Holzman Foundation Inc.

The Holzman Foundation (EIN 93-1041588, IRS-recorded as "Holzman Foundation Inc.," publicly branded as the Irwin & Renee Holzman Foundation) is a small, family-run private foundation that has quietly funded the Portland, Oregon metro nonprofit sector since 1990. It is not a grants-management shop with program officers — it is administered through U.S. Bank's charitable services group as trustee, and the three Holzman sons carry the family's giving tradition forward. That structure matters strategically: there is no cultivation staff to build a relationship with beyond email correspondence, and decisions run through a small family/trustee board rather than a professional review committee. The foundation strongly favors organizations it already knows. Of the 202 grants totaling $948,400 in the DB's grantee snapshot, the top recipients — Jewish Family & Child Services ($63,000 across 3 grants), Friends of Hopewell House ($55,000 across 2), Jewish Federation of Greater Portland ($50,000 across 2), and Cedar Sinai Park Foundation ($35,000 across 2) — are all repeat, multi-year relationships, and virtually every grant purpose recorded is "GENERAL OPERATING," not project or capital funding. First-time applicants should not expect a large first ask to land; the foundation's own average grant size in this dataset is just $4,695, with the site listing a typical range of $500–$10,000 and a published maximum near $30,000 for the strongest fits. There is no formal LOI-to-full-proposal ladder — applicants submit one narrative application by the March 31 deadline and either receive funding (decisions by June 30) or don't, with re-application the following cycle being the normal path back in. Newcomers should treat year one as relationship-building: a modest, well-documented ask for general operating support tied to the foundation's four sectors (arts, education, humanitarian, religious) is far more likely to open the door than a large or narrowly restricted project request. Geographic discipline is absolute — 175 of 202 tracked grants (87%) went to Oregon organizations, almost entirely Portland metro, with only scattered outliers in WA, MN, NY and elsewhere (likely tied to board members' personal/professional networks or national umbrella affiliates).

Total grants paid have swung significantly year to year: $149,900 in FY2021, $306,900 in FY2020, $302,300 in FY2019, and a spike to $521,800 in FY2022 before settling back to $276,700 in FY2023. Because the foundation has no ongoing contribution inflows (contributions received were $0 in nearly every year in the financials except a one-time $2,002,000 gift in FY2012), payout tracks net investment income on a roughly $5.4–$6.3 million asset base — net investment income ranged from $92,000 (FY2011) to $946,886 (FY2014) to $271,441 (FY2023). Applicants should read this as: total dollars available in any cycle is a function of the prior year's market performance, not a fixed formula, so aggregate giving can contract by 40-50% year over year (FY2021 vs FY2020) even with a stable mission. At the grant level, the DB's typical_grant_size record shows a median of $3,600, an average of $5,031, a floor of $1,000, and a ceiling of $50,000 across 61 tracked awards — consistent with the foundation's own site language of "$500 to $10,000 typical, up to roughly $30,000." The grantee-level breakdown (202 grants, $948,400 total, average $4,695) confirms this is a high-volume, small-dollar operation: only a handful of recipients cross the $20,000 cumulative mark, and those are all multi-year, multi-grant relationships rather than single large checks. Geographically, Oregon captures 175 of 202 grants (87% of grant count); Washington is a distant second at 13 grants (6%), with single-digit counts scattered across MN, NY, MO, DC, ID, IL, KS and LA — almost certainly national/regional affiliates of locally-supported organizations (e.g., a national Jewish federation network) rather than a deliberate multi-state strategy. By program focus, the foundation's own site reports a 2023 allocation of 37% to religious/spiritual development, 20% to arts/culture/humanities, 17% to human-services/multi-purpose, 13% to health/rehabilitative services, 10% to education, and 3% to youth development — a mix that lines up with the top-50 grantee list, where Jewish communal organizations (JFCS, Jewish Federation, Cedar Sinai Park, Congregation Kol Ami, Oregon Hillel chapters) and general human-services nonprofits (Oregon Food Bank, Meals on Wheels People, William Temple House) dominate.

The Holzman Foundation sits at the small end of Portland-area family foundations — a roughly $5.6 million endowment paying out $150K-$520K a year in small, general-operating grants to a stable, largely Jewish and human-services grantee base. It's best benchmarked against other locally embedded, bank-trusteed or family-run Portland funders rather than large national foundations. No formal peer set was returned in the data bundle, so the comparison below uses foundations of similar scale, geography, and grantmaking style commonly encountered by Portland nonprofits.

