Hrbt Foundation

HRBT Foundation — the successor entity to Hudson River Bank & Trust Company Foundation — was established in 1998 when the Hudson River Bank & Trust converted to a public stock company. It operates as an independently governed, non-operating private foundation headquartered at One Hudson City Centre, Suite 200, Hudson, NY 12534, with a single full-time professional staff member: Secretary Holly Rappleyea, who functions as the primary program officer and sole operational contact.

The foundation's giving philosophy is explicitly and rigorously hyper-local. It confines grantmaking to Columbia County, NY and immediately adjoining areas, and 96% of its 237 tracked grants went to New York-based organizations — virtually all within Columbia County itself. Regional organizations may qualify if they demonstrably serve Columbia County residents (e.g., the Regional Food Bank of NENY, the Boys & Girls Club of Schenectady), but the geographic filter is the single most important eligibility screen. Organizations headquartered outside the county's orbit should not apply unless they can quantify a meaningful Columbia County service footprint.

The foundation strongly prefers funding specific, named projects and programs over general operating support — this is stated explicitly in its application guidelines and confirmed by the grantee record. Successful funded initiatives include a telemetry system upgrade at Columbia Memorial Health ($50,000), a new museum construction for the Shaker Museum ($60,000 over 3 grants), and the RESET after-school program at Perfect Ten ($45,000 over 3 grants). Proposals should name the initiative, define its scope and timeline, and provide a detailed project budget.

The application process is unusually accessible for a private foundation. HRBT uses a rolling open portal with no fixed annual deadline. The board meets quarterly in person and monthly via remote sessions, creating multiple decision windows each year. First-time applicants should anticipate a relationship progression: an initial modest grant ($5,000-$15,000) followed by multi-year renewals for organizations that report well and align with county priorities. The foundation awards only one grant per year per organization.

Key relationship contacts are Holly Rappleyea (Secretary, $79,336/year, the operational backbone), Carl A. Florio (President, $7,000/year), and Tony Jones (Vice President, $6,200/year). Building a direct relationship with Rappleyea via phone or mail before submitting is strongly advisable and consistent with how peer institutions at this scale operate.

Analysis of IRS 990 filings from 2011 through 2023, combined with third-party aggregator data for 2024-2025, reveals a foundation with meaningfully growing capacity and consistent programmatic priorities.

Asset growth: Total assets grew from $14.8M (2019) to $26.9M (2023), an 82% increase in four years. Net investment income was the primary driver, reaching $2.41M in FY2023. Current IRS BMF data places total assets at $27.4M. The asset base has nearly doubled from pre-pandemic levels, supported by $100,000-$200,000 in annual contributions received.

Annual giving trajectory: Total giving has ranged from $536K (2015) to $1.39M (2023). After a flat 2015-2019 period, giving accelerated to $1.04M (2020), $1.34M (2021), and $1.39M (2023). Third-party data shows $1.04M (2024) and $1.03M (2025). The FY2022 filing is anomalous — total giving of $145K with negative grants paid of -$143K — likely reflecting clawbacks or accounting adjustments rather than a genuine giving pause; all surrounding years show consistent output.

Grant size distribution: The foundation's database record shows a median grant of $10,000, average of $23,461, and range of $2,000 to $500,000 across 39 sampled grants. The upper bound reflects multi-year pledges; single-year standard awards rarely exceed $30,000 (the application cap). In 2025, 108 grants totaling $1.03M yielded an average of approximately $9,538 per grant. The foundation's own guidelines confirm most awards fall between $1,000-$5,000 for smaller organizations and $10,000-$30,000 for established county institutions.

Program area breakdown (estimated from top-50 grantee dataset): - Education and library services: ~38% (Columbia-Greene CC Foundation $420K, 12 county libraries ~$372K combined, Bard College $36K, Russell Sage $24K) - Health and human services: ~20% (Community Hospice $57.8K, Columbia Memorial $75K+, Upper Hudson Planned Parenthood $32.5K, food security $90K+) - Arts, culture, and historic preservation: ~15% (Shaker Museum $60K, Hudson Hall $24K, Historical Society $30K, Lighthouse $30K) - Youth and community services: ~12% (Boys & Girls Club $30K, Perfect Ten $45K, Columbia Children's Center $53K) - Environment and agriculture: ~8% (Columbia Land Conservancy $27K, Riverkeeper $15K, Hawthorne Valley $50K) - Community infrastructure: ~7% (public square, humane society, grange, libraries capital projects)

Geographic concentration: New York accounts for 228 of 237 tracked grants (96%). All non-NY grantees (MA, RI, NC, KS) appear to be regional organizations with Columbia County ties.

Grant velocity: 71 grants (2023) → 95 grants (2024) → 108 grants (2025), a 52% volume increase in two years without a proportional increase in total dollars, indicating deliberate broadening of the recipient pool.

