John R Woods Foundation

The John R Woods Foundation is a small, unstaffed family foundation (EIN 27-6155799, ruling date October 2009) administered by a corporate trustee — Comerica Bank in earlier filings, more recently referenced under Cibc Bank USA — alongside four Woods family co-trustees: John Woods, Laura Woods Gunderson, Julia Woods Hill, and Catherine Woods Hill, none of whom draw compensation. There is no program officer, no website of its own (the domain on file, johnrwood.com, actually belongs to an unrelated Naples, FL real estate brokerage, John R. Wood Christie's International Real Estate), and no online application system. The entire documented process is a mailed cover letter describing the applicant's mission and request, with a copy of the organization's IRS 501(c)(3) determination letter enclosed — there is no separate LOI stage, no site-visit protocol on record, and no published deadline (application_deadline is unset, consistent with a rolling, board-discretion review).

The grantee list is the best guide to what actually gets funded. Of the top 50 recipients, the large majority received the identical grant amount across four consecutive filing years — strong evidence this is a relationship-renewal foundation more than an open competitive one: once an organization is in the portfolio, funding tends to repeat automatically rather than being re-competed. That makes the realistic opportunity for a first-time applicant narrower than the "accepting applications" flag suggests. Geographic data confirms a strong, if informal, home-market tilt: 116 of 218 tracked grants (53%) went to Colorado organizations, heavily concentrated in Boulder and Boulder County (Boulder Building Block Fund, Thorne Nature Experience, Community School, Bridge House, Colorado Chautauqua Association, Growing Up Boulder), suggesting genuine family ties to that community. A second, smaller cluster around Saint Louis, MO (John Burroughs School, Whittier International School) and scattered national/international causes rounds out the rest.

First-time applicants should read this as a foundation of individual trustee passions rather than one unified thesis — the same 990 funds both The NRA Foundation ($115,000) and Everytown for Gun Safety ($20,000), both Planned Parenthood and faith- or family-oriented recipients. Alignment with a specific trustee's known interest, or with the Boulder, CO community fabric, is a more reliable predictor of success than fitting a stated "program area," because none is published.

Across the tracked grantee history (218 grants totaling $810,000), the median single grant is $1,000 and the average is $3,716–$3,827 depending on the year window — a distribution skewed hard by a handful of large, repeat commitments. The single largest relationship is The NRA Foundation Inc at $115,000 across 4 grants (~$28,750/year), followed by Red Wind Councils Inc ($75,000/4 grants), American Conservative Union Foundation ($59,000/4 grants), Our Family Farms ($58,000/4 grants), and Boulder Building Block Fund ($42,000/4 grants). Below that top tier, the modal grant size drops sharply to the $3,000–$8,000 range, and the smallest recorded awards are $500. Per the foundation's own typical_grant_size record, the full range is $500 to $30,000.

Annual giving has ranged from $204,304 (FY2010) to a peak of $310,537 (FY2013), settling at $265,425 in FY2022 and reportedly $205,000 distributed across 54 grants in the most recent (FY2024) filing found via 990 aggregators. Total assets have been essentially flat-to-declining for over a decade — $3,565,877 in FY2010 versus $3,487,095 in FY2022 (and ~$3.4M in FY2024) — because the foundation receives no outside contributions (contributions_received is $0 in every filed year) and funds its ~6% payout rate almost entirely from net investment income ($147,386 of FY2022's $204,580 in total revenue). A 6.3% FY2022 payout-to-assets ratio is comfortably above the 5% federal minimum distribution requirement, indicating the foundation is not under pressure to cut back giving.

By purpose code, the overwhelming majority of grants (roughly 90%+ of the top 50) are labeled PROGRAM SUPPORT rather than general operating support, with a smaller share coded DAILY OPERATIONAL SUPPORT and a single PUBLIC SUPPORT grant. Geographically, Colorado dominates (116 of 218 grants), followed distantly by New York and Missouri (14 each), California (10), Massachusetts and Washington DC (8 each), Texas (8), Oregon (7), and Arizona and Virginia (4 and 6). Cause areas span conservation and land trusts (Thorne Nature Experience, Southern Oregon Land Conservancy, WWF), animal welfare (Colorado Horse Rescue, Freedom Service Dogs, Humane Society of Boulder), reproductive and family health (Planned Parenthood, Boulder Women's Health), immigration services (Annunciation House), youth education (I Have A Dream Foundation, PTA Colorado Congress), and international micro-development (Upavim Community Development in Guatemala, Maya Education Foundation).

