Honey Foundation

Honey Foundation is a small, closed, family-directed private foundation rooted in Richmond's Ukrop family philanthropic network — not to be confused with honeyfoundation.org, a similarly named but unrelated kindness-education nonprofit based in Phoenix, Arizona (its 'Bee-lieve the World receives hope, through Kindness' tagline is what got pulled into this foundation's profile by web enrichment, but the site has no relationship to the Richmond entity). The real Honey Foundation is led by President Robert S. Ukrop, Director Robert S. Ukrop Jr., and Secretary/Treasurer David J. Naquin, who began drawing $15,000 in annual compensation in 2024 after 13 years unpaid — a modest sign of growing administrative involvement, though this remains a lean, effectively unstaffed operation run out of 2001 Maywill St in Richmond.

Both the foundation's own data (flagged preselected_only) and independent trackers (Grantable, GreatNonprofits) agree: Honey Foundation funds preselected organizations and does not accept unsolicited requests, despite IRS filing boilerplate stating 'applications will be accepted year-round.' Treat any cold LOI as a long shot. The clearest path in is relational — the foundation's grantee list reads like the Ukrop family's own civic and personal network: Greater Richmond Aquatics Partnership ($418,875 across two grants, its single largest all-time commitment), RVA Sports Foundation ($300,000), and PGA Tour Charities/SwimRVA ($200,000) anchor a heavy concentration in youth sports and aquatics infrastructure. Around that core sit repeat gifts to Richmond congregations (Richmond Baptist Association, Second Baptist Church), small Richmond-area schools (Collegiate School, Northstar Academy, Elijah House Academy), and civic staples (United Way of Greater Richmond & Petersburg, Junior Achievement of Central Virginia).

First-time applicants should not expect a portal, online form, or published RFP — there is no evidence one exists. Instead, build proximity to organizations already in the portfolio (aquatics/sports facilities, Richmond faith congregations, regional colleges) and seek a warm introduction through those boards. When a written request is appropriate, follow the filing's own stated instructions closely: keep it brief, attach the IRS determination letter, and state the organization's charitable purpose plainly — this is a relationship funder that rewards proximity over polish, not persuasive proposal-writing.

Honey Foundation's most recent enrichment sample (34 grants) puts the median award at $8,500, ranging from $500 to $185,000, with a mean of $22,633 pulled upward by a handful of large anchor gifts. Across the fuller 78-grant historical dataset ($1,723,343 total, $22,094 average), spending is heavily concentrated: roughly 69% (~$1.19M) has gone to youth sports and aquatics — led by Greater Richmond Aquatics Partnership ($418,875/2 grants), RVA Sports Foundation ($300,000/2), PGA Tour Charities for the SwimRVA project ($200,000/2), Sports Backers ($122,500/2, covering the Monument 10K and operations), and The First Tee network (~$99,600 combined across two related entities). Faith-based Richmond organizations take roughly 11% (~$187K) — Richmond Baptist Association ($60,000), Second Baptist Church ($37,968), Explore God, Lead Like Jesus, and Needle's Eye Ministries. Education draws about 7% (~$124K), spread across JMU Foundation, UVA Darden School of Business, Furman University, Montreat College, and local prep schools (Collegiate School, Northstar Academy, Elijah House Academy). Community/human-services grants (United Way of Greater Richmond & Petersburg, Caritas, Concordance Academy of Leadership, Fatherhood Foundation of Virginia) account for roughly 9%.

Annual giving stayed fairly steady for most of the last decade — $824,400 (2019), $833,319 (2020), $720,045 (2021), $1,051,740 (2022), $758,700 (2023) — before 2024 came in at roughly $795,000 across 51 grants (per Grantable.co), and 2025 spiked sharply to $3,069,373 in charitable disbursements against just $663,304 in revenue, while net assets fell from an estimated $12.2M peak in 2024 to $9,692,559. Giving nearly 4x the typical run rate while assets contract points to a large one-time or capital commitment rather than a permanent step-change in payout capacity; treat 2025's total as an outlier, not a new baseline.

Geographically, 82% of tracked grants (64 of 78) stay inside Virginia, with the remainder trickling to North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Georgia, Missouri, and West Virginia — almost always tied to an alumni, denominational, or sister-organization connection rather than deliberate geographic expansion.

