Ittleson Foundation Inc.

Ittleson Foundation Inc. is a small, family-governed legacy funder (established 1932 by CIT Financial Corporation founder Henry Ittleson) that behaves like a venture-capital philanthropist rather than an institutional grantmaker: it explicitly favors seed money for pilot, demonstration, and applied-research projects over continuing support, capital campaigns, or endowments. With roughly $8.8 million in total assets (FY2023) and about $1.06 million in total giving that year, this is a boutique funder — grant seekers should not expect large, multi-year commitments; the median award across the Foundation's own reported grant history is $17,500, and typical checks run $500 to $83,000, with a rare $200,000 exception (see Funding Patterns). The relationship model is simple and low-friction: there is no online portal or standard application form. Applicants send a brief Letter of Inquiry directly to Executive Director Anthony C. Wood, who has run the Foundation since 1993 and is the clear gatekeeper and primary point of contact (compensation ~$180,600-$184,000/year across recent 990s, the highest-paid person at the Foundation). Chairman H. Anthony Ittleson, grandson of the founder, and several Ittleson-family directors (Christina Ittleson Smith, Stephanie Ittleson, Philip Ittleson) round out an unpaid, closely held board — this is very much a family foundation where continuity and personal relationships with Wood matter more than formal scoring rubrics. First-time applicants should know two things above all: (1) the Foundation strictly alternates its new grantmaking focus annually between Mental Health and Environment (2026 is a Mental Health year), so applying in the wrong program year wastes a cycle; and (2) roughly 45% of grant dollars by count go to New York-based organizations, reflecting the Foundation's NY/DC geographic focus tags and its Manhattan-based governance — organizations without some NY or DC connection or specific national-model relevance face a steeper climb. Grassroots and small, underserved-population-facing groups are explicitly favored over large national institutions; a few oversized grants to major institutions (MD Anderson, Memorial Sloan Kettering) appear to be exceptions tied to specific researcher relationships rather than the norm applicants should plan around.

Across the 67 grants captured in the Foundation's recent grantee data, total disbursed giving was $1,176,000 at an average of $17,552 per grant — closely matching the Foundation's own published typical-grant profile (median $17,500, average $18,591, range $500-$83,000, n=22). The single largest award in the dataset is an outlier: $200,000 to MD Anderson Cancer Center across two grants, split between named researchers Dr. Christopher Logothetis and Dr. Lauren Mayo plus general support — well above the Foundation's stated $83,000 ceiling and in apparent tension with its published exclusion of biomedical research, suggesting a legacy or board-connected relationship rather than a replicable path for new applicants. Below that outlier, the largest 'normal' award is $83,000 to Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, matching the Foundation's self-reported maximum. The bulk of activity clusters much lower: Hesperian Health Guides ($65,000/2 grants, mental-health promotion guide for community health workers), Resource Renewal Institute ($65,000/3 grants, environmental 'Fish in the Fields' project), Scenic America ($60,000/2 grants, utility-wire undergrounding), Southampton Cultural Center ($55,000/2 grants, Comedy4Kids), Alongside Network ($55,000, capacity building for its wellbeing model), and San Francisco Study Center ($50,000, funding the mental-health journalism outlet MindSite News). A long tail of grants under $10,000 includes several recurring membership dues to funder-affinity groups — Environmental Grantmakers Association ($6,300/3 grants), Candid ($6,000/3 grants), Philanthropy New York ($4,200/3 grants), and Funders Concerned About AIDS ($1,500/3 grants) — signaling the Foundation's active participation in funder collaboratives, a useful network-access point for grantseekers. Geographically, New York recipients account for 30 of 67 grants (45%), followed by California (8), DC (6), Minnesota, South Carolina, and Vermont (4 each), Texas and Virginia (3 each). Notably, one grant shows a -$50,000 entry to Energy Action Network flagged 'return of grant — goals and objectives not met,' evidence the Foundation actively claws back funds when deliverables aren't met. Over the past decade, total assets have declined steadily from $12.99M (FY2011) to $8.79M (FY2023), a 32% drop, even as annual giving has stayed remarkably stable in the $900K-$1.2M band — implying the corpus is being drawn down faster than net investment income replenishes it, a trend applicants should read as a signal that overall grant volume is unlikely to grow and may eventually contract.

