Herget Foundation

The Herget Foundation operates as a closed, relationship-driven family foundation rather than an open grants program. Per its own 990-PF disclosures (aggregated by CauseIQ and Grantmakers.io), the foundation is explicitly "preselected only" — it "only makes contributions to preselected charitable organizations and doesn't accept unsolicited applications." Its website (hergetfoundation.org) reinforces the same posture: there is no application form, downloadable RFP, or applicant portal, only a general contact form and a single email address (chris@hergetfoundation.com). For grant seekers, this foundation should be approached as a cultivation target, not an application target.

The board is small and largely uncompensated: President Melissa Niquette (about 4 hours/week per CauseIQ), Vice President Stacey Taylor, and trustees Kelly Spilman, Sheila Herget, Charles E. Herget Jr., and Thomas A. Deliberto. With no paid program staff, decisions run through personal relationships and existing institutional ties rather than a formal review committee. The grantee list bears this out: it is concentrated in two geographic hubs tied to the Herget family's presence — the Baltimore/Towson, MD corridor (Loyola University, Maryvale Preparatory School, Stevenson University, Notre Dame of Maryland University, National Aquarium of Baltimore) and the Vero Beach/Indian River County, FL corridor (Saint Edward's School, Cleveland Clinic Indian River, Scholarship Foundation of Indian River County, Quail Valley Charities). Together Maryland (25 of 52 tracked grants) and Florida (11 of 52) account for roughly 70% of recorded gifts.

First-time applicants without an existing tie to these two clusters, Catholic education institutions, or veteran/military-service causes face long odds. Nearly every recorded grant carries the purpose code "GEN FUND" or "GENL FUND" — the foundation funds general operating support, not restricted programs, and the public record shows no pattern of multi-year pledges, site visits, or a formal LOI-to-proposal progression. The realistic relationship path is: identify a warm introduction through a current grantee or trustee, send a short, direct note aligned to one of the three published pillars (education, healthcare, children & families), and expect a personal rather than institutional review process.

Herget Foundation's giving has historically been modest and volatile, tracking year-to-year contributions rather than a stable endowment payout. Total giving by fiscal year: $13,950 (2012), $9,150 (2013), $76,350 (2014), $50,970 (2015), $122,308 (2019), $66,793 (2020), $26,796 (2021), $208,650 (2022), and $64,981 (2023) — a range with no clear trend line, consistent with a pass-through vehicle funded mostly by fresh annual contributions rather than drawdown from a large corpus.

That changed abruptly in FY2023, when the foundation received a $5,572,448 contribution, pushing total assets from $368,567 (FY2022) to $5,967,129 (FY2023) and then to $9,594,223 (FY2024) — a roughly 26x increase in two years. FY2024 total revenue was $159,223, almost entirely investment income. Per CauseIQ, the most recent full grant cycle (TY2024) distributed $298,000 across 41 grants, with a median grant of $5,000 and a range of $2,000-$25,000 — already the largest single year on record.

Across the aggregated grantee history in Granted's database (52 tracked grants totaling $287,750, average $5,534), gift sizes cluster tightly: the database's typical_grant_size figure (a 15-grant recent sample) shows a median of $2,000, an average of $4,133, and a range of $1,000-$16,000, while the largest cumulative relationships top out around $24,000-$30,000 (Loyola University $30,000 across 2 gifts, Maryvale Preparatory School $26,000 across 2 gifts, and Stevenson University, Cleveland Clinic Indian River, and Saint Edward's School each at $25,000). No single gift in the visible record exceeds $25,000.

By geography, Maryland dominates with 25 of 52 grants (48%), followed by Florida with 11 (21%) — both line up with the family's known bases in Lutherville, MD and Vero Beach, FL. By theme, education and Catholic K-12/higher-ed institutions form the largest identifiable cluster (Loyola University, Maryvale Prep, Notre Dame of MD, Stevenson University, Saint Edward's School), followed by healthcare (Cleveland Clinic Indian River, St. Joseph's Medical Center, VNA Hospice, Stella Maris) and veteran/military causes (Navy SEAL Museum, Marine Corps Scholarship Foundation, Alabama Marines Foundation). Given the FY2024 asset base of $9.59M, the IRS 5% minimum distribution rule implies roughly $480,000/year in required qualifying distributions going forward — well above the $298,000 given in TY2024, suggesting giving levels are likely to keep climbing over the next 1-2 filing cycles.

