Jesra Foundation Inc.

Jesra Foundation Inc. is a small, closed family foundation founded in 2015 by Dr. Francois Nader (a life-sciences executive who has chaired Acceleron Pharma, Talaris Therapeutics, and BenevolentAI, and sits on Moderna's board) and Micheline Nader (a healthcare entrepreneur, author, and Fairleigh Dickinson University alumna/affiliate). Its own IRS filing states plainly: 'the foundation is not involved with any direct charitable activities' and its data record is flagged preselected_only — meaning it identifies and vets its own grantees rather than running an open RFP, LOI, or portal process. All three officers (Micheline Nader, President; Francois Nader, VP & Secretary; Pierre Legault, Treasurer) draw zero compensation, underscoring this is an unstaffed, founder-directed vehicle rather than an institution with program officers to court. First-time applicants should not expect a cold web-form submission to convert into funding; the foundation's own contact page offers only a bare name/email/comments form with no stated review timeline or criteria. The realistic path in is a warm introduction: through the Lebanese-American and Arab-American philanthropic ecosystem the family is embedded in (American University of Beirut, the Center for Arab American Philanthropy, Rene Moawad Foundation, Takreem America), through Fairleigh Dickinson University (where Micheline Nader has a standing affiliation and where FDU itself is the single largest cumulative recipient at roughly $356,000 across three name-variant entries), or through the life-sciences/healthcare networks Francois Nader chairs into. Grant sizes skew small and unrestricted: of 102 tracked grants, the median recent award is just $5,000 and the largest single check on record is $52,500, so this is a funder suited to general-operating gap funding or matching small initiatives rather than large program grants. The dominant purpose codes are 'UNRESTRICTED USE BY CHARITY' and 'GENERAL OPERATIONS' — the foundation clearly prefers writing flexible checks to organizations it already trusts over funding discrete restricted projects, and most recipients (American University of Beirut, Lau Health Foundation, Rene Moawad Foundation, Teach For Lebanon) receive small grants repeatedly across years rather than one large award — loyalty to existing relationships, not new-applicant discovery, drives its calendar.

Across 102 tracked grants totaling $1,804,010, the average award is $17,686, but the distribution is heavily right-skewed by a handful of larger, repeat commitments: Fidelity Charitable ($217,000/4 grants, a donor-advised-fund pass-through rather than a program grantee), American University of Beirut ($205,500/7 grants), the Fairleigh Dickinson University family of entries ($188,100 + $115,652 + $52,500 ≈ $356,252 combined across three name variants), Takreem USA ($115,000/5 grants), Lau Health Foundation ($107,810/5 grants), Center for Arab American Philanthropy ($100,000/4 grants), Rene Moawad Foundation ($96,000/4 grants), Biosciences Lebanese International Network ($83,416/4 grants), Egatha Foundation ($67,200/4 grants), and Teach For Lebanon ($55,000/5 grants). Below that top tier, most grants are modest and often recurring at low dollar amounts — American Cancer Society received five separate grants totaling just $1,900, and several longtime recipients (Feeding America, Tunnel to Towers, St. Jude) get token annual gifts under $500 per grant. The IRS 990-PF enrichment sample of the ten most recent individual awards puts the typical (median) grant at $5,000, average $12,305, ranging from $100 to $52,500 — smaller than the all-time average, suggesting recent-year check sizes have compressed versus the foundation's larger historical commitments. Geographically, giving concentrates in New York (39 grants) and New Jersey (24 grants) — 62% of all tracked grants — reflecting the founders' New Jersey/New York ties (FDU is in NJ, NYU Langone and the family's professional network are in NY), with smaller clusters in DC (8), Delaware (7), Michigan (5), Oklahoma (5), Kentucky (4), and Massachusetts (4). Annual grants-paid has been volatile: $407,638 (FY2019) collapsed to $123,050 (FY2020, likely pandemic-driven), recovered to $194,600 (FY2021), then rebounded to $340,368 (FY2022) and $342,206 (FY2023). Total assets have drifted down from roughly $5.0M at the 2015 founding to $3.6M in FY2023, and FY2022/FY2023 both posted negative total revenue despite positive investment income — the foundation is now paying out more than it earns, consistent with a deliberate, gradual spend-down rather than perpetual endowment-building.