Compared to large staffed Oregon funders like Meyer Memorial Trust or the Collins Foundation, Holzman is orders of magnitude smaller and far less formal — there is no program staff, no competitive multi-round review, and no strategic initiative funding, just one annual cycle reviewed by family trustees via U.S. Bank. That makes it a realistic target for small and mid-size Portland nonprofits (median ask $3,600-$5,000) that would be outmatched competing for a six- or seven-figure Meyer or Collins grant, but it also means total capacity is modest and heavily tilted toward organizations with an existing relationship or clear alignment with Jewish communal, arts, or general human-services missions.

Public reporting on the Holzman Foundation is thin — it does not issue press releases, and its most recent IRS Form 990 data reflected in third-party directories (Candid, GrantForward, Instrumentl, Zeffy) runs through fiscal year 2023, with directory profiles last refreshed around June 11, 2025. The one notable recent development found in web research is the establishment of the Holzman Religious School Endowment Fund through the Oregon Jewish Community Foundation, benefiting Congregation Beth Israel's religious school — consistent with the family's long-standing emphasis on Jewish religious education in Portland and suggesting the Holzmans continue to layer additional charitable vehicles (endowed funds at community foundations) alongside the private foundation's annual grantmaking. No leadership changes were identified; the three co-trustees (all recorded under the name Rene Holzman in the DB's people data, likely reflecting a data-parsing artifact around multiple listed roles rather than three distinct people) continue to govern the foundation with U.S. Bank serving as corporate/administrative trustee. No large signature grants, new initiatives, or strategic pivots surfaced in 2025-2026 news searches. Financially, the foundation's payout has been recovering from a low of $149,900 in FY2021 toward the $276,700-$521,800 range seen in FY2022-2023, tracking the broader market recovery in net investment income over that period. Grant seekers should treat the foundation as operating in steady-state: same four focus areas, same Portland-metro geography, same small-dollar general-operating model, with no signal of expansion, contraction, or new program launches on the horizon.

Apply once a year, on time: the sole deadline is March 31, with award decisions communicated by June 30 — missing this window means waiting a full year, since there is no rolling or second cycle. Submit by email only to the foundation's application address as listed on holzmanfoundation.com/apply (routed to U.S. Bank's charitable services group as trustee) — there is no online portal, so treat this like a formal grant letter, not a web form submission. Keep the narrative to the stated 5-page maximum and lead with a concrete statement of need and target population (the site explicitly asks for demographic detail — geographic location, socioeconomic status, race, ethnicity, gender, age, ability, language — so build this into your program description rather than leaving it generic). Request general operating support, not a narrow restricted project: the DB's grantee data shows virtually every recorded grant purpose is "GENERAL OPERATING," so a project-restricted ask outside that pattern is swimming against the foundation's evident preference. Calibrate the ask to reality — the median grant is $3,600 and the average is $5,031, with a practical ceiling around $10,000-$30,000 for the strongest, longest-tenured relationships; a $50,000+ first-time request is very unlikely to be funded given only a handful of the foundation's largest cumulative relationships (built over multiple years) approach that level. Assemble the required package before writing the narrative: audited financial statement (or most recent available), current and prior-year operating budgets, a Board of Directors roster with affiliations, your IRS tax-exemption determination letter, a list of other foundation/corporate supporters with amounts, a summary of pending funding requests elsewhere, and a one-paragraph resume for your executive director — incomplete packages are an easy reason to be passed over given the light administrative review capacity. Lean into explicit alignment language with the foundation's four sectors — arts, education, humanitarian, and religious (particularly Portland's Jewish community institutions, which account for the largest concentration of top grantees) — since the board is a family entity likely to weight personal and communal ties heavily. If your organization is new to the foundation, consider a modest first ask ($2,500-$5,000) and treat that first grant as the opening move in a multi-year relationship rather than a one-time transaction; the grantee data shows the foundation strongly rewards repeat applicants (JFCS, Hopewell House, Jewish Federation, Cedar Sinai Park all received 2-3 grants each). Confirm your organization is physically serving the Greater Portland/Oregon area — 87% of tracked grants go to Oregon-based organizations, and out-of-state requests face a steep uphill climb unless tied to a Portland-based affiliate or umbrella group.