Herget Foundation is best benchmarked against other small, closed family foundations rather than major institutional funders — its no-staff, invitation-only model is the defining trait, not its (now-growing) asset size.

Herget sits in scale between the very small, closed McKean and Herget Family Charitable foundations and a giant like Weinberg, which is included only as a regional reference point for how a fully open Maryland funder operates by contrast. All three closed peers share Herget's core traits: no dedicated program staff, no public application, and a purpose-driven-by-personal-network model. The practical implication for applicants is the same across this peer set — cultivation and warm introduction substitute for a formal proposal process, and grant sizes stay modest and unrestricted (well under $30,000 per gift for Herget and its closest peers) even as the corpus grows.

No dedicated press coverage, news articles, or announcements about Herget Foundation were found in web searches covering 2025-2026. Search results instead surfaced look-alike organizations (a separately incorporated Herget Family Charitable Foundation in Alexandria, VA) and unrelated content. The foundation does not appear to run a news or blog section on hergetfoundation.org beyond its static Education/Healthcare/Children & Families program pages and a newsletter signup — it maintains a low public profile consistent with its closed, relationship-based giving model.

The most consequential recent development is visible only in its IRS Form 990-PF filings: a $5,572,448 contribution received in fiscal year 2023 that grew total assets from $368,567 to $5,967,129 in a single year, followed by continued growth to $9,594,223 in FY2024. This is an order-of-magnitude change for a foundation that spent the 2010s and early 2020s distributing $10,000-$210,000 per year. CauseIQ's read of the TY2024 filing shows the foundation already responding with a larger grant cycle — $298,000 distributed across 41 grants, up from $64,981 the year before.

No leadership changes are evident; the same core trustees (Melissa Niquette, Stacey Taylor, Kelly Spilman, Sheila Herget, Charles E. Herget Jr., Thomas A. Deliberto) appear across the most recent filings in Granted's database. Given the size of the FY2023 capital infusion and the foundation's still-informal, no-staff structure, grant seekers should watch for either a more formal application process emerging over the next 1-2 years as trustees look to deploy a much larger asset base, or continued ad hoc, relationship-based giving at a meaningfully higher dollar volume.

Herget Foundation does not accept unsolicited applications — there is no portal, LOI form, or RFP on hergetfoundation.org, and CauseIQ's read of its 990-PF explicitly labels it "preselected only." Treating it like a standard open-cycle funder (submitting a full proposal cold) is the single most common mistake and is unlikely to get a response.

The realistic path in is a warm introduction. The grantee record shows heavy concentration in two communities: Baltimore/Towson, MD (Loyola University, Maryvale Preparatory School, Stevenson University, Notre Dame of Maryland University, National Aquarium of Baltimore, Mt Airy Fire Department) and Vero Beach/Indian River County, FL (Saint Edward's School, Cleveland Clinic Indian River, Scholarship Foundation of Indian River County, Quail Valley Charities, Vero Beach Theater Guild). Organizations with board, alumni, or program ties to either community — or to Catholic K-12/higher-ed institutions and veteran/military-service causes more broadly — have historically fared best.

If no warm introduction exists, the only listed channel is a direct, brief email to chris@hergetfoundation.com or the site's general contact form. Given the foundation's minimal staffing (President Melissa Niquette logs roughly 4 hours/week per CauseIQ), keep any outreach to well under a page: a short organizational introduction, an explicit tie to one of the three published pillars (education, healthcare, or children & families), and a request for a brief conversation rather than an attached full proposal packet.

Match the ask to what this funder actually gives: nearly all recorded grants carry a "GEN FUND"/"GENL FUND" purpose code, meaning unrestricted general operating support, not project-restricted funding. Grant sizes cluster between $1,000 and $25,000, with a median around $2,000-$5,000 in the historical record and $5,000 in the most recent (TY2024) filing; no grant on record exceeds $30,000 in cumulative giving to one organization. Requesting a large, multi-year, or program-restricted grant is a mismatch with the funder's actual pattern.

Timing may matter more than usual right now: FY2023's $5.57M capital infusion means the board's IRS-mandated minimum distribution (roughly $480,000/year on the FY2024 asset base) now exceeds what it has historically given, so trustees are likely evaluating how to expand their grantee roster over the next 1-2 cycles — a window worth being visible in, through legitimate community and institutional connections rather than cold outreach.