Jepson Scholars Foundation

The Jepson Scholars Foundation is not a conventional grantmaking foundation for nonprofits, schools, or community programs — it is a single-purpose scholarship vehicle created in 2019 by Robert S. Jepson Jr. and Alice Andrews Jepson to fund one-year Oxford master's degrees for graduating University of Richmond seniors from the Jepson School of Leadership Studies. There is no open RFP, no general operating support, and no program-area diversification to pursue: 100% of the mission statement ("SCHOLARSHIP AWARDS - TUITION, HOUSING, LIVING STIPENDS") and 100% of program expenses ($166,773 in the reported program line) go to this one activity. Grant seekers researching foundations broadly should treat this profile as informational rather than actionable unless they are a current University of Richmond Jepson School senior or an advisor supporting one. The eligible population is narrow by design: graduating seniors (not alumni), preferably majoring or minoring in Leadership Studies, who have already secured independent admission to a one-year Oxford master's program. The relationship model is closed and internal — Jepson School's Academic Affairs Committee reviews applicants and recommends candidates to the dean when demand exceeds available scholarship funds, meaning success depends on standing within the Jepson School community (faculty relationships, Career Services engagement, leadership studies coursework) long before a senior-year application is submitted. The governance structure reinforces this closed posture: the board is chaired by Dr. Ronald A. Crutcher (former University of Richmond president) with John W. Snow (former U.S. Treasury Secretary) as chairman of the broader board, Dr. Sandra J. Peart (Jepson School dean) as president, and Robert S. Jepson Jr. himself as secretary — every seat is filled by people embedded in the University of Richmond ecosystem, with zero officer compensation reported across all fiscal years. For the rare eligible applicant, the strategic takeaway is to secure Oxford admission first (through University of Oxford Graduate Admissions, independent of the Foundation), then work with Jepson School Career Services and the Academic Affairs Committee to be recommended for funding.

Total giving has been volatile and modest in absolute dollars: $109,947 (FY2020), $166,959 (FY2021), $129,506 (FY2022), and $394,107 (FY2023) — a 3.5x jump from 2022 to 2023 that roughly tracks the Foundation's asset growth over the same window. Total assets grew from $1.02M (FY2020) to $5.28M-$5.52M (FY2021-22) to $8.41M (FY2023 per filed financials) and an estimated $12.96M in the most recent enrichment snapshot, driven largely by contributions received ($1.13M in 2020, $4.21M in 2021, $50K in 2022, $3.26M in 2023) rather than investment returns, which suggests the Jepson family and affiliated donors are still actively funding the endowment rather than relying on it to compound independently. Net investment income has stayed modest ($0-$321K annually), consistent with a young, still-growing corpus. Notably, the standard "grants_paid" field reads $0 across every fiscal year — because this Foundation does not make grants to organizations at all; its entire giving flows through scholarship stipends to individual students, tracked as "total_giving" rather than conventional grants_paid. Cross-referencing dollars against known cohort sizes is instructive: the 2024 cohort (4 scholars) and the 2025-26 cohort (8 scholars, the largest yet) suggest average per-scholar disbursement in the range of roughly $15,000-$50,000 in a given fiscal year, which is lower than a full Oxford cost of attendance (commonly $60,000-$100,000+ all-in for international students). This implies either that Foundation dollars supplement other funding sources per scholar, that awards are paid out over multiple fiscal years per recipient, or that marketing language ("full scholarships" covering tuition, food, housing, and fees) somewhat overstates what the Foundation's own reported giving figures can fully substantiate on a per-scholar, per-year basis — a gap worth noting rather than repeating uncritically.

The five closest asset-matched peers in the data are all small, single-focus education foundations in the $12.8M-$13.0M asset range, though none appear to share Jepson's narrow Oxford-scholarship structure — they are presented here as scale comparables, not functional equivalents.

All six organizations sit within a tight $120K band of total assets, suggesting Jepson is comparably sized to other small, single-family education foundations nationally rather than an outlier. The key differentiator is structural, not financial: unlike family foundations that may fund a range of local education causes or accept LOIs, Jepson's giving is entirely programmatic and pre-committed to one institutional pipeline (University of Richmond's Jepson School), leaving essentially no discretionary capacity for outside applicants regardless of asset growth.

The most concrete recent activity is the naming of the 2025-26 cohort — eight University of Richmond graduates (Alexander Konigsberg, Nandini Raisurana, Abigail Smith, Caleb Silvergleid, Nora Buell, Amal Ali, Sanjna Kaul, and Jackson Sandler-Bussey) announced around June 2025 as the largest class since the program's 2019 launch, doubling the four-scholar 2024 cohort (Delaney Demaret, Anum Merchant, Lauren Oligino, and Trevin Stevens). Cumulative figures reported across sources are somewhat inconsistent — one 2024 release cited 19 total scholars since inception, while more recent University of Richmond program pages cite roughly 27-32 scholars including the Class of 2026 — which likely reflects different snapshot dates rather than a data error, but is worth flagging rather than resolving with false precision. There is no evidence of a leadership change: Dr. Sandra J. Peart continues as president (and Jepson School dean), Dr. Ronald A. Crutcher as board chair, John W. Snow as chairman, and founder Robert S. Jepson Jr. as secretary, with no compensation reported for any officer in any fiscal year on record. No new program lines, geographic expansions, or funding-priority pivots appear in available materials — the Foundation's growth has been in scale (more scholars per year, larger asset base via new contributions) rather than in scope. The University of Richmond's Jepson School published an updated "Jepson Scholars Checklist" for the Class of 2026 in the 2025-26 academic year, formalizing Oxford admissions timelines and Foundation eligibility steps for the next cohort of applicants.

This section is written for the only realistic applicant pool: current University of Richmond Jepson School of Leadership Studies seniors (or the advisors/faculty supporting them) — nonprofits and other organizations are not eligible and should not attempt to apply. First, sequence the process correctly: admission to a one-year Oxford master's program through University of Oxford Graduate Admissions must happen independently and first — the Foundation does not fund admission, only enrolled/admitted scholars, and the scholarship cannot transfer to any other university. Second, build standing within the Jepson School well before senior year; because the Academic Affairs Committee reviews and recommends candidates to the dean whenever demand exceeds available funds, a track record of engagement with Leadership Studies coursework, faculty, and Career Services carries more weight than a strong application submitted cold in the final semester. Third, target the preference criteria explicitly: preference goes to students majoring or minoring in Leadership Studies who list Jepson as their home school, so applicants outside that concentration should not assume equal footing. Fourth, use Career Services early for Oxford application-fee assistance — this is a distinct, lower-barrier resource separate from the scholarship decision itself and a good way to start a relationship with the office that will later weigh in on funding recommendations. Fifth, expect the growing cohort size (4 scholars in 2024, 8 in 2025-26) to mean more, not fewer, funded slots going forward, but do not assume the award covers 100% of Oxford costs in every case — the Foundation's own reported total giving per fiscal year ($129K-$394K across recent years) implies awards may be partial or staged, so applicants should still pursue supplemental funding (Oxford bursaries, other named scholarships, family support) in parallel. Finally, avoid the most common mistake for a program like this: treating it as a general education grant to research from the outside. There is no LOI process, no proposal template, and no public RFP to reverse-engineer — the entire pathway runs through University of Richmond's own advising infrastructure.