Jiji Foundation

The JiJi Foundation is a small, all-volunteer private foundation (officer compensation has been $0 in every filed year from 2010-2022) based in Seattle but hyper-focused geographically on Northwest Baja California, Mexico. Despite carrying an IRS/NTEE 'Human Services' tag, its actual — and unchanging — mission is environmental conservation, applied science, and public education in that single region; organizations outside this footprint should not apply regardless of category alignment. Its 15 tracked historical grants ($3.22M total) reveal a foundation that builds deep, repeat relationships with a very small roster of trusted intermediaries rather than spreading small one-off gifts widely: San Diego Natural History Museum received 3 grants totaling $1,924,800 to endow a Director of Conservation Biology position, the International Community Foundation and International CMU Foundation together received $740,000 across 4 grants (functioning as regranting/administrative vehicles for on-the-ground Mexican partners), and Endangered Habitats League received $389,000 for land management at Punta Mazo Natural Reserve. This pattern — a handful of multi-year, high-trust relationships — means cold LOIs from unfamiliar organizations face real headwinds; the foundation itself discloses that only about 40% of Baja California requests are funded even among aligned applicants. There is no online portal or open RFP: the entire relationship starts with a direct email to Treasurer Anne McEnany, a written letter of request of no more than 4 pages plus a cover sheet, and up to a 4-month review window — a process that behaves more like a personal family foundation than an institutional grantmaker. Eligibility is not restricted to US 501(c)(3)s: unincorporated Mexican NGOs and even individual researchers can apply, notably through the Small Research Grant Program under the Next Generation of Sonoran Desert Researchers partnership. First-time applicants should lead with conservation-science credibility, propose a single-year budget only (multi-year asks are discouraged), hold overhead to the mandated 6% ceiling, and explicitly reference one of the five stated program priorities or a named priority site (San Quintín/El Rosario, Sierra San Pedro Mártir, Sierra Juárez, vernal pools). Given typical non-endowment-year giving in the $250K-$620K range, realistic asks fall between $4,890 and $100,000 (the foundation's own reported typical range); anything approaching seven figures, as with SDNHM, is reserved for decades-deep, capacity-building partnerships, not new applicants.

The foundation's own reported typical grant size is an average of $44,510, ranging from $4,890 to $100,000 — this is the realistic planning range for a new applicant. The $3,218,800 tracked across 15 historical grants (average $214,587) is heavily skewed by the $1,924,800 multi-installment endowment gift to San Diego Natural History Museum; stripping that outlier out, the remaining 12 grants across 4 other organizations total roughly $1,294,000, or about $108,000 per multi-year relationship — still well above the $44,510 'typical' single grant because most reported figures are cumulative across several years and disbursements. Annual giving has swung considerably by fiscal year: FY2022 total giving was $327,636 (grants paid $304,000); FY2021 was $615,202 ($582,400 paid); FY2020 spiked to $1,540,423 ($1,500,000 paid) — the year of the SDNHM endowment commitment; FY2019 fell back to $276,368 ($250,000 paid); FY2018 was $502,773 ($479,361 paid). In the earlier available years, FY2010-2014 giving ranged from $404,610 (FY2012) to $643,612 (FY2011). Total assets have grown from $1,946,782 (FY2011) to roughly $5,590,648 today — a near-tripling driven largely by investment performance rather than new contributions: net investment income has been volatile but often substantial ($1,906,834 in FY2020, $467,917 in FY2021, $636,760 in FY2012), while annual contributions received have stayed modest and flat, typically $23,000-$34,000. As a non-operating private foundation, JiJi must distribute roughly 5% of assets annually (about $280,000 at current asset levels) absent a large one-off commitment, so a 'normal' year without a major capacity gift produces combined giving of roughly $275,000-$620,000 spread across a small number of grants. By recipient type, all 15 tracked grants list California-based organizations, reflecting that US intermediaries (SDNHM, International Community Foundation, Endangered Habitats League) channel funds to Baja California, Mexico ground partners rather than the foundation granting directly to unincorporated Mexican entities in the tracked dataset. By purpose, land/species conservation and institutional capacity building account for roughly 72% of tracked dollars, regranting/administration about 23%, applied conservation science about 4%, and public education under 1%.

