Ivorybill Foundation Inc.

Ivorybill Foundation Inc. is a small, closely held family foundation run entirely by two family members — Alexis G. Sant (President, Treasurer & Director) and Christine D. Sant (Secretary & Director) — both uncompensated, operating out of a c/o address at Ashford Advisors LLC in Pittsford, NY. With $7,767,485 in assets (FY2024) and 128 recorded grants totaling $2,066,000 in the available history (averaging $16,141 each), this is a relationship-driven, preselected-grantee foundation, not a solicitation-based grantmaker: the foundation's own record flags it 'preselected_only,' and no LOI process, application form, or public RFP exists (application_instructions is literally recorded as '__none__'). Its nominal web domain, ivorybill.org, is not even the foundation's own site — it resolves to an unrelated page about the ivory-billed woodpecker, underscoring how little public-facing infrastructure this funder maintains.

The grantee list makes the personal-connection pattern explicit: Maret School, a DC independent school, has received $370,000 across 7 gifts including a named '$75,000 Together We Inspire Campaign' pledge; Oberlin College ($160,000/4 gifts) and Colby College ($150,000/3 gifts — two of which explicitly earmark the Women's Ice Hockey program) read as alma mater and family-activity gifts, not competitive awards. Washington Waldorf School ($140,000/4 gifts) suggests a family with school-age children in the DC area.

First-time, unconnected applicants should not expect to break in through a cold proposal. The realistic path in is indirect: build a relationship with an organization already in the portfolio (Trust for Public Land, Potomac Conservancy, Coastal Rivers Conservation Trust in Maine, or DC direct-service groups like Martha's Table and DC Central Kitchen) and let existing board or staff relationships carry an introduction to the Sant family. Organizations aligned with the family's dual geographic base — Washington, DC (55 of 128 grants, 43%) and coastal Maine (16 grants, all conservation-themed) — have the best fit. Once inside the circle, the pattern shows repeat, multi-year unrestricted support (most recipients receive 'UNRESTRICTED' gifts 3-4 times) rather than one-off project funding, so the realistic goal is converting a first small gift into an ongoing relationship, not winning a single large award.

The foundation's own typical_grant_size data (n=29 recent grants) puts the median at $10,000, average at $14,483, and range at $1,000-$50,000. The broader 128-grant, decade-plus history in the dataset shows a higher average of $16,141 with total recorded giving of $2,066,000, and the single largest identified gift was a $75,000 capital-campaign pledge to Maret School.

Annual total_giving has been volatile but trending down recently: $176,940 (2012) → $398,799 (2013) → $191,407 (2014) → $410,451 (2015) → $479,634 (2019) → $496,642 (2020) → $646,349 (2021) → $669,470 (2022, peak) → $535,433 (2023, most recent filed year, -20% year-over-year). Cash grants_paid followed the same arc: $540,000 (2021) → $592,000 (2022) → $462,000 (2023), a 22% two-year pullback. Meanwhile total assets have declined from an $8,769,173 peak in FY2020 to $7,767,485 in FY2024 — an 11% four-year drawdown — indicating payout has outpaced investment return in several recent years. FY2024 shows total_revenue of $380,089 but grants_paid was not reported in the available filing data.

Geographically (128 grants), DC dominates with 55 grants (43%), followed by Maine 16 (12.5%), Maryland 13 (10%), New York 12 (9%), Massachusetts 8 (6%), Colorado 6 (5%), and California/Ohio/Texas/Virginia at 4 each (3% each) — confirming a DC/coastal-Maine axis.

By cause, the largest concentration is DC independent-school and higher-education giving — $370,000 Maret School, $160,000 Oberlin College, $150,000 Colby College, $140,000 Washington Waldorf School, together roughly 40% of the top-50 grantee total — followed by land/wildlife conservation ($140,000 Coastal Rivers Conservation Trust, $110,000 Trust for Public Land, $80,000 Potomac Conservancy, $40,000 Conservation Lands Foundation, plus smaller Audubon/Puffin/wildlife gifts) and DC human-services/civic causes (Rainn $60,000, Issue One $60,000, Martha's Table/DC Central Kitchen/Capital Area Food Bank $40,000 each, Planned Parenthood entities combined $40,000, ACLU Foundation entities combined $40,000). No annual RFP cycle was found; grants appear to be disbursed on a rolling, board-determined basis.

