Irie Foundation

Irie Foundation is a small, closely held Chicago private foundation (EIN 81-1387742, formed 2016) with $7,669,382 in assets as of its FY2024 Form 990-PF filing. It is run entirely by two unpaid trustees, Steven R. Beauchamp and Danielle A. Beauchamp — no program staff, executive director, or grants officer appears anywhere in eight years of filings reviewed (2017-2024). The foundation's own IRS record marks it 'preselected only,' with a blank application-instructions field; web research corroborates this — no LOI process, portal, deadline, or public guidelines exist for this EIN anywhere online.

This is best understood as a family philanthropy vehicle, not an institutional grantmaker with a competitive review process. Grant history shows one dominant, long-running relationship: Children's Aid Society Of Nipissing & Parry Sound, an Ontario, Canada children's aid organization, which has received $1,525,000 across 4 grants — roughly 65% of the $2,330,824 in cumulative recorded giving. That concentration points to a personal or family tie rather than a merit-reviewed award, and grant seekers should not expect a comparable check without an equivalent personal connection.

Outside that anchor relationship, the remaining giving spreads across 71 grants ranging from $255 to $140,000, skewing toward nationally recognized brand nonprofits (American Red Cross, American Cancer Society, American Heart Association, UNICEF USA, NAACP Legal Defense Fund, The Trevor Project) rather than hyper-local or newly formed grassroots organizations. A cluster of 17 identical $1,429 grants to unrelated causes (health, youth development, environment, workforce) suggests a once-yearly batch distribution — possibly tied to a matching-gift or year-end giving list — rather than a submitted-and-reviewed application.

For first-time, unsolicited applicants, the realistic path in is a warm introduction: through the foundation's registered administrative contact (c/o Robert T. Napier, Harrison & Held LLP, 333 W. Wacker Dr., Suite 1700, Chicago), a shared board connection to either trustee, or overlap with an organization already in the portfolio. There is no LOI-to-proposal-to-site-visit funnel to follow because none has ever been published or observed in the data.

Across the 72 grants captured in Irie Foundation's giving history, total recorded giving is $2,330,824, averaging $32,373 per grant — a figure skewed heavily upward by the $1,525,000 relationship with Children's Aid Society Of Nipissing & Parry Sound (Ontario, Canada). A more representative gauge of a 'typical' recent ask comes from the foundation's own reported typical-grant-size data (its most recent 8-grant cohort): median $6,250, average $10,344, range $255-$25,000.

Annual total giving has been volatile and is now trending down. Per Form 990-PF filings: FY2017 $2,500 (first full year) → FY2018 $70,000 → FY2019 $87,250 → FY2020 $82,755 → FY2021 $280,003 → FY2022 $738,015 (peak year, coinciding with $3,365,500 in new contributions received) → FY2023 $574,836 → FY2024 $493,515. Total assets peaked at $8,659,524 in FY2022 after that inflow, then declined to $7,669,382 by FY2024 as distributions outpaced investment returns; FY2023 posted negative total revenue (-$10,462).

Geographically, of the 72 recorded grants: Illinois leads with 26 (36%), New York 10 (14%), California 6, Georgia 5, Washington 4, Virginia 3, and Connecticut, Maryland, Maine, and Texas at 2 each — plus the outsized single gift to Ontario, Canada. Despite the Chicago home base, once the Canada gift is counted, well under half of total dollar volume stays in Illinois.

By purpose, effectively all 72 grants are coded 'GENERAL PURPOSES' with no restricted, program-specific, or capital-campaign grants recorded — consistent with a foundation making general operating gifts to organizations trustees already know, not project-specific competitive awards. The second- and third-largest recipients — UNICEF USA ($140,000 across 3 grants) and Scholarship America's Peter J. McGrail Scholarship Fund ($100,000, 1 grant) — are both large, established national organizations, reinforcing that bigger checks go to low-diligence-risk, brand-name recipients rather than emerging or hyper-local groups.

