Jehovah-Jireh Foundation Inc.

Jehovah-Jireh Foundation Inc. is a niche, mission-driven micro-foundation ($6.19M in assets, $2.06M reported annual income) run entirely by an unpaid volunteer board — every listed officer (Lou Rossi, President; Mike Gilbert, Craig Bennett, and David Schwanke, Vice Presidents; Rich Wilder, Treasurer; Robert L. Warnick, Secretary; founder James Bosse, Foundation Manager) draws $0 compensation across all filings in the data. This is a lean, personal operation, not a large staffed institution, and it has exactly one mission: helping Independent, Fundamental Baptist churches acquire their first sanctuary building. Eligibility is unusually specific — the church must be at least 3 years old, its pastor must have served at least 18 months, membership must fall between 25 and 150 (domestic grants are not considered above 150 Sunday attendance), and the project must be a first sanctuary purchase, conversion, or construction, not a school, gym, or parsonage. The foundation explicitly does not pre-approve requests or hold capital in reserve for future projects — it allocates to active, ready-to-execute projects only, so timing a submission to real project readiness matters more than applying early. The relationship progression is a two-step funnel: a short Pre-Application (dollar amount requested, pastor and church history, sending-church details, project category) reviewed first, followed by a full Application sent only upon approval. Funds are then disbursed in draws tied to project milestones, similar to a construction loan, rather than as a lump sum. First-time applicants should also expect to bring their own investment — the foundation's language is consistently "a help with the financial portion," never full funding. The grantee history shows this is fundamentally a repeat-relationship funder: Bible Baptist Church received 9 grants totaling $480,000, Grace Baptist Church 6 grants totaling $410,000, and Victory Baptist Church 5 grants totaling $325,000 — evidence that an initial award is often the start of a multi-year, multi-draw partnership rather than a single transaction, and that churches connected to an existing sending-church network are favored over unaffiliated cold applicants.

In the most recent complete fiscal year on record (FY2023), the foundation paid $685,000 in grants against total giving of $1,449,979, total revenue of $1,789,548, and total assets of $6,136,527 — assets that grew a further $328,276 that year alone even as grant disbursement pulled back. Across the 2011-2023 filings in the data, total assets grew 4.3x, from $1,441,560 to $6,136,527, while annual grants paid rose from $390,000 (2011) to a peak of $873,500 (2020) before declining to $685,000 by 2023 — a 21.6% pullback from peak that, combined with continued asset growth, points to a strategy of building the endowment ("Builder's Fund") rather than maximizing yearly payout. Officer compensation is $0 across every filing, meaning essentially all disbursed capital reaches church projects rather than overhead. Across the 125 tracked grants in the grantee dataset, total giving is $5,942,508 with an average grant of $47,540 — closely matching the foundation's own stated typical grant size (median $50,000, average $47,191, range $3,000-$100,000, based on 17 sampled grants). Giving is concentrated: the top 10 grantees alone account for roughly $2.65M, or about 45%, of tracked giving, reflecting the repeat-relationship pattern described above rather than broad one-off distribution. Purpose coding is almost uniformly "Missions"/"MISSIONS" (sanctuary and building support), with occasional variants — one grant explicitly tagged "Building Fund Peru," one "Bible Paper" (literature support), and one "Heartland May Offering." By state, tracked grants cluster in Ohio (14), Arkansas (11), Maine (8), North Carolina (7), and five each in Florida, Kentucky, Montana, and Texas, plus four each in Maryland and New York — a nationwide footprint that extends well past the database's tagged "MD, OH" geographic focus, and includes Spanish-language congregations (Iglesia Bautista Victoria, Iglesia Bautista Betesda, Iglesia Bautista Hockley, and others) alongside at least one confirmed international project in Peru.