All six foundations sit within a remarkably tight $7.766M-$7.769M asset band, which is typical of small family foundations sized just above the $7.5M threshold where minimum-distribution requirements start to matter more visibly. Ivorybill is the only one in this peer set with detailed, structured giving data available (via 990-PF grant-level detail), while none of the five peers except Issroff Family Foundation maintain even a basic public website — reinforcing that Ivorybill's closed, no-application posture is the norm for this tier of funder, not an outlier. Grant seekers should treat all six similarly: as relationship-only funders where a warm introduction, not a proposal, is the operative unit of outreach.

No independent press coverage or foundation-issued announcements were found for 2025-2026, consistent with a closed, two-person family foundation that files IRS Form 990-PF but otherwise maintains no public communications presence — no social media, no news page, and its nominal domain (ivorybill.org) actually hosts unrelated content about the ivory-billed woodpecker rather than foundation material. The most recent verifiable financial activity is the FY2023 Form 990-PF: total_giving of $535,433 and grants_paid of $462,000, both down from FY2022's $669,470/$592,000. FY2024 data shows total_assets of $7,767,485 and total_revenue of $380,089, but FY2024 grants_paid was not reported in the available filing data.

Leadership has been stable across all available records: Alexis G. Sant continues as President, Treasurer & Director, and Christine D. Sant as Secretary & Director, both serving without compensation ($0 officer_compensation every year on file back to 2012) — no reported turnover or new board additions.

Given that the largest gifts (Maret School, Oberlin, Colby, Washington Waldorf) each span 3-7 separate payments over time, current activity is best read as ongoing pledge fulfillment on long-standing commitments rather than new-initiative launches. Absent a public grants portal or news feed, prospective grantees should not expect a discoverable 2025-2026 RFP cycle; the most reliable way to track this funder going forward is monitoring its future Form 990-PF filings (typically posted via ProPublica/Candid roughly 12-18 months after fiscal year-end) or direct outreach to the Ashford Advisors LLC address/phone of record, (585) 697-0362.

There is no formal application to optimize — the foundation's own data confirms accepting_applications is nominally true but application_instructions is recorded as '__none__,' with no application_form_url and no application_deadline on file, and it is explicitly flagged 'preselected_only.' Treat any attempt at a traditional cold LOI or full proposal as low-probability effort; the dataset shows no evidence any unsolicited applicant has ever received funding.

The highest-leverage move is identifying a genuine point of connection rather than writing a stronger pitch. Concretely: (1) if your organization has any tie to Maret School, Oberlin College, Colby College, or Washington Waldorf School — as an alumni group, partner nonprofit, or booster program (the Colby gift specifically named women's ice hockey) — that affinity is worth surfacing explicitly in any outreach; (2) if you operate in DC direct services, land conservation, or coastal Maine wildlife/environmental work, your peer set (Martha's Table, DC Central Kitchen, Capital Area Food Bank, Trust for Public Land, Potomac Conservancy, Coastal Rivers Conservation Trust, Maine Audubon, Project Puffin) is already funded, so ask a program officer or board member at one of those organizations whether they know the Sant family or Ashford Advisors LLC and could facilitate an introduction.

When an introduction does happen, mirror the funder's own pattern: request unrestricted/general operating support rather than a narrowly scoped project grant — the overwhelming majority of recorded grant purposes are simply 'UNRESTRICTED.' Keep the ask modest and repeatable; the median recorded gift is $10,000 and the typical range is $1,000-$50,000, so a first ask in that band, positioned as the start of an ongoing relationship rather than a one-time program grant, fits the observed behavior far better than a large, project-restricted request.

The biggest mistake would be spending significant staff time drafting a full unsolicited proposal packet for a foundation that has no intake mechanism to receive it — that effort is better redirected toward relationship-building with the DC and coastal-Maine organizations already in the portfolio.