House Of Ruach

House of Ruach is a small, closely-held family foundation based in Irvine, CA, led by Gwen Hecht (Chairwoman/Secretary), Donald "Doc" Hecht (Treasurer), and CEO/President Adam G. Reingold ($160K-$187K annual compensation across recent filings). Its own IRS filing states it "only makes contributions to preselected charitable organizations," and its data profile confirms `preselected_only: true` with `accepting_applications: true` but no published application form, deadline, or grants-page URL — a combination that signals a relationship-driven funder that technically doesn't refuse unsolicited contact but rarely acts on it without a personal connection. First-time applicants should not expect a portal or RFP; instead, expect the foundation to fund organizations already known to its leadership through Jewish community, interfaith, and Southern California nonprofit networks. Roughly 92% of its grantee dollars flow to California, New York, and DC-based organizations, and its top-funded grantee, Hecht Trauma Institute ($246,000 across 2 grants), shares the Hecht family surname — a strong signal that board/family relationships, not open competition, drive allocation decisions. Grant seekers with no existing tie to the Hecht family, Reingold, or the Orange County Jewish philanthropic community (Chabad chapters, Jewish Collaborative of Orange County, Jewish Community Foundation of Orange County all appear as repeat grantees) face a steep uphill climb. The most realistic path in is a warm introduction through a shared board member, rabbi, or mutual grantee, followed by a low-key conversation rather than a formal LOI. Organizations that do get funded tend to be general-operating or program-specific gifts in the $180-$50,000 range, with the occasional large outlier grant (Lantos Foundation, $50,000, per 2024 filings) for a cause the family considers especially aligned with its Tikkun Olam ("healing the world") mission and motto of doing "kindness beyond reason."

House of Ruach's grantmaking is modest and volatile year to year. Database records covering 25 tracked grants show total giving of $737,430 with an average grant of $29,497, but that average is skewed by a few large gifts — the median grant is much closer to $10,000-$20,000, and per Grantable the typical range runs $180 to $50,000. Year-over-year 990 data shows real swings: $470,236 across 5 grants in 2021, $337,260 across 9 grants in 2022, a sharp drop to $32,910-$62,910 across 7 grants in 2023, then a rebound to $101,481 across 13 grants in 2024 and $136,570 across 15 grants in 2025 (Instrumentl). Total assets have grown steadily alongside this recovery, from $2.77M (2022) to $4.92M (2023) to $5.71M-$6.13M (2024-2025), fed by strong contribution years — $4.37M in new contributions in 2023 alone. Geographically, California dominates (16 of 25 tracked grants, 64%), with New York (5), DC (2), and Ohio (2) rounding out the rest — consistent with the family's Orange County/Newport Coast base and national Jewish-community ties. By purpose, the largest identifiable buckets are: Hecht Trauma Institute at $246,000 (2 grants, general fund support — note the shared family surname), Calpak Education Services at $232,800 (2 grants, restricted funds for professional development), and a cluster of Jewish community, interfaith, and religious-programming gifts in the $1,000-$75,000 range (Chabad of South Huntington Beach $74,120 across 3 grants, Givat Haviva International School $43,600 for a Sudan-student scholarship, Rofeh Cholim Cancer Society $40,000). Smaller gifts extend to non-religious causes too — Delta Gamma Foundation's guide dog program ($10,000) and Museum of Tolerance ($180) both appear, showing the foundation will occasionally fund general community and social-service causes outside its Jewish/interfaith core when personally connected.

House of Ruach sits squarely in the middle of a peer group of small Religion-category private foundations with assets clustered around $6M — none of which maintain a public application process, reflecting a broader pattern among family-run religious foundations of this size.

All six foundations hold near-identical asset bases ($6.0M-$6.2M), suggesting House of Ruach is a fairly typical small family religious foundation for its cohort rather than an outlier in scale. What differentiates it is transparency: House of Ruach is one of the few in this peer set with detailed grantee-level 990 data publicly traceable, giving applicants at least some visibility into its giving patterns that peers like Bedrock Liberty or R 13 Incorporated do not readily offer.

No press releases, news coverage, or leadership announcements for House of Ruach turned up in 2025-2026 web searches — this is a foundation with essentially no public media footprint, typical of a small family philanthropy that operates quietly. The most concrete recent signal is financial: total assets rose from $4.92M (2023) to $5.71M (2024) and further to $6.13M by the most recent filing, while annual giving nearly doubled from roughly $63K-$101K (2023-2024) to $136,570 across 15 grants in 2025 per Instrumentl's 990 aggregation. Leadership has been stable across the available filings — Adam G. Reingold has served as CEO/President (and previously Chairman/Secretary) with compensation rising from $160,417 to $175,000-$187,000, while Gwen Hecht and Donald "Doc" Hecht continue as Chairwoman/Secretary and Treasurer respectively, indicating no recent succession or governance change. The single notable large transaction in the most recent disclosed cycle is a $50,000 grant to the Lantos Foundation (2024, per Grantable), a departure from the foundation's typical sub-$30,000 grant size and worth watching as a signal of where the family's largest single-year commitments are going. Absent further disclosures, the safest read is that House of Ruach remains a steadily growing but low-profile family foundation continuing its established pattern of California/Jewish-community-focused giving, with no evidence of a strategic pivot, new program area, or public grants initiative in the works.

There is no public LOI form, portal, deadline, or RFP for House of Ruach, and its own 990 filing states it funds only preselected organizations — treat any attempt to apply cold as a long shot. The single highest-leverage move is finding a genuine connection into the foundation's existing network: Orange County/Irvine-area Jewish organizations (multiple Chabad chapters, Jewish Collaborative of Orange County, Jewish Community Foundation of Orange County all recur as grantees), interfaith groups (American Muslim & Multifaith Empowerment Council), and Israel/Jewish-education-linked causes (Givat Haviva International School's Sudan-student scholarship) are clearly within the family's comfort zone — organizations adjacent to these networks should lead with a warm referral from a shared contact rather than a written proposal. Because Gwen Hecht chairs the board and the foundation's largest grantee (Hecht Trauma Institute, $246,000) shares her surname, expect that family-connected causes receive priority; unaffiliated applicants should not expect to compete on equal footing and should be realistic about odds. When outreach does happen, keep it personal and modest in ask size — the working range is $180 to $50,000, with most grants falling under $30,000, so a request in the $5,000-$25,000 range for general operating or a clearly named program (e.g., bereavement support, holiday programming, scholarship funds, cancer-care support) mirrors what has actually been funded. Frame the request around the foundation's stated motto of doing "kindness beyond reason" and its Tikkun Olam mission of "healing the world" — language that shows up verbatim in their public mission statement — rather than generic grant-speak. Given the total absence of a public application infrastructure (no grants_page_url, no application_form_url, and a website that blocks automated access), a phone call to the listed number, (650) 504-3283, or a mailed letter of introduction addressed to Adam G. Reingold as CEO is more likely to get read than an emailed cold proposal. Avoid submitting a large, multi-year ask as a first approach — even the foundation's giving itself is volatile year to year (from $337K in 2022 down to $33K in 2023), so build flexibility into any funding request rather than assuming multi-year renewal.