Jewell Foundation

Jewell Foundation — operating publicly as The Jewell Education Foundation — is a hyper-local, single-purpose funder, not a general grantmaking institution, despite its "Philanthropy & Grantmaking" IRS classification. Its entire footprint is K-12 education in one Ohio county, channeled through eight named partner schools/districts: Carlisle, Franklin, Kings Local, Lebanon, Little Miami, Springboro, Waynesville, and the Warren County Career Center. Nonprofits, higher-ed institutions, or K-12 districts outside this list are not a fit; there is no evidence the foundation has ever funded beyond Warren County.

Two distinct tracks exist. Scholarships go to individual graduating seniors and run on a public, form-based process with a firm annual deadline. School Enrichment funding goes to district budgets (facilities, staffing, textbooks, technology) for programs a normal school budget wouldn't cover, but — unlike Scholarships — has no published application form, portal, or deadline, suggesting it moves through direct relationships with district administrators rather than a competitive RFP.

Governance is lean: the IRS filing lists just two unpaid officers, Michael Cluff Child (Director/President/Treasurer) and Renee A Z Child (Secretary/Director), with zero officer compensation reported. The Wilmington, Delaware mailing address is a Foundation Source administrative address, not a sign the foundation operates in Delaware — all substantive activity is in Warren County, Ohio, run day-to-day by Executive Director Bill Thornton per the website. This is a volunteer-board, community-embedded vehicle, closer to a family/community scholarship fund than a staffed grantmaking institution.

First-time student applicants should understand the process runs entirely through their high school counselor's office, not a foundation portal — bypassing that channel likely disqualifies an otherwise strong application. There is no multi-stage LOI-to-full-proposal cultivation cycle; it's a single annual form with a hard deadline (March 27, 2026 for the current cycle). Districts or affiliated programs interested in School Enrichment dollars should build a direct relationship with the foundation via phone or email rather than expect a formal proposal process — the absence of any published enrichment application suggests these awards are relationship- and referral-driven, most likely initiated by district administrators reaching out directly rather than by outside applicants approaching the foundation cold.

The foundation's FY2023 IRS filing (the only fiscal year in the data bundle) shows total assets of $5,195,848, total giving of $6,500, contributions received of $5,130,142, net investment income of $1,828,111, and total revenue of $5,202,348, with zero officer compensation. The $6,500 in FY2023 giving matches — dollar for dollar — the sum of the eight 2025 scholarship awards reported on the foundation's own website (Carlisle $1,000, Franklin $500, Kings Local $500, Lebanon $500, Little Miami $1,000, Springboro $1,000, Waynesville $1,000, Warren County Career Center $1,000), a strong internal-consistency signal that scholarships currently represent the entirety, or very nearly the entirety, of the foundation's disbursed giving in a given cycle.

Award size is binary in practice: recipients get either $500 or $1,000, with no scholarships observed outside that range — consistent with the foundation's own stated typical grant size of $500-$1,000. With one winner drawn from each of the eight partner schools in 2025, the structure functions more like eight roughly-equal seats than a countywide competitive pool judged purely on merit across all applicants.

The foundation's own site states it has distributed $293,500 to partner districts and students since it began in August 2006 — an average of roughly $15,450 per year across ~19 years, well above the $6,500 booked in FY2023 alone, suggesting FY2023 was a comparatively light distribution year, likely because the foundation was absorbing a large new contribution rather than paying it out. The $5.13M contribution received in FY2023 dwarfs the foundation's prior asset base implied by its modest annual giving history, and appears to be the source of the current $5.2M asset level — this reads as a foundation in a capitalization/transition year rather than a mature, steady-state payout institution.

No School Enrichment grant dollar amounts, recipient counts, or geographic/program-area breakdowns are published or captured in available data — that program's financial footprint cannot be sized from public sources. Grant seekers should treat the $500-$1,000 scholarship range as the only reliably documented award size for this funder; School Enrichment amounts are unknown and should be clarified directly with the foundation.

Jewell Foundation sits at the small end of the "Philanthropy & Grantmaking" NTEE peer set by asset size, alongside several similarly-capitalized family foundations and trusts. None of the peers in this comparison set publish an education-specific mission as narrow as Jewell's — most appear to be general-purpose family philanthropic vehicles without a public program focus, based on available data.

