Herrington Fitch Family Foundation Inc.

Herrington Fitch Family Foundation Inc. is a small, closely-held family foundation based in Traverse City, Michigan, run by President Leslie Lee alongside Vice President Byrdie Butka, Treasurer Whitney Carnevale/Cowell, Secretary Katherine Cowell, and family member Mackenzie Cowell — the leadership roster across filings shows one extended family (Lee/Cowell/Butka) running the foundation with zero paid staff (officer compensation is $0 in every filing on record). This is not a program-staffed institution grant seekers can pitch cold; it is a personal giving vehicle. Multiple independent sources (Instrumentl, Candid/Foundation Directory summaries) converge on the same finding: Herrington Fitch 'only makes contributions to preselected charitable organizations and does not accept unsolicited requests for funds.' The foundation's own website (herrington-fitch.org) reinforces this — it is a defunct, unmaintained directory listing built on 1990s-era Microsoft FrontPage tooling (the only retrievable page is a stale FrontPage 'postinfo.html' configuration stub), with no mission statement, grant guidelines, or contact form. There is effectively no formal application channel.

Grantee data bears this out: of 180 tracked grants totaling $918,796, roughly 90% (162 of 180) went to Michigan organizations, and the pattern skews heavily toward the same 35-40 recurring grantees receiving near-identical annual renewals (many show exactly 5 consecutive-year gifts of $500-$5,000) — Torch Lake Protection Alliance, the Watershed Center Grand Traverse Bay, Elk Rapids Area Education Fund, and similar organizations anchored in the Elk Rapids/Torch Lake/Grand Traverse Bay corridor of northern Michigan. A handful of larger, non-local grants (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution $174,356, Northwestern University $50,000 tied to a 'John Lee Endowment,' Bentley Historical Library at the University of Michigan $80,000) look like family-connected or legacy institutional relationships rather than open opportunities.

For a first-time applicant, the realistic strategy is not a cold proposal — there is no application form to submit — but to build a genuine local presence in the Elk Rapids/Grand Traverse region (environment, arts, education, or historical-preservation work), get known to community intermediaries such as the Grand Traverse Regional Community Foundation (itself a grantee), and hope to enter the founding family's personal network. This is a relationship-gated funder, not a proposal-gated one.

Across the tracked multi-year grant history (180 grants, $918,796 total; FY2023 total_giving $155,383 against 990-reported grants_paid $144,250), Herrington Fitch's typical gift is small. The foundation's own typical-grant-size profile (a 35-grant sample from a single 990) shows a median of just $1,000, a mean of $5,391, and a range from $25 to $100,000; the broader 180-grant dataset shows a similar mean of $5,104. The distribution is bimodal: a long tail of $100-$5,000 recurring 'general charitable' renewals to roughly 35 local nonprofits (most give in $500-$5,000 increments across 5 consecutive tracked years — e.g., Grass River Natural Area $3,500/5 grants, Elk Rapids Scholarship Fund $5,100/5 grants, Dennos Museum Center $2,500/5 grants), plus a small number of outsized, likely legacy or family-tied commitments: Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution ($174,356 across 2 grants for a 'Dimethyl Sulfide Research Project'), Tart Trails ($140,000 across 4 grants for the 'Nakwema Trail Fund'), Discovery Center & Pier ($100,000/2 grants), Northwestern Michigan Community Action Agency ($100,000/1 grant), and Bentley Historical Library ($80,000/2 grants, an endowment gift).

By geography, 162 of 180 tracked grants (90%) went to Michigan, concentrated in the Grand Traverse/Elk Rapids/Torch Lake corridor; the remainder scattered thinly across Iowa (5), Illinois (5), Massachusetts (2), Maine (2), New York (2), Alabama (1), and Washington DC (1) — almost entirely single, one-off, or institutionally-tied gifts rather than an open multi-state program.

By program area, environmental/conservation causes (Torch Lake Protection Alliance, Watershed Center Grand Traverse Bay, Grass River Natural Area, Inland Seas Education Association, Groundwork Center, Conservation Resource Alliance) and arts/culture/history (Dennos Museum Center, Interlochen Center for the Arts, Crooked Trees Arts Center, Elk Rapids Historical Society, Bentley Historical Library) together account for the largest share of recurring relationships, with education (Elk Rapids-area scholarship and education funds, regional colleges) and human services (Women's Resource Center, Goodwill Inn, Justice For Our Neighbors) as secondary categories. Total giving has declined from roughly $210K-$230K/year in FY2020-2022 to $155,383 in FY2023 (grants paid $144,250), tracking a longer decline in total assets from $3.4M (FY2011) to $2.77M (FY2023) — a foundation slowly spending down rather than growing.

