Kadima Foundation

Kadima Foundation is a small, family-run private foundation based in Kentfield, CA, established and led by art collector and philanthropist Chara Schreyer (President), with daughters Justine Schreyer (Secretary/Treasurer/CFO) and Natalie Schreyer (Director/CEO) as the only other officers. All three report $0 compensation, confirming this is an all-volunteer family vehicle with no program staff. Critically, the foundation does not accept unsolicited applications: its IRS filing lists application_instructions as "NO PRESCRIBED FORM," and three independent grant-database aggregators (GrantStation, Hinchilla, Grantmakers.io) confirm giving is by trustee discretion and invitation only, with no public LOI portal, deadline, or RFP process. Note: the website on file (kadimafoundation.com) belongs to a different, unrelated Miami-based Jewish free-loan organization founded in 2023 — this Kentfield family foundation appears to have no dedicated public website. Grantee data reveals three clear, personal-passion giving channels rather than a formal program strategy. First, arts & culture institutions where Chara Schreyer has deep patron ties: the Armand Hammer Museum ($1.2M across 3 capital-campaign gifts), SFMOMA ($100K across 3 gifts), Dia Art Foundation, the Americas Foundation of the Serpentine Galleries, Marin Museum of Contemporary Art, and Art Jewelry Forum. Second, medical research tied to daughter Justine's Type 1 diabetes diagnosis, most visibly the family's funding of the Justine Kathryn Schreyer Diabetes Clinical Center at UCSF, alongside JDRF International ($400K), Cedars-Sinai's Molecular Twin Pancreatic Cancer pilot study ($375K), and UCSF's GI Malignancies Research fund ($250K). Third, Jewish communal and educational life: American Jewish University's Camp Alonim capital campaign ($600K), three separate Jewish Federation/Council chapters, and Jewish Story Partners. For grant seekers, this is not a cold-outreach prospect. Forty of 50 tracked grants (80%) went to California organizations, concentrated in the Bay Area and Los Angeles, with a secondary New York cluster (6) — geography that tracks the Schreyer family's personal and board relationships rather than a stated funding mandate. The realistic path in is relationship-first: museum board or patron-circle introductions, Jewish federation involvement, or a development-office connection at UCSF or Cedars-Sinai where the family relationship is already established.

Across the 50 grants tracked in Kadima's 990 data, total giving to named recipients was $8,039,549, averaging $160,791 per recipient-purpose entry. That average is heavily skewed by one aggregated entry labeled "See Attachment A" totaling $4,106,818 across 2 grants — likely a bundled 990 attachment rather than a single identifiable grant, and should be read with caution. Excluding it, the remaining 49 ordinary grants total roughly $3.93M, averaging closer to $80,000, with real amounts spanning from $3,000 (one of two gifts to Marin Museum of Contemporary Art, $6,000 combined) up to $1.2M (Armand Hammer Museum capital campaign, 3 installments). Multi-year, phased giving is the norm rather than one-off checks: the largest ordinary recipients — Hammer Museum, American Jewish University ($600K, 3 gifts), Cedars-Sinai ($375K, 3 gifts), and SFMOMA ($100K, 3 gifts) — each received multiple separate payments, indicating the family prefers pledged, phased capital or named-program commitments over single lump-sum gifts. Annual giving has swung with the family's own contribution cycle rather than following a smooth payout schedule: $2,138,655 given in FY2023, $993,703 in FY2022, $2,202,897 in FY2021, $1,995,790 in FY2020, and $1,202,582 in FY2019. Total assets have held in a narrow $9.28M-$11.68M band since 2019 (currently $10,031,524 as of the FY2024 filing), meaning the foundation is largely re-granting incoming family contributions rather than compounding an endowment — contributions received were $2,718,483 in FY2023 and a one-time $11,761,452 infusion in FY2019, dwarfing net investment income, which has ranged from roughly $14K to $850K per year. By program area, arts & culture accounts for the largest identifiable share of ordinary giving (Hammer Museum, SFMOMA, Dia, Serpentine, Marin MOCA, Art Jewelry Forum, California College of the Arts — roughly $1.5M+, about 19% of tracked totals), medical/health research follows (JDRF, Cedars-Sinai, UCSF, Sheba Medical Center, Metavivor — roughly $1.06M, about 13%), and Jewish communal/education organizations total around $700K (about 9%). Geographically, California captures 80% of recipient count (40 of 50), New York 12% (6 of 50), and Maryland and Texas each account for 4%.