All five peer foundations sit within roughly $700 of John R Woods Foundation's $3,367,667 in assets, placing this squarely in a narrow, sub-$3.5M "small family foundation" cohort — and notably, none of the five peers have a public website on file, mirroring John R Woods Foundation's own effective lack of one (its listed domain belongs to an unrelated real estate firm). This is a tier where almost no foundation publishes formal guidelines, so applicants should expect every organization in this comparison set to require the same low-tech approach: a mailed letter of inquiry rather than a portal. John R Woods Foundation is comparatively easier to research than its peers only because its 990-derived grantee list and typical grant size are captured in aggregator databases; the others show asset data alone.

No dedicated news coverage, press releases, or announcements from the John R Woods Foundation were found — unsurprising for a foundation with no website, no communications staff, and no social media presence. The most current verifiable activity is the foundation's FY2024 Form 990-PF, referenced by philanthropy.org and Instrumentl's 990 database, showing $133K in revenue, $251K in expenses, $3.4M in total assets, and $205,000 distributed across 54 grants — a slight pullback from the $220,000–$265,425 range reported in FY2018–FY2022 filings, though still within the foundation's normal year-to-year variance. Trustee composition (Comerica Bank/Cibc Bank USA as corporate trustee, plus Woods family members John Woods, Laura Woods Gunderson, Julia Woods Hill, and Catherine Woods Hill as uncompensated co-trustees) appears stable across the filings on record, with no reported leadership turnover. Because the only public record is IRS filings routed through a bank trustee, grant seekers should not expect proactive outreach, a newsletter, or an annual report — the most reliable way to track this foundation's current-year activity is a fresh Form 990-PF pull once the next filing posts, typically 10-12 months after fiscal year-end.

Because this foundation has no formal program description, applicants must infer fit from the grantee list rather than a stated mission. Three practical takeaways: First, mail — do not email or search for a portal. The only documented requirement, repeated identically across Candid/GuideStar and our own database, is a cover letter explaining the applicant's purpose plus an enclosed copy of the organization's IRS 501(c)(3) determination letter; there is no separate LOI, no online form, and no published deadline, implying rolling, board-discretion review (likely timed to the trustee's annual administrative cycle). Second, verify the correspondence address before mailing — external directories list a Saint Louis, MO address (13205 Manchester Road, Saint Louis, MO 63131, phone 314-543-3474) that differs from the Detroit-area address on file internally; a misdirected letter to the wrong trustee address is a common, avoidable failure mode with bank-administered family foundations. Third, target realistically: request amounts should sit at or below the $500–$30,000 documented range, with the $1,000–$8,000 band the most common outcome — a $50,000+ ask is out of pattern for all but the foundation's four or five longest-standing relationships (The NRA Foundation, Red Wind Councils, American Conservative Union Foundation, Our Family Farms, Boulder Building Block Fund).

The strongest positioning signal in the data is geography: Boulder, CO and greater Boulder County nonprofits account for the majority of funded organizations, so a Boulder-based applicant should lead with local community ties explicitly in the cover letter. A secondary, smaller opening exists for Saint Louis, MO-area organizations (the foundation funds John Burroughs School and Whittier International School there). Outside those two geographies, the remaining slots skew toward causes with an evident personal connection to one of the four Woods family trustees — land conservation, animal welfare, reproductive health, immigration services, or policy advocacy on either side of the political spectrum — so name a specific program outcome (the foundation's purpose coding is almost entirely "program support," not general operating) rather than a broad capacity-building pitch. Do not expect a reply confirming receipt; follow up by phone after 60-90 days if nothing is heard, and do not resubmit annually unless invited, since most awards appear to renew automatically for existing grantees rather than being re-opened to competition each cycle.