All five peers sit within a nearly identical $9.68M-$9.70M asset band — a reflection of how this peer set was built (matched by asset size and shared 'Philanthropy & Grantmaking' NTEE classification), not by shared program focus. Only one peer (Schillhahn-Huskey, Tennessee) has a known independent website, and none have public grantee-level data available in this bundle, so their actual giving levels and focus areas can't be verified the way Honey Foundation's can from IRS filings and third-party trackers. What differentiates Honey Foundation within this set is transparency and specificity: its Form 990-PF Schedule I supplies a granular, verifiable grantee list concentrated in a single region (Richmond, VA) with a clear program thesis (youth sports and aquatics infrastructure), rather than the generic, catch-all classification the NTEE code implies for the whole peer group.

Public news coverage of Honey Foundation is essentially nonexistent — as a closed, unstaffed family foundation with no newsroom or social media presence, it generates no press releases, and no dedicated announcements turned up in web search. The clearest signal of recent activity comes from tax filings and third-party trackers rather than news coverage.

2024: the foundation made 51 grants totaling roughly $795,000 (per Grantable.co), continuing its two largest recurring relationships — Greater Richmond Aquatic Partnership ($125,000) and PGA Tour Charities ($100,000) — while adding EverBless Foundation ($108,000) as a new six-figure recipient not previously seen in the historical top-50 grantee data, suggesting the foundation is still willing to onboard new large partners rather than only renewing existing ones.

2025: Form 990-PF data (via ProPublica) shows a sharp jump — $3,069,373 in charitable disbursements against just $663,304 in revenue, with net assets falling from an estimated $12.2M (2024) to $9,692,559. That is roughly 3.9x the 2024 payout for a foundation whose 2019-2023 giving never exceeded $1.05M in a single year, strongly suggesting a large capital or one-time commitment — plausibly tied to its long-running aquatics/SwimRVA relationship, historically its biggest funding thread — rather than a permanent increase in payout rate.

Also new in 2024-2025: Secretary/Treasurer David J. Naquin began drawing $15,000 in annual compensation after 13 years at $0, a small but notable shift from an entirely volunteer-run structure toward modestly more active administration.

Because Honey Foundation is preselected-only, the standard playbook (compelling LOI, portal submission, deadline-driven proposal) mostly doesn't apply here — the highest-leverage move is relationship-building, not proposal polish.

Get the address right first: the domain honeyfoundation.org is NOT this foundation's website. It belongs to an unrelated Phoenix, Arizona kindness-education nonprofit that happens to share an almost word-for-word mission statement ('Bee-lieve the World receives hope, through Kindness'). Applying through that site's forms, portal, or contact page will not reach Richmond's Honey Foundation — there is no evidence the Richmond foundation maintains any public-facing site, application form, or RFP process of its own.

Given that, and given that Grantable and GreatNonprofits both independently confirm the foundation 'does not accept unsolicited requests for funds,' first-time applicants should prioritize proximity over cold outreach: seek a board or staff connection at an organization already funded — Greater Richmond Aquatics Partnership, RVA Sports Foundation, Sports Backers, The First Tee of Greater Richmond, United Way of Greater Richmond & Petersburg, or a Richmond congregation like Second Baptist Church or Richmond Baptist Association — since these groups plausibly share the Ukrop family's personal network and can facilitate an introduction.

If a written approach is warranted, follow the filing's own stated instructions to the letter: keep the request brief and in writing, attach a copy of the IRS 501(c)(3) determination letter, and state the organization's charitable purpose clearly and concisely — verbosity works against you with a foundation this lean (no program officers, a single lightly compensated secretary/treasurer).

Size the ask to the data: the most recent 34-grant sample shows a median of $8,500 and a range of $500-$185,000. Unless your project is comparable in scale to the aquatics anchor commitments (six figures, often multi-year), request in the four-to-low-five-figure range — it matches the modal grant size and won't require the kind of due diligence a closed, unstaffed foundation isn't set up to perform. Avoid pitching kindness-education or anti-bullying programming based on the mission text on file for this foundation; the actual grant history shows sports/aquatics, faith, and Richmond-area education as the real priorities.