All five peer foundations cluster at nearly identical asset levels of roughly $10.03M, and none have a public website on file — likely a shared artifact of the cohort Kadima was matched against (small, unstaffed, similarly-asset-sized private foundations classified under Philanthropy & Grantmaking) rather than coincidence. Unlike its peers, Kadima's giving pattern is at least partially transparent through its 990 grantee list and named officers, giving prospective applicants more to work with in identifying relationship pathways than the typical foundation in this cohort offers. That said, the access model is functionally identical across the group: closed, relationship-driven, and invitation-only, with no evidence any of the five peers run a public application process either.

Web searches specific to "Kadima Foundation" combined with 2025-2026 date ranges surfaced no press coverage, leadership changes, or program announcements tied to this Kentfield, CA family foundation. The relevant hits instead concerned unrelated organizations sharing the Kadima name — a Miami-based Jewish free-loan foundation established in 2023, the Tsad Kadima disability center in Jerusalem (funded separately by the Helmsley Charitable Trust), and synagogue announcements from Kadima.org in Chicago — none of which are connected to Chara Schreyer's foundation. No foundation-specific news for this entity was found for the current window, and that should be reported honestly rather than inferred. The most recent verifiable activity is the FY2024 Form 990 data reflected in this record (last verified 2026-06-20): total assets of $10,031,524 and total revenue of $655,286, a sharp drop from FY2023's $3,301,274, consistent with a foundation that had just completed heavier capital-campaign giving cycles — the Hammer Museum and American Jewish University pledges — in the 2021-2023 window. FY2024 total_giving was not disclosed in the available data, but the roughly flat asset base versus FY2023's $10,446,467 suggests giving continued at a level broadly similar to prior years, absent a new windfall contribution like the $11.76M received in FY2019. Independent of the foundation's own filings, Chara Schreyer remains publicly visible as a contemporary art patron in Hammer Museum and SFMOMA circles, and as the named supporter behind UCSF's Justine Kathryn Schreyer Diabetes Clinical Center. Grant seekers should treat Kadima as a low-news, low-visibility funder and instead watch UCSF, Cedars-Sinai, Hammer Museum, and SFMOMA donor announcements for signals of continued family engagement.

Kadima Foundation is a closed, invitation-only funder — do not submit a cold LOI or proposal. Three independent grant-database aggregators (GrantStation, Hinchilla, Grantmakers.io) confirm the foundation does not accept unsolicited requests, and there is no portal, deadline, or published RFP to respond to (application_deadline, funding_cycle, and application_form_url are all blank in the underlying IRS/990 data; application_instructions reads only "NO PRESCRIBED FORM"). Build the relationship before you ask. Every traceable grantee in the 990 data has a plausible personal connection to the Schreyer family: Chara Schreyer is a well-known contemporary art collector and museum patron with ties to the Hammer Museum and SFMOMA, and the family's medical-research giving (JDRF, Cedars-Sinai, UCSF) traces directly to daughter Justine's Type 1 diabetes diagnosis and the UCSF clinical center named in her honor. Organizations without an existing tie to arts-patron circles, Jewish communal/federation life, or pediatric diabetes and cancer research at Bay Area or Los Angeles medical centers should not expect a cold approach to succeed, regardless of proposal quality. Target the right channel for a warm introduction: arts organizations should pursue museum board or patron-circle connections rather than development-office cold calls; Jewish communal organizations should approach through the Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco/Marin/Peninsula or the Jewish Federation Council of Greater LA, both existing grantees capable of making an introduction; medical research institutions should route requests through UCSF or Cedars-Sinai major-gift officers, who already manage the Schreyer relationship rather than approaching Kadima directly. Expect multi-year, phased capital commitments over single grants — Hammer Museum, American Jewish University, and Cedars-Sinai each received three separate payments against pledged capital campaigns or research programs, suggesting the family prefers funding a named initiative over several years rather than a one-time general-operating gift. The most common mistake to avoid is treating this like a conventional foundation with a program officer and review cycle: there is no staff (all three officers list $0 compensation), so mass-distributed proposals or generic contact-form submissions will go unanswered. Any successful approach here runs through a personal introduction, not paperwork.