JiJi sits among a cluster of small private foundations with almost identical asset bases (roughly $5.5M-$5.6M) that IRS data groups under the same 'Human Services' NTEE category, though JiJi's actual practice is entirely environmental conservation — a reminder that NTEE codes on small foundations are often unreliable and should not be used alone to judge fit.

Unlike its five listed peers — none of which maintain a public website, published program description, or application process — JiJi is unusually transparent and accessible for a foundation of its size, publishing a full mission statement, five named program priorities, and a documented application procedure. This transparency is itself a competitive signal: JiJi actively wants qualified Baja California conservation applicants to find and reach it, whereas its similarly-sized peers appear to operate as closed, invitation-only, or dormant entities with no discoverable inbound channel.

Public reporting on JiJi Foundation is sparse — it has no news or press page, and no dedicated announcements were found for 2025 or 2026 beyond routine data refreshes on third-party nonprofit databases (GuideStar/Candid show the profile last updated May 2, 2025, with underlying grant data refreshed March 21, 2025). The foundation's own application-procedures page still states, unchanged, that no regular deadlines have been scheduled 'as of January 1, 2019,' indicating a long-standing, stable operating posture rather than a recent policy shift. No leadership changes surfaced in web research; the most recent filed IRS data lists Alan B. Harper as President, Carol J. Baird as Secretary, and Anne McEnany as Treasurer, all uncompensated, consistent across the filing years reviewed. Anne McEnany is also the named point of contact on the foundation's own website for all grant inquiries, while IRS correspondence records list a Seattle P.O.-box style address care of Margo Reich — applicants should use the email contact on jiji.org rather than the postal address for live correspondence. The most notable historical 'activity' visible in the financial record — rather than in news coverage — is the roughly $1.9 million, three-installment endowment commitment to San Diego Natural History Museum for a Director of Conservation Biology position, which drove FY2020 total giving to $1,540,423, by far the largest giving year in the decade of data reviewed. No comparable large commitment appears in the most recent filed years (FY2021-FY2022 giving returned to the $327K-$615K range), suggesting the foundation has returned to its normal grantmaking cadence since completing that endowment.

Because JiJi has no online application portal, the entire process starts with a direct, personal email to Treasurer Anne McEnany — a brief introductory note describing your organization, geographic footprint, and fit with one of the five stated priorities (institutional capacity building, next-generation conservation scientists, terrestrial conservation science, sustainable funding mechanisms, or the named priority sites) is the appropriate first move before drafting a full letter. When invited to submit, keep the letter of request strictly within the 4-page limit — the foundation explicitly says a well-prepared letter should take staff about an afternoon to write, and padding it with narrative or attachments is a common and penalized mistake. Use the foundation's own cover-sheet Word template rather than a generic one; the cover sheet does not count against the page limit but its absence signals inattention to the foundation's specific process. Budget carefully around the hard 6% overhead/indirect-cost cap — build true administrative costs into direct program lines rather than listing them separately, since the foundation will not reimburse above that ceiling regardless of your organization's standard indirect rate. Propose a single-year budget only; multi-year asks fall outside what the foundation says it will consider, so a multi-year initiative should be broken into sequential one-year requests. Explicitly name a priority site (San Quintín/El Rosario, Sierra San Pedro Mártir, Sierra Juárez, or vernal pool ecosystems) if your project touches one — this directly mirrors the foundation's own program language and is an easy, concrete signal of fit that generic conservation-mission language does not provide. Plan for a genuinely long review cycle (up to 4 months) and say so explicitly in your letter if you have a hard deadline of your own, since the foundation asks applicants to flag time constraints up front. If your organization is an unincorporated Mexican NGO without 501(c)(3)-equivalent status, consider routing through or partnering with an established JiJi grantee that has served as a regranting intermediary before (International Community Foundation, San Diego Natural History Museum) rather than applying cold, since this is the pattern the foundation's own grant history shows working repeatedly. Above all, respect the stated 40% funding rate as a real signal of competitiveness even among well-aligned applicants — this is not a formality but reflects genuine oversubscription for a foundation giving in the $275K-$620K range in a typical year.