All five peers sit within roughly $700 of Herrington Fitch's reported $2,742,426 in assets — this peer set is asset-band matched, not mission matched, and none of the five have a listed website or accessible grantmaking data in the record. That opacity is itself typical for this asset tier: sub-$3M single-family foundations that run with zero staff, no public guidelines, and closed, relationship-based giving. Herrington Fitch stands out from this peer set mainly by having an unusually well-documented grant history (180 tracked grants spanning more than a decade) that reveals a specific, verifiable regional focus on northern Michigan — useful context for prospective applicants, but not evidence of a more accessible process than its equally-sized, equally-closed peers.

No verifiable news, press coverage, or foundation announcements for 2025 or 2026 were found in web search; searches for grants awarded, application guidance, general news, and funding priorities all returned only third-party grant-database listings (Instrumentl, Cause IQ, Candid, ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer, Charity Navigator, Grantmakers.io, GuideStar), none reporting activity newer than the FY2023 Form 990-PF. Leadership has been stable across the filings represented in the data: Leslie Lee has served as President throughout, with Byrdie Butka rotating between Vice President and Secretary/Treasurer, and Whitney Carnevale/Cowell and Katherine Cowell rotating through Treasurer/Secretary — consistent with a small, unpaid family board rather than a professionalizing governance shift.

The foundation's website (herrington-fitch.org) is not actively maintained — it resolves to a bare, unstyled directory listing whose only retrievable content is a stale Microsoft FrontPage configuration file, indicating the foundation does not use the web for grant communications at all. The most notable 'recent' activity visible in the underlying data is the FY2023 giving drop to $155,383 (grants paid $144,250) from FY2022's $209,272 — a roughly 26% year-over-year decline — which predates any 2025/2026 filings currently indexed publicly. Grant seekers should not expect a public announcement of new priorities; any change in posture would most likely surface first in the next digitized Form 990-PF.

Because Herrington Fitch Family Foundation operates without paid staff, a public grant portal, or a stated proposal process, conventional application tactics (cold LOIs, portal submissions, RFP responses) do not apply here — the foundation's own record lists no application instructions and a dead website, and third-party sources (Instrumentl, Candid) independently confirm it 'does not accept unsolicited requests for funds' and gives only to preselected organizations. Treat this as a closed, relationship-driven funder rather than an open one.

1. Geography is the hardest gate: 90% of tracked gifts (162 of 180) went to Michigan nonprofits, overwhelmingly clustered in the Elk Rapids/Torch Lake/Grand Traverse Bay area of northern Michigan. Organizations outside that specific micro-region should not expect to break in without an existing personal connection to the Lee/Cowell/Butka family that runs the foundation.

2. Program fit follows the existing grantee roster closely: environmental/watershed conservation (Torch Lake Protection Alliance, Watershed Center Grand Traverse Bay, Grass River Natural Area), regional arts and culture (Dennos Museum Center, Interlochen, Crooked Trees Arts Center), local history/preservation (Elk Rapids Historical Society, Bentley Historical Library), and Elk Rapids-specific education/scholarship funds dominate the recurring grant list. A proposal outside these categories, or outside the immediate Elk Rapids community, is a weak fit regardless of quality.

3. Renewal, not acquisition, is the visible pattern: most active relationships show 5 consecutive years of near-identical gift amounts (Elk Rapids Scholarship Fund, Torch Lake Protection Alliance, and Groundwork Center all show 5-grant streaks). If a warm introduction is possible, the realistic ask is a modest annual gift of $500-$5,000 rather than a large one-time grant — the $100,000+ gifts on record (Woods Hole, Discovery Center & Pier, Northwestern Michigan Community Action Agency) look like anchor or legacy commitments, not open opportunities.

4. Use community intermediaries: the Grand Traverse Regional Community Foundation is itself a grantee (funding a Report for America journalism fund), suggesting the foundation is comfortable channeling gifts through trusted regional community foundations — a warm path worth exploring before direct outreach.

5. Do not rely on herrington-fitch.org — it is a dead, unmaintained site with no working contact form or guidelines (confirmed by direct fetch, September 2026). The only documented address is PO Box 2210, Traverse City, MI 49685-2210, c/o Leslie Lee, phone (231) 632-5240 — a physical letter or phone call, not a digital submission, is the only verified contact channel.