All six foundations cluster within about $146,000 of asset value ($5.20M-$5.34M), making this a genuine size-matched peer group, but Jewell is the only one with a fully public, documented application channel and a named, narrow geographic/programmatic mission. That transparency is itself a differentiator: applicants can identify eligibility and deadlines for Jewell from its website alone, while the peer foundations show no public application information, consistent with closed, founder/family-directed giving typical of small trusts in this asset class.

The most recent documented activity is the 2025 scholarship cycle: eight graduating seniors, one from each of the foundation's eight partner schools, were awarded $500 or $1,000 each ($6,500 total), announced on the foundation's site on October 11, 2025. The formal awards ceremony was held earlier, on May 7, 2025, at Springboro High School. Foundation representative Sharon Jewell also attended Springboro High School's own senior awards ceremony on October 2, 2025 to recognize the local recipient in that setting — evidence that board/family members maintain a visible, personal presence at partner-school events rather than operating solely through paperwork.

The 2026 scholarship cycle is open now, with a downloadable application posted and a deadline of March 27, 2026 — notably about two weeks earlier than the April 11, 2025 deadline used for the prior cycle. No news search or website page turned up a School Enrichment grant announcement, new program launch, leadership change, or major gift disclosure for 2025-2026 beyond the scholarship cycle itself; the foundation's "News & Events" page is thin, with its last substantive post dated October 2025.

Separately, the FY2023 IRS filing shows a $5.13 million contribution received that year — a large capitalization event relative to the foundation's historical giving levels — but no corresponding public announcement of a major donor, campaign, or bequest was found in web research. Grant seekers should treat this as an open question worth asking the foundation directly (via 513-897-5629 or sljewell1947@aol.com), since a foundation that has recently tripled its asset base may be positioned to expand its School Enrichment giving in coming cycles even though nothing has been publicly announced yet.

Apply through the correct channel: applications go to the student's high school counselor, not to the foundation directly. The foundation does not appear to accept scholarship applications submitted outside that channel, and the website repeatedly directs students back to their counselor's office for both the form and any additional guidance.

Don't assume last year's deadline: the 2026 scholarship deadline (March 27, 2026) moved roughly two weeks earlier than the 2025 cycle's April 11, 2025 deadline. Counselors and students should confirm the current-year date directly rather than working from memory or a prior year's flyer.

Eligibility is a hard gate, not a tiebreaker: only seniors at the eight named partner schools — Carlisle, Franklin, Kings Local, Lebanon, Little Miami, Springboro, Waynesville, and the Warren County Career Center — qualify. A strong student at any other Warren County school, or outside the county entirely, is not eligible regardless of merit or need.

Understand the award structure: 2025's eight winners, one per partner school, at $500 or $1,000 each, suggests the foundation effectively allocates a seat to each partner district rather than running one countywide competitive pool. Positioning as the strongest candidate from your specific school likely matters more than out-competing the full county field.

Expect thin public guidance: the foundation's website does not publish essay prompts, a scoring rubric, need-vs-merit weighting, or required attachments. That detail almost certainly lives with each high school's counseling office — ask there first, and call the foundation directly (513-897-5629, sljewell1947@aol.com) only if the counselor can't answer.

For School Enrichment dollars (K-12 program, facility, staffing, textbook, or technology funding for a partner district), there is no visible open RFP or portal. The realistic path is district administration — a superintendent's office or district grants contact — approaching the foundation directly, not an outside nonprofit submitting a cold proposal. Organizations that partner with a district on an enrichment program should route their ask through that district's central office rather than contacting Jewell independently.

Common mistake to avoid: treating this as a regional or statewide education funder. Its entire scope is eight named Warren County, Ohio institutions — proposals or applications from outside that footprint have no track record of being funded and should be redirected elsewhere.

Relationship signal: foundation representatives (e.g., Sharon Jewell) personally attend partner-school senior awards ceremonies, indicating this is a community-relationship-driven funder where local visibility and long-standing school partnerships matter alongside the paperwork.