James M Doss Charitable Foundation Trust

The James M. Doss Sr. Charitable Foundation Trust is a family-directed private foundation run out of Sarasota, FL, with President James M. Doss Jr. at the helm ($72,000 annual compensation, consistent across filings) alongside corporate trustees Sabal Trust Company and Hancock Whitney Bank. It funds three explicit pillars — Catholic faith-based organizations, college athletics programs, and children's health and human services agencies — and will only step outside those categories for organizations physically located on Florida's west coast or in western North Carolina. This is a hyper-local funder in practice: 52 of 60 tracked grants (87%) went to Florida organizations, concentrated in Sarasota and Manatee counties, with small outposts in North Carolina (4 grants) and Tennessee (3 grants). There is no separate Letter of Intent stage — applicants submit a full application (online or two mailed hard copies) directly, reviewed on a quarterly cycle. This low-friction, no-LOI structure signals a lean, relationship-oriented shop rather than a large program-staffed foundation, so grant seekers should not expect extensive back-and-forth before a decision. The grantee list shows the foundation strongly favors renewal relationships: UF Health Proton Therapy Institute, Boys & Girls Club of Sarasota, Family Promise of South Sarasota County, Sarasota Medical Pregnancy Center, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Easter Seals Southwest Florida, Camp Boggy Creek, Education Foundation of Sarasota County, and Suncoast Charities for Children all received two grants within the sample — evidence that first-time awards frequently lead to repeat, multi-year support rather than one-off gifts. First-time applicants should treat the initial grant as an entry point to a longer relationship, come with a specific, outcome-measurable project (equipment, renovation, program expansion) rather than a vague general appeal, and be prepared to show local Sarasota/Bradenton-area ties or presence, since the foundation's community visibility (e.g., the 2024 SRQ Good Hero Luncheon recognition of the Doss family) suggests decisions are informed by community reputation as much as paper applications.

Across the sampled grant history (60 grants, $1,407,320 total, avg $23,455/grant), the foundation's own stated typical grant size is a median of $25,000 with a range of $5,000 to $100,000 (average $33,157 across 16 sized grants). The two largest awards in the dataset — $100,000 each to UF Health Proton Therapy Institute (simulation center renovation, 2 grants) and Boys & Girls Club of Sarasota (Arcadia Club, 2 grants) — sit at the ceiling of that range; the smallest, a $1,920 teen summer program grant to Family Support Services of Suncoast, shows the foundation will also fund modest, targeted requests. By dollar volume, capital and equipment projects dominate (simulation center renovation $100k, Arcadia Club $100k, Easter Seals equipment $50k, Summit Charter School minibuses $38,100, patient transportation van $30,000), while health and human services recur as a strong secondary category (Sarasota Medical Pregnancy Center $67,180 across mental health counseling and a volunteer coordinator position, Family Promise transitional housing $75,000, St. Jude $50,000, Camp Boggy Creek therapeutic camp $50,000). Education and scholarship grants are smaller individually but frequent — Education Foundation of Sarasota County ($40,000 + $20,000), Take Stock In Children affiliates (three separate $25,000/$25,000/$10,000 scholarship grants), and Saint Joseph School STEM/scholarships ($25,000). Geographically, Florida absorbs the large majority of dollars (52 of 60 grants), with North Carolina (4 grants, including the $38,100 Summit Charter School award) and Tennessee (3 grants, Boys & Girls Club of the Plateau) as minor secondary markets, and a single Illinois outlier. Annual giving has trended downward: total giving was $629,331 (2019), peaked at $742,053 (2020), then declined to $643,152 (2021), $718,949 (2022), and $469,420 (2025) — a roughly 37% drop from the 2020 peak, moving in step with total trust assets declining from $9.14M (2019) to $7.95M (2025). Officer and trustee compensation has held steady near $150,000-$172,000 annually, a meaningful share (roughly a third) of the annual grants budget for a trust this size.

This peer set is asset-matched almost to the dollar (all roughly $7.95M), reflecting private foundations and trusts of comparable scale nationally, but the Doss Foundation stands apart in transparency: it is the only one of the six with a fully public mission statement, published application form, and stated quarterly deadlines, while four of five peers have no discoverable website at all. That transparency, paired with its explicit no-LOI, direct-application process, makes the Doss Foundation meaningfully more accessible to a first-time applicant than most of its size-matched peers, even though its narrow three-category focus and Florida-west-coast/western-NC geographic preference limit who should approach it in the first place.

Public media activity is thin and concentrated in 2023-2024. The most recent identified mention is a January 17, 2024 SRQ Daily piece recognizing Marla and Jim Doss at SRQ's Good Hero Luncheon for their community philanthropic impact. Before that, a November 4, 2023 announcement (Suncoast Charities for Children, covered by WWSB on October 4, 2023) detailed a foundation matching grant that funded a new outdoor therapeutic activity space at the Loveland Center in Venice, FL, serving individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities — this aligns with the $40,000 in Suncoast Charities grants ('Thunder By The Bay' and laptops) visible in the 990 grantee data. A May 19, 2023 item from the Education Foundation of Sarasota County described a Doss grant supporting a Student Success Center at Sarasota Military Academy, part of what the 990 data shows as a two-grant, $40,000 relationship with that organization. No 2025 or 2026 press coverage was located despite the foundation remaining active — its FY2025 Form 990-PF shows 21 awards totaling $469,420, consistent with ongoing quarterly grantmaking. The gap between continued 990 activity and an absence of recent press suggests the foundation operates with a deliberately low public profile; grant seekers should not read the lack of 2025-2026 news as a sign of reduced activity, but should also not expect the foundation to publicize awards beyond occasional grantee-initiated announcements.

Apply directly — there is no LOI stage, so submit the full application (online at jamesmdossfoundation.org/application-process/grant-application, or two hard copies mailed to P.O. Box 21194, Bradenton, FL 34204) targeting one of the four annual deadlines: March 1, June 1, September 1, or December 1. Because reviews happen quarterly and the process is lean (family president plus two corporate trustees, no large program staff), build in lead time and don't expect rolling decisions outside those windows — though the foundation states it will consider urgent, documented needs off-cycle. Always include a signed cover letter on organizational letterhead (accepted formats: PDF, DOC, DOCX, ODT, RTF, TXT; 10 MB max) — this is a stated requirement, not optional. Frame the request around one of the three funding pillars explicitly (Catholic faith-based work, college athletics, or children's health/human services) or make clear your organization sits within Florida's west coast or western North Carolina, since that geography is the only path in for organizations outside the three categories. Size the ask realistically: the median grant is $25,000 with a practical ceiling near $100,000 for major capital requests (simulation centers, renovations) and a floor near $5,000-$10,000 for smaller program needs — proposing something wildly outside that band is a common mismatch. Favor project- or capital-specific asks (equipment, renovation, a named program) over undifferentiated general operating support; while a few grantees (Seminole Boosters, St. Jude) did receive general-purpose grants, most awards in the data tie to a named project or purchase. Emphasize measurable outcomes and an evaluation plan in the proposal narrative — the foundation states this as an explicit selection criterion, and vague impact language is a likely reason for rejection. Because roughly a third of top grantees in the sample received two separate grants, treat a first award as the opening of a multi-year relationship: come back in a subsequent cycle with updated outcomes data from the prior grant rather than treating each cycle as a fresh cold pitch. Given the foundation's low public media profile, don't expect to find extensive published guidance beyond its own website — its four core pages (mission, application process, application form) are the authoritative source, and local Sarasota/Manatee nonprofit-sector visibility appears to matter as much as the written application.