The following table compares HRBT Foundation to four asset-comparable private foundations identified from its peer dataset. All are classified under NTEE code T (Philanthropy & Grantmaking) with approximately $27.4M in assets as of the most recent IRS filings.

Among this asset-comparable cohort, HRBT Foundation is distinctive in three respects. First, it is the only foundation with a documented open, rolling application process accessible to any qualifying nonprofit — the others are either invitation-only, family foundations without public-facing portals, or corporate programs aligned with an employer's priorities. Second, HRBT's annual payout of $1.0–1.4M on $27.4M in assets (roughly 4–5%) is consistent, predictable, and publicly documented through 990 filings going back to 2011, making grant forecasting straightforward. Third, HRBT's hyper-local geographic mandate makes it highly predictable: if your organization is based in or serves Columbia County, NY, HRBT is among the most accessible comparable funders in the region at this asset level — and its 108 grants in 2025 (an average of roughly two new awards per week) confirm genuine volume.

No foundation-issued press releases, grant announcements, or leadership change notifications were identified for HRBT Foundation in 2025 or 2026 through public search sources. Keyword searches in this period were heavily confounded by the unrelated Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel infrastructure expansion project in Virginia, which shares the HRBT acronym.

The most current verifiable activity data comes from third-party grant aggregators cross-referenced against IRS 990 filings. In 2025, HRBT Foundation made 108 grants totaling $1,030,621 — the highest grant count in at least three years, up from 95 grants ($1,044,764) in 2024 and 71 grants ($599,798) in 2023. This 52% increase in grant volume over two years, without a proportional increase in total dollars, indicates the foundation deliberately broadened its recipient pool while slightly reducing the average award size from approximately $11,000 to $9,538.

Recent notable multi-year commitments visible in the database include: the Shaker Museum's new Chatham museum buildout ($60,000 across 3 grants), Columbia-Greene Community College Foundation's emergency and tuition assistance programs ($420,000 across 3 grants, the largest cumulative commitment in the dataset), and the Columbia Land Conservancy's wayfinding and communications project ($27,000 across 3 grants). Capital projects for community infrastructure (public square, grange, lighthouse, historic house) continue to receive multi-year support.

Holly Rappleyea has served as Secretary and primary staff contact throughout at least 2021–2023 per 990 filings, providing operational continuity. Board composition (Carl Florio, Tony Jones, Marilyn Herrington, Sid Richter, Joseph Phelan) has shown no reported changes across three years of 990 data. The foundation's assets grew from $21.7M (2022) to $26.9M (2023), a 24% single-year increase driven by $2.41M in net investment income.

1. Geography is the first filter — state it explicitly and quantify it. The foundation serves Columbia County, NY and immediately surrounding areas. Open every proposal with a clear statement of service geography. For regional organizations spanning multiple counties, quantify the Columbia County-specific footprint: number of Columbia County clients served, percentage of total program budget serving the county, or number of county locations. Vague claims of regional reach will not substitute for specificity.

2. Name your project, not your organization. HRBT explicitly prefers specific project and program funding over general operating support — this is stated policy, not preference. Frame every proposal around a discrete, named initiative with a defined scope, timeline (typically 12 months), and line-item budget. Successful examples from the grantee database: 'Spacelabs Telemetry System Upgrade' (Columbia Memorial Health, $50,000), 'Lighthouse Restoration' (Hudson-Athens Lighthouse Preservation, $30,000), 'RESET 2.0 Program' (Perfect Ten After School, $15,000). If your core need is operating support, package it as a specific program that is measurable and time-bounded.

3. Request in the $5,000–$20,000 range for a first application. The median grant in the dataset is $10,000 and the application form caps standard grants at $30,000. First-time applicants rarely receive the upper bound. A well-scoped first request of $7,500–$15,000 signals fiscal realism and respects the foundation's scale. Use the initial grant to establish the relationship before seeking larger multi-year support.

4. Anticipate a multi-year relationship arc. Nearly every significant grantee in the database has 2–3 consecutive years of funding. Include a brief 'partnership vision' paragraph in your narrative that describes how the work could deepen over multiple grant cycles — without implying entitlement to future funding. The foundation clearly values continuity with proven partners.

5. Contact Holly Rappleyea before submitting. She is the sole professional staff member and handles all intake. A brief phone call to (518) 671-6226 or a letter to PO Box 1189, Hudson NY 12534 to confirm eligibility and ask about the next board review date is standard practice. It transforms cold applicants into recognized names and surfaces any eligibility concerns before you invest in a full proposal.

6. Submit a complete package in one submission. Required documents include: IRS 501(c)(3) determination letter, most recent audited or reviewed financial statements, project budget, and organizational operating budget. The foundation explicitly states that incomplete proposals will not receive full consideration — do not plan to follow up with missing materials after initial submission.

7. Budget for the completion report. Grantees must file a written report within 12 months of receiving funding. This is a stated requirement and almost certainly affects future eligibility. Build staff time for the report into your project plan from day one.