Karisma Foundation

Karisma Foundation is a small, closely held Los Angeles family foundation run by three family members — John C. Bedrosian (Director/PR), Ted Coyne (Director/Secretary), and Karen Bedrosian Coyne (CFO, drawing $70,000-$90,000 in compensation across recent filings) — with no professional program staff. It is not a cold-application funder: both its own website and every third-party grant database (Instrumentl, GrantExec, Grantable) confirm it "does not accept unsolicited proposals." Its grantee list of 74 recorded grants is dominated by long-tenured relationships — 826LA, Peace4kids, Perkins School for the Blind, Youth Emerging Stronger, and Imagine LA each received identical or near-identical grants in five consecutive years captured in the data (2018-2022), totaling $225,000-$250,000 per organization. That pattern signals a foundation that identifies a small stable of trusted grantees and renews them annually rather than running a competitive open cycle — first-time, unsolicited applicants are effectively locked out absent a personal introduction to the board.

For organizations that do get in the door (typically via board-member relationships, co-funder introductions, or shared institutional ties — e.g., Regents of University of California, UCSB Foundation, and University of Nevada Reno Foundation all appear as grantees, suggesting the family has higher-ed and Nevada ties), the foundation states it weighs matching funds from strategic partnerships heavily and gives extra credit to programs serving Los Angeles County specifically, even within its stated Southern California mandate. The practical path in is: (1) identify a warm connection to Bedrosian or Coyne, (2) demonstrate youth-serving impact in LA County or, secondarily, disadvantaged-community work in Armenia, and (3) come with matched or leveraged funding already lined up. Because the foundation self-funds from investment income on a ~$6.9M corpus rather than active fundraising, it behaves like an endowed family fund managing a legacy giving list — the realistic strategy for new organizations is relationship-building over 1-2 years, not a single application cycle.

Karisma Foundation's own published grant tiers are Level 1 ($25,000/year) and Level 2 ($50,000/year), each committable for 1-3 year terms — and the grantee data confirms this almost exactly. Across the top 25 recorded grantees (74 total grants, $2,109,308 cumulative), the average grant is $28,504 and the median sits at $25,000, matching the Level 1 tier as the default award. The largest recipients — 826LA, Peace4kids, Perkins School for the Blind, and Youth Emerging Stronger — each received $50,000/year (Level 2) for five straight years for a cumulative $250,000 apiece; Imagine LA received $225,000 over five years (~$45,000/year, near the Level 2 ceiling). At the small end, one-time or token grants run as low as $2,500 (Mirman School) and $5,000 (UCSB Foundation, Scholar Leaders International), reflecting occasional smaller or one-off gifts outside the standard renewal cohort.

Geographically, funding is heavily concentrated in California: 57 of 74 grants (77%) went to CA-based organizations, consistent with the stated Southern California/LA County priority. Nevada accounts for 6 grants (8%) — including Hope of the Valley, The Children's Cabinet, and University of Nevada Reno Foundation — and Massachusetts 5 grants (7%), driven almost entirely by the five-year Perkins School for the Blind commitment. Connecticut, Illinois, DC, and New York each account for 1 grant. No Armenia-based recipients appear in the captured grantee data, even though it is one of the foundation's two stated program areas — that funding stream may run through a different mechanism (e.g., a fiscal sponsor or direct project support not itemized by recipient name) or simply wasn't captured in this data window.

On the financial trend line, total giving has declined from $762,127 (FY2011) to $742,027 (FY2022), with total assets falling from $8.31M to $6.75M over the same period — a slow, steady contraction of roughly 2-3% per year rather than a sharp cut, consistent with a mature endowed fund distributing investment income (net investment income was $339,380 in FY2022) without new outside contributions (contributions received were $0 in nearly every recorded year).

Karisma Foundation sits at the small end of the family-foundation spectrum, with $6.89M in assets and roughly $467,500-$742,000 in annual giving depending on the year measured. Its closest asset-tier peers in the Philanthropy & Grantmaking NTEE category are similarly sized trusts and family foundations, several of which — unlike Karisma — have no public website or disclosed grant program at all.

What distinguishes Karisma from this peer set is transparency and focus: it is the only one of the six with a public website, a stated mission ("Because you are only a child once"), published grant tiers ($25K/$50K), and a documented giving history back to at least FY2010. The peers appear to be pass-through trusts or dormant-profile family foundations with no discoverable program strategy, making Karisma comparatively more approachable despite its closed, invitation-only process — grant seekers researching this asset tier should expect most peer funders in this bracket to require direct outreach or professional prospect research just to identify a giving pattern at all.

Public, dated news specific to Karisma Foundation is essentially nonexistent — it is a family-run vehicle with no press office, no social media presence beyond a bare LinkedIn company page, and no grant announcements found in web search for 2025 or 2026. The most current financial signal available is Instrumentl's aggregation showing approximately $384,000 in 2024 grantmaking across about 14 grants, continuing the foundation's long-running gradual decline from the $560,000-$580,000 annual payout levels seen in FY2011-2014. Leadership has been stable across the filings reviewed: John C. Bedrosian (Director/PR) and Ted Coyne (Director/Secretary) both serve without compensation, while Karen Bedrosian Coyne has drawn CFO compensation that rose from $70,000 to $90,000 in the most recent recorded fiscal year (FY2022) — the only budget line that has grown while overall giving has contracted.

No new program announcements, leadership transitions, or strategic pivots surfaced in this research. The foundation's website content (mission, two funding priorities, two grant tiers) appears unchanged from what third-party aggregators have described for several years, and the "does not accept unsolicited proposals" policy is consistently repeated across every current listing (Instrumentl, GrantExec, Grantable, its own Contact page). For grant seekers, the practical takeaway is that this is a quiet, low-visibility funder best tracked through its recurring grantee list rather than through news monitoring — there is no newsletter, RFP calendar, or public announcement cadence to watch.

Do not submit a cold LOI or proposal — Karisma Foundation states directly on its own Contact and About pages that it "does not accept unsolicited proposals," and every third-party grants database that tracks it (Instrumentl, GrantExec, Grantable, Grantmakers.io) repeats the same warning. There is no online application portal, no published deadline, and no RFP cycle to monitor. The only realistic path in is a warm introduction to one of the three family board members — John C. Bedrosian, Ted Coyne, or Karen Bedrosian Coyne — through a shared board connection, co-funder, or existing grantee who can vouch for your organization.

Once in front of the foundation, the required elements per its own application instructions are specific and low-tech: a written submission stipulating (1) the purpose of the activity, (2) the organization's financial information, (3) biographical information on all key individuals involved, and (4) an explanation of the mechanism for reporting back to the foundation on use of proceeds. This is closer to a due-diligence memo than a formal grant application — keep it concise, factual, and heavy on named accountability (who runs the program, how funds will be tracked, and who reports back).

Align explicitly with one of the two stated priorities: youth-serving programs for economically or socially disadvantaged children in Southern California (with extra weight for LA County specifically), or organizations improving conditions for disadvantaged people in Armenia. Lead with matching or leveraged funds if you have them — the foundation's own site states priority goes to "grants with matching funds from strategic partnerships." Target ask size around $25,000 (Level 1) unless you can credibly justify $50,000 (Level 2) with a multi-year renewal case, since the actual grantee data shows the foundation overwhelmingly repeats $25K-$50K awards to the same organizations for 3-5 consecutive years rather than making large one-time gifts. The single most common mistake would be treating this like an open competitive funder — spending effort on a polished unsolicited proposal packet will go nowhere without the relationship first.