Ittleson sits at the small end of the mental-health/environment funder landscape — a family foundation with a fixed, modest payout rather than a growing institutional program. No formal peer set was pre-matched in the data bundle, so the comparison below draws on foundations that compete for the same mental-health and environmental grassroots proposals, based on their own public program pages.

Even within this small comparison set, Ittleson is the smallest and most personally governed: Van Ameringen and Scattergood both run structured online LOI portals and committee review processes, while Ittleson's entire process is a short letter mailed or emailed to one named executive. Applicants who are also pursuing Van Ameringen (which restricts itself to NYC's five boroughs and Philadelphia) or Scattergood should note Ittleson has no such geographic restriction in policy, even though its actual grant history skews heavily toward New York recipients.

The most concrete, verifiable recent activity is procedural rather than a specific new grant announcement: the Foundation confirmed its 2026 cycle will direct new money to Mental Health (its alternate-year program), with Letters of Inquiry due before September 1, 2026 and award decisions made at the fall board meeting. The prior, 2025 cycle was an Environment year, with Instrumentl's funder profile describing a focus on 'strengthening environmental movements' and engaging new constituencies through an environmental-equity lens — a modest rhetorical sharpening rather than a new program. No leadership changes were found: Anthony C. Wood remains Executive Director, a role he has held since 1993, and H. Anthony Ittleson (grandson of founder Henry Ittleson) continues as Chairman and President. No major new grant announcements, press releases, or public statements from the Foundation itself surfaced in this research — consistent with a low-visibility, low-website-activity family foundation that communicates primarily through its own grants-list pages rather than press. In the absence of fresh news, the most useful 'recent activity' signal for applicants is the funding-cycle mechanics themselves: because 2025 was an Environment year and 2026 is Mental Health, an environmental group that was too late for 2025 will need to wait until 2027 for the next Environment cycle, while mental-health organizations should treat 2026 as the live window and prepare LOIs well before the September 1 deadline.

Lead with the calendar: confirm which program is live before drafting anything. 2026 is a Mental Health year (LOI deadline September 1, 2026); the next Environment cycle will not reopen until 2027. Submitting an off-cycle LOI is the single most common way applicants waste a shot with this funder. Keep the Letter of Inquiry short and procedural — Ittleson's own guidance asks only for an organization description, a description of the funded work, and evidence of 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status; there is no separate application form and no online portal, so a two-to-three-page letter addressed to Executive Director Anthony C. Wood at 15 East 67th Street, New York, NY 10065 (or by phone at 212-794-2008 to confirm current submission preferences) is the complete first step. Frame the ask using the Foundation's own venture-capital language: emphasize that the project is a pilot, demonstration, or applied-research effort rather than ongoing operating support, since the published guidelines explicitly exclude continuing support, capital campaigns, endowments, biomedical research, individual grants, and international work. For Mental Health proposals, map directly onto the four stated pillars — stigma reduction, technology-enabled service delivery, access/equity for underserved populations, and youth/adolescent prevention involving parents and teachers — and name which pillar the project advances in the first paragraph. Given that 45% of the Foundation's grants by count go to New York organizations and its stated geographic focus is NY/DC, non-NY/DC applicants should proactively explain their national-model or replication potential, since the Foundation says it avoids projects that are 'local in focus and unlikely to be replicated.' Expect modest dollar amounts: budget an ask in the $10,000-$50,000 range as the realistic band (median $17,500), reserving anything near the $83,000 historical ceiling for exceptionally well-aligned, multi-year-relationship proposals. Because the Foundation is small and personally run, a warm introduction or reference through shared funder networks — it holds memberships in the Environmental Grantmakers Association, Candid, Philanthropy New York, and Funders Concerned About AIDS — can matter more here than with larger, portal-driven funders. Finally, if declined, respect the stated one-year reapplication waiting period rather than resubmitting a revised version the same cycle, and note the Foundation has shown willingness to claw back funds (one grantee's award was reversed for 'goals and objectives not met'), so proposals should set realistic, well-scoped deliverables rather than overpromising.