Jesra sits in a cluster of similarly-sized single-family foundations classified under Philanthropy & Grantmaking, all holding roughly $5.24M in assets — but Jesra's own asset base has since fallen to $3.6M, making it the smallest active giver of the group by current balance sheet.

All five peers lack the public grantee transparency Jesra has (via its IRS 990-PF filings and website), and four of the five have no public website at all — meaning Jesra is, relatively speaking, the most discoverable and web-visible foundation in its peer set even though it remains functionally closed to unsolicited applications. Grant-seekers targeting this peer tier should expect every one of these funders to require a personal or institutional connection rather than a cold application; Jesra's contact form and published mission statement make it marginally the easiest of the six to at least identify a contact channel for.

No foundation-specific press releases, grantee announcements, or leadership changes surfaced in web research for 2025-2026; the officer roster (Micheline Nader as President, Francois Nader as VP & Secretary, Pierre Legault as Treasurer) has been stable across every filing year in the record, with no compensation paid to any officer. The most recent confirmed financial data is the FY2023 Form 990-PF showing $342,206 in grants paid against $3,604,970 in total assets — essentially flat versus FY2022's $340,368 in grants paid. A third-party aggregator (Instrumentl) cites an unverified figure of roughly $323K across 17 grants for calendar 2024, but no filed 990-PF for that year was available in public databases as of this research date (2026-08-31), so that figure should be treated as an estimate rather than confirmed activity. On the personal side, co-founder Dr. Francois Nader continues an active public profile in life sciences — holding board and chair roles at Acceleron Pharma, Talaris Therapeutics, BenevolentAI, and a board seat at Moderna — which keeps the family's professional network visible even though none of that activity is foundation news per se. Co-founder Micheline Nader maintains an active public speaking, authorship, and executive-coaching profile (including her book "Leap Beyond Success") and retains her Fairleigh Dickinson University affiliation, which continues to anchor FDU's position as the foundation's single largest cumulative grantee. Absent new filings, the safest assumption for outreach timing is that the foundation's giving pattern and grantee relationships have not materially shifted since FY2023.

Do not treat the website contact form as a standard LOI intake — the foundation's own 990-PF flags it as preselected_only, meaning grants go to organizations the Nader family already knows or has vetted through personal channels, not to open applicants. The single highest-leverage move is securing a warm introduction through one of the foundation's existing relationship anchors: Fairleigh Dickinson University (where Micheline Nader has a standing affiliation and where FDU-linked entries total roughly $356,000 in cumulative giving), the American University of Beirut alumni or advancement network, or Lebanese/Arab-American philanthropic infrastructure such as the Center for Arab American Philanthropy or Takreem America — both of which the foundation funds repeatedly and likely trusts as referral sources. If your organization has no Lebanese-American, Arab-American, New Jersey/New York, or life-sciences/healthcare connection, expect a very low response rate; 62% of tracked grants go to NY/NJ-based or -linked organizations, and the founders' professional identity (pharma/biotech leadership, healthcare entrepreneurship) shows up repeatedly in grantee selection (e.g., Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer, Montreal Heart Institute, Direct Relief's medical-supply mission). Size the ask realistically: the median recent grant is $5,000 and the ceiling on record is $52,500, so pitching a $250,000 restricted program grant is a mismatch — request general operating or unrestricted support, which is what the foundation actually writes checks for in the large majority of its grants (coded 'UNRESTRICTED USE BY CHARITY' or 'GENERAL OPERATIONS'). Use alignment language tied to health, medical research, education access, veterans' programs, and leadership development — the five focus areas the foundation itself lists on its site — and, where genuinely applicable, reference Lebanon-relief or Lebanese-diaspora impact, since that thread runs through a disproportionate share of the grantee list. Once a relationship is established, expect recurring small grants rather than a single large award: nearly every top recipient (AUB, Lau Health Foundation, Rene Moawad Foundation, Teach For Lebanon, Biosciences Lebanese International Network) receives 3-7 separate grants over time rather than one lump sum, so position any ask as the start of an ongoing relationship, not a one-time transaction. Given zero paid staff, keep any outreach concise and personal rather than formatted like an institutional grant application — this is a founder-run vehicle, not a program office.