Kavanagh Family Foundation

The Kavanagh Family Foundation is a small, unstaffed, family-directed private foundation (EIN 37-1530850) based at 365 Canal St, New Orleans, and run entirely by five uncompensated director-officers: Dylan M. Kavanagh (President), Danielle H. Kavanagh (Treasurer), Mark A. Fullmer (Secretary), William H. Langenstein III, and Darren K. Crumpton. There is no program officer, no grants staff, and no public grantmaking infrastructure — the listed website is a private family photo page, not an institutional site. Every recorded grant purpose in the foundation's giving history is coded 'general organization support,' meaning the family funds operating budgets of organizations they already know and trust rather than soliciting or scoring competitive proposals against a stated program theory. Independent grant databases (Instrumentl, Cause IQ, Grantmakers.io) consistently describe it as a foundation that 'only makes contributions to preselected charitable organizations' and does not accept unsolicited requests. For first-time applicants, this is the single most important fact: cold outreach — mailed LOIs, portal submissions, generic proposals — has essentially no realistic path to funding here, because no portal, application form, or published deadline exists (application_instructions is blank in IRS/990 data and no grants_page_url is on file). The only credible way in is relationship-based: a warm introduction through a current or past grantee (e.g., Bridge House, Son of a Saint, Youth Empowerment Project, or the Gleason Initiative Foundation — all New Orleans civic institutions), a shared board connection, or presence in the same philanthropic/community circles the Kavanagh family already moves in. Once a relationship exists, the giving pattern suggests the foundation is comfortable making repeat, multi-year commitments to the same organizations — New Orleans Ballet Theatre received four separate grants, and MD Anderson Cancer Center and Bridge House each received grants across multiple cycles — so an organization's real opportunity is less about winning a single award and more about earning entry into a small, loyal portfolio and staying there. Applicants should not expect a review committee, site visit process, or formal scoring rubric; decisions appear to run through