Granted's peer set for Irie Foundation consists of five other private foundations in the same 'Philanthropy & Grantmaking' NTEE category with near-identical asset levels (all between $7.667M and $7.672M) — Oakwood Foundation Charitable Trust (MS), Douglas And Susan Present Family Foundation (NJ), Phil & Gerry Rominger Foundation (NC), John And Jane Campbell Family Foundation (TN), and Dwight H Hibbard Family Foundation (OH). None of the five peer foundations has a listed public website in Granted's database, matching Irie's own posture of operating with no public-facing grants program.

The tight asset clustering and identical NTEE classification indicate Granted matched these peers by size and IRS category rather than mission overlap — none appear to run a public grant program. This is a common footprint for sub-$10M, single-family-trustee foundations nationally: no dedicated staff, no published guidelines, and grantmaking driven by personal networks rather than competitive RFPs. Grant seekers should expect this same relationship-first pattern across the entire peer set, not just Irie, and budget outreach effort accordingly — cold applications to any of these six foundations carry low odds of response.

No dated news coverage, press releases, or announcements specific to Irie Foundation (EIN 81-1387742) were found in web searches covering 2025-2026 — only nonprofit-data aggregator listings (Instrumentl, CauseIQ, ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer, Zeffy, Grantable, Grantmakers.io, Holdings, Lucido) that republish IRS Form 990-PF filing data. No social media presence or annual report tied to this specific EIN was located.

An important finding from this research: iriefoundation.org, listed as this foundation's website in Granted's database, in fact belongs to an unrelated Miami/South Florida 501(c)(3) — a youth mentorship and scholarship nonprofit serving at-risk youth via a Big Brothers Big Sisters partnership. It shares the 'Irie Foundation' name but is a different organization in a different state with a different mission. Grant seekers should disregard iriefoundation.org's programs, contact info, and application content when researching this Chicago-based grantmaking trust; the two appear to have been conflated by a name-collision enrichment error.

The most recent verified financial activity is the FY2024 Form 990-PF (the latest available via ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer), showing $493,515 in grants paid across 21 awards — down from $574,836 (FY2023) and off the FY2022 peak of $738,015. Trustees Steven R. and Danielle A. Beauchamp remain the foundation's only listed personnel, both unpaid, consistent across every filing since the foundation's 2016 formation. Given the absence of any public communications channel, the most reliable ongoing signal of this foundation's activity is its annual IRS Form 990-PF filing and Granted's underlying grantee history, last verified 2026-07-29.

Irie Foundation does not operate a public application process: its own IRS record leaves the application-instructions field blank and flags it as preselected-only, and no LOI form, portal, deadline, or published guideline for this EIN turned up anywhere in web search. Applicants should plan around a relationship-first funder, not a program-review funder.

Specific, actionable guidance:

• Do not send an unsolicited full grant application expecting committee review — with zero paid staff across eight years of filings (2017-2024), there is no one positioned to process one.
• Match the recipient profile that has actually worked: larger checks ($10,000-$140,000) have gone almost exclusively to nationally recognized brand nonprofits (American Red Cross, American Cancer Society, American Heart Association, UNICEF USA, NAACP Legal Defense Fund, The Trevor Project, Sandy Hook Promise). Smaller, less established organizations have mostly received flat $1,429 grants — a pattern consistent with a matching-gift or year-end batch list rather than a competitive award you can apply into.
• If your organization is Chicago-based, note that a local presence has not clearly translated into local giving: Illinois recipients (26 of 72 grants, 36%) still skew toward national organizations with IL chapters rather than hyper-local nonprofits.
• Because there is no published deadline or cycle, timing your outreach matters far less than finding a warm path in — through Harrison & Held LLP (the foundation's registered c/o contact, 333 W. Wacker Dr., Suite 1700, Chicago, IL 60606), a shared board connection to trustees Steven R. or Danielle A. Beauchamp, or an existing grantee willing to make an introduction.
• Keep any initial ask modest and general-purpose: the foundation's own reported typical grant is a $6,250 median (range $255-$25,000); a six-figure ask is only credible for the kind of decades-long relationship reflected in its one outlier gift to Children's Aid Society Of Nipissing & Parry Sound.
• Common mistake to avoid: treating iriefoundation.org (a distinct, Miami-based youth mentorship nonprofit) as this funder's website — its 'How to Apply' or program content does not apply to this Chicago foundation.