissa Herbert, organizations with prior informal relationships to the family should check in directly rather than assume past commitments carry forward automatically as the foundation formalizes under new leadership.

Hard numbers are thin because this foundation only recently began active grantmaking, but the available data tells a clear story. Total assets stood at $5,467,839 at FY2024 year-end (per our records) and $5,684,750 at FY2023 year-end, funded by a $8.3M contribution inflow in FY2023 — almost certainly the initial funding event that seeded the foundation, likely tied to the family's Neogen wealth. Payout has been minimal and erratic in the foundation's first two fiscal years on record: $0 in grants paid in FY2022 (against $138,405 in contributions that year) and just $6,294 in FY2023 (against $8.3M in new contributions) — a payout rate far below the 5% minimum distribution private foundations must eventually meet, consistent with a foundation still in its asset-building phase. FY2024 marks an inflection: third-party 990 trackers (Instrumentl) report $400,000 distributed across 4 grants, with a typical award range of $5,000 to $250,000 — implying a median grant size in the low-to-mid five figures with occasional large six-figure awards, similar in shape to the family's personal $2.5M and $5M gifts to Sparrow Health System, just scaled down to foundation-level giving. Our own FY2024 990 read shows total_giving as not yet coded in structured form, so treat the $400,000/4-grant figure as directionally reliable but unconfirmed against the primary filing. No grantee-level breakdown by state, program area, or organization type is available in our database (the grantee list is empty), so geographic and sector concentration can only be inferred from the family's known giving pattern: overwhelmingly Greater Lansing/East Lansing, MI, with a strong lean toward healthcare/cancer care and, per the 990's declared NTEE focus, food/agriculture/nutrition and general philanthropy infrastructure. Given total assets of just $5.47M against a 4-year-old ruling date, this is a foundation still finding its long-term payout cadence — applicants should expect variability year to year rather than a steady, predictable annual budget.

The Herbert Foundation sits among a large cohort of similarly-sized, similarly-young family foundations filed under the same Philanthropy & Grantmaking NTEE category, most with assets clustered near $5.4-5.5M and no public-facing grant program. Below is a comparison against five peers pulled from our database with matching asset scale:

All six foundations in this peer set are essentially identical in asset size — a strong sign they're being compared by our system on balance-sheet scale alone rather than mission overlap, since our database has no giving detail on the five peers to compare against Herbert's activity. What distinguishes the Herbert Foundation from this generic peer set is public documentation: unlike the peers (none of which have a discoverable website or press footprint), Herbert Foundation traces back to a well-known regional business figure (Neogen founder Jim Herbert) with an established, documented philanthropic pattern in healthcare and the Greater Lansing community, giving applicants an actual thesis to align with rather than a blank slate.

The dominant recent event is generational: founder and President James L. Herbert died on March 19, 2024, at age 83, as reported by Lansing TV outlets WLNS and WILX and by the MSU Research Foundation, which noted his 38-year run building Neogen Corporation from a startup into a company with roughly $400 million in annual revenue and a market cap exceeding $4 billion at its peak. Third-party 990 trackers now list Judith A. Herbert (his widow) as President and Melissa K. Herbert (his daughter) as Vice President/Treasurer, matching the succession implied in our own officer records. The foundation's most active grantmaking year on record is FY2024, with roughly $400,000 distributed across 4 grants per Instrumentl's 990 read — notably, this is the fiscal year in which James Herbert died, so it's unclear whether that activity reflects his final directives, an estate-related distribution, or the family's first year of independent decision-making. No foundation-specific press releases, grant announcements, or program launches were found in general news search for 2025-2026; the foundation does not appear to issue public grant announcements. For broader context on family activity: Jim and Judi Herbert's largest documented philanthropic acts predate the foundation's active phase — a $2.5 million gift in 2014 toward Sparrow Health System's Herbert-Herman Cancer Center (opened 2017) and a $5 million gift to Sparrow Health System in March 2023, the largest single donation in that system's history. Given the foundation's small size relative to those personal gifts, it likely functions as one vehicle among several the family uses for giving, rather than their sole philanthropic instrument.

Do not look for an online application portal, published guidelines, or an LOI form — none exist for this foundation. Our own database records application_instructions as none on file, and independent trackers (CauseIQ, Instrumentl) both categorize it as a foundation that selects its own grantees rather than soliciting proposals. Treat it as a relationship-first funder: the highest-value move is a warm introduction through Sparrow Health System (where the family has a long, documented giving history and where James Herbert served as a board member per University of Michigan Sparrow's own news coverage), through Michigan State University-adjacent institutions (Neogen's founding ties to MSU run deep), or through the Lansing Regional Chamber of Commerce, which has recognized the family with community service awards. When an opening does present itself, keep any written materials short and specific rather than a full boilerplate grant proposal — a founder-family foundation of this size and informality is far more likely to respond to a clear, personal case tied to a specific program cost than to a generic multi-page narrative. Lead with alignment to the family's demonstrated causes: cancer care and healthcare access (echoing the Sparrow Herbert-Herman Cancer Center), hunger/food security and nutrition (an explicit NTEE focus area on the 990), and general Greater Lansing/East Lansing community infrastructure. Because the typical award range reported by Instrumentl is $5,000 to $250,000, right-size the ask rather than requesting a token amount or an outsized multi-year commitment — a specific, mid-range request (in the $10,000-$50,000 band) tied to a concrete program cost is the safest opening position for an unfamiliar organization. Be mindful of the 2024 leadership transition: any relationship or informal commitment that existed under James Herbert should be reconfirmed with Judith or Melissa Herbert rather than assumed to carry forward, since organizational priorities often shift, even subtly, after a founder's death. Finally, do not expect a fast or published review cycle — with no compensated staff and only family officers, response times are likely to be slow and informal, so build in patience and follow up personally rather than expecting an automated acknowledgment.