All six foundations sit within an unusually tight $6.187M-$6.190M asset band, placing Jehovah-Jireh in the same micro-foundation size cohort nationally, but none of the peer records in this dataset carry a website, focus-area detail, or application information — they are generically NTEE-coded "Philanthropy & Grantmaking" with no further disclosed specialization. Jehovah-Jireh stands apart on two fronts: it is a hyper-focused single-purpose funder (Baptist church sanctuary acquisition only) rather than a generalist grantmaker, and it is unusually transparent for its size — a published mission, eligibility criteria, and a live online Pre-Application form, where the peer foundations show no equivalent public on-ramp in the data available. For grant seekers outside the Independent Fundamental Baptist church-planting niche, none of these six funders is likely to be a fit; for IFB churches acquiring a first sanctuary, Jehovah-Jireh offers a rare, publicly accessible path that similarly sized peers do not appear to provide.

Independently verifiable 2025-2026 news coverage of this foundation is essentially absent — searches surfaced only directory/aggregator listings (Candid, Instrumentl, GuideStar, ZoomInfo, Grantable, Grantmakers.io) and the foundation's own website, with no dated press releases or third-party articles. The foundation's current site references "25 years of ministry," consistent with its 2001 incorporation and first grant cycle in January 2002, suggesting 2026 lands around a 25th-anniversary milestone, though no dated announcement confirms specific anniversary programming. Leadership shows continuity rather than change: founder James Bosse continues to lead (variously listed as Foundation Manager, Founder, and President across filings) alongside a stable volunteer board — Lou Rossi (President), Mike Gilbert, Craig Bennett, and David Schwanke (Vice Presidents), Rich Wilder (Treasurer), and Robert L. Warnick (Secretary) — the same names recur across every filing year in the data, with no turnover evident. Financially, the most recent complete fiscal year on record (2023) shows grants paid at $685,000, down from a 2020 peak of $873,500, while total assets rose to $6,136,527 — a pattern that points toward continued endowment-building via the foundation's "Builder's Fund" model rather than an acceleration in giving. One operational note worth flagging to applicants: the address on file with the IRS (C/O James Bosse, 2605 Chapel Lake Dr, Gambrills, MD 21054) differs from the mailing address currently listed on the foundation's website (P.O. Box 1178, Glen Burnie, MD 21061) — applicants should use the current website address and confirm by phone (410-960-2390) before mailing physical materials. No new program announcements, leadership transitions, or major individual grants were publicized in the sources reviewed.

This is an extremely narrow niche funder — apply only if the organization is an Independent, Fundamental Baptist church seeking to acquire (purchase, convert, or construct) its first sanctuary building; non-Baptist churches, established multi-campus congregations, secular nonprofits, and non-sanctuary projects (schools, gyms, parsonages) fall outside scope and will be declined, so don't spend a submission on a mismatch. Meet the numeric thresholds before applying: church age 3+ years, pastor tenure 18+ months, membership between 25 and 150 (domestic grants are not considered above 150 Sunday attendance including men, women, and children). Start with the Pre-Application form at jehovahjirehfoundation.org/grants/grant-pre-application-form/, not a cold full proposal — the foundation only forwards the full Application after reviewing and approving the pre-application, so be precise there: exact dollar amount requested, project category (purchase, renovation, or construction), and complete pastor/church history. Show co-investment: the foundation's stated model is "a help with the financial portion of the project," not full funding, so applications should state a specific dollar figure the church has already committed or raised locally — proposals that read as needing 100% from the foundation are a poor fit. Name your sending church and its pastor if applicable — the pre-application form asks for this directly, indicating the foundation favors church-planting-network submissions with an existing vouching relationship over unaffiliated independent starts. Time the submission to the board's review cycle: the foundation's own materials describe board decisions being made at meetings held in January and July each year, so pre-applications should go in well ahead of one of those two windows rather than assuming rolling review. Note a data discrepancy worth resolving directly with the foundation: Granted's database record for this foundation lists a "December 15th" application deadline field, which may reflect an older annual cutoff distinct from the January/July board cycle described on the current site — confirm current-year timing by phone (410-960-2390) before finalizing a submission date. Expect phased, draw-based disbursement rather than a lump sum, and be ready to report project progress as funds are requested. Finally, treat a first grant as the potential start of an ongoing relationship, not a one-time transaction — several top grantees (Bible Baptist Church, Grace Baptist Church, Victory Baptist Church) received grants across five to nine separate cycles, and staying in touch about the congregation's growth appears to open the door to follow-on support.