Kantner Foundation Inc.

The Kantner Foundation runs two effectively separate programs, and grant seekers need to know which lane they're in before applying. The larger, public-facing lane is the individual scholarship program: a fully online portal open to Florida graduating high school seniors, built around a specific thesis from founder Woodrow A. Kantner — rewarding students who show entrepreneurial commitment and might not otherwise afford a four-year college. Over 200 scholarships have been awarded since 1987, and the site now actively markets the program with a blog and a free 'Guide to Youth Entrepreneurship,' signaling this is where the Foundation wants inbound interest concentrated. The second, much narrower lane is organizational grantmaking to Martin County-area nonprofits: the 990 data shows a tight, repeat-donor pattern rather than an open RFP. Seven organizations — Council on Aging of Martin County, Historical Society of Martin County, Salvation Army, Boys and Girls Club of Martin County, Junior Achievement of the Palm Beaches, Treasure Coast Hospice, and Florida Oceanographic Society — each received exactly $100,000 cumulative (two $50,000 grants), and the Education Foundation of Martin County received $50,000 cumulative. No public application, portal, or LOI process for organizations appears anywhere on kantnerfoundation.org; the 'Organizations' page is a recipient showcase, not an intake form. First-time organizational applicants should treat this as a relationship-driven, closed circle: the realistic path in is a warm introduction through existing grantees, the Martin County nonprofit community, or the Community Foundation for Palm Beach and Martin Counties network, not a cold proposal. Governance is lean and family-controlled — four to five trustees (Samuel B. Silverman as President/Secretary, Richard C. Jarchow as VP, Serhan Uslubas as Assistant Secretary, Connie P. Santini as Treasurer) split roughly $121,000-$137,000 in total annual officer compensation, with no visible program staff. That structure means limited bandwidth for due diligence on unsolicited organizational requests, reinforcing that the scholarship portal — not a cold outreach to trustees — is the highest-probability entry point for anyone without an existing relationship to the Foundation.

Current disclosed assets stand at $7,048,257 (most recently verified 2026-07-29), up from $5,993,243 in FY2023 and $4,697,382 in FY2012 — roughly 50% asset growth over a decade, driven mainly by investment income ($218,749 net investment income in FY2023 alone) rather than new contributions, which were $0 in FY2023, FY2020, and FY2019. Annual 'total giving' has ranged from $290,111 (FY2012) to $703,425 (FY2022), with the FY2022 spike tied to a one-time $1,322,389 contribution that year; FY2023 total giving was $296,707. Actual cash grants paid are more volatile and don't track total giving cleanly: $390,000 paid in FY2022 but only $33,000 in FY2023, and a high of $255,000 in FY2011 against $318,125 in total giving that year — consistent with a foundation that banks contribution windfalls before distributing them. Across the full grantee history captured (74 grants, $924,000 total, $12,486 average), the distribution is bimodal rather than continuous: a handful of $50,000 organizational grants at the top, and a long tail of $3,000-$6,000 individual scholarships at the bottom (47 of the 74 recorded grants are named-student scholarships). The Foundation's own reported scholarship parameters confirm this: typical award size ranges $2,500-$10,000 with a $3,000 median and $3,435 average across 30 recent scholarship grants — squarely matching the $2,000-$3,000 figure quoted in current web listings. Geographically, 56 of 74 grants (76%) went to Florida-based recipients, with small numbers trailing to DC (3), Georgia (3), and single grants each to Alabama, Illinois, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, and South Carolina — almost certainly reflecting Florida scholarship winners who enrolled at out-of-state universities (Georgetown, NYU, Notre Dame, Tulane, University of Michigan, Arizona State, and others appear by name in the grantee list) rather than an expansion of the giving footprint beyond Florida.

Kantner sits at the small end of this peer set by both assets and annual giving — roughly one-fifteenth the asset base of the Scaife Family Foundation and a small fraction of the grant volume moved by the Community Foundation for Palm Beach & Martin Counties. What distinguishes Kantner is program focus rather than scale: unlike the broad-based community foundation or the larger regional players, Kantner's entire public program is a single-theme, self-service scholarship portal layered on top of a small, fixed roster of organizational grantees, making it a poor fit for organizations outside that existing circle but a legitimate, accessible target for Florida students with an entrepreneurial narrative.

The most concrete recent activity is procedural: the 2025-2026 scholarship cycle ran February 28 through June 30, 2025, offering $2,000-$3,000 one-time awards, and Instrumentl's tracking shows 20 scholarship awards made in the 2024 cycle. Beyond that, no 2025 or 2026 press releases, news coverage, or program announcements turned up in search — the most recent dedicated press release identified is a 2021 PRWeb announcement of that year's scholarship winners, suggesting the Foundation has moved away from PR distribution in favor of its own recipients page (which lists scholarship classes from 2012 through 2026) and a blog it now maintains with application-advice content. Leadership continuity looks stable based on the compensation data across filing years: Samuel B. Silverman holds the President/Secretary role, Richard C. Jarchow serves as Vice President, Serhan Uslubas as Assistant Secretary, and Connie P. Santini as Treasurer, all listed as Trustees; Thomas N. Silverman appears in an earlier filing at lower compensation, consistent with an founding-era or transitional officer role. Financially, the most notable recent-year signal is the drop in cash grants paid to $33,000 in FY2023 (the lowest figure in the available 2011-2023 series) against $296,707 in total giving — a gap that grant seekers should read as a light distribution year rather than a change in program scope, since FY2022 had already delivered $390,000 in cash grants off a $1.32M contribution inflow. No new focus areas, geographic expansion, or leadership transitions were identified in current sources.

Verify the live deadline before doing anything else: the Foundation's own site and third-party scholarship trackers (BigFuture, Scholarships.com) describe a February 28-June 30 application window, while other records reference an April 1 deadline for scholarships — treat kantnerfoundation.org/apply as the authoritative source for the current cycle's exact dates rather than relying on any single secondary listing. The application is fully online (one of relatively few private foundations to run scholarships this way end-to-end) and requires a PDF transcript, resume, several essays about interests and background, and two references — critically, the application cannot be submitted until both references have separately submitted their feedback, so line up recommenders weeks before the deadline, not days. Choose a reference who has direct knowledge of your work (a teacher, coach, or mentor) rather than someone with a prestigious title but no real familiarity with you, and hand them your personal statement, resume, and a short note on what the scholarship is looking for. Given founder Woodrow A. Kantner's explicit mission — advancing the free enterprise system and rewarding entrepreneurial commitment — essays that connect a personal business venture, internship, or entrepreneurial project to concrete outcomes will outperform generic leadership essays; the site also frames the scholarship as aimed at students who 'may not otherwise be financially able' to attend a four-year school, so weaving in financial-need context alongside entrepreneurial merit is worth doing explicitly. Common mistakes flagged in the Foundation's own guidance: waiting too long to request references, and submitting essays without reading them aloud or running them through a grammar checker first — both called out directly in their 'How to Write a Winning Scholarship Application' post. If selected, treat the claim-form deadline (August 1) as hard: winners must submit a signed college acceptance letter, a photo, and a short bio, and awards cannot be deferred under any circumstances, with funds paid directly to the college. For nonprofit organizations, there is no discoverable open application — the practical path is relationship-based: reach out via phone ((561) 386-5356) or email (kantnerfoundation@gmail.com), reference the Foundation's existing focus on Martin County human-services and youth-development organizations, and consider building visibility through the Community Foundation for Palm Beach and Martin Counties network, where Kantner's trustees and peer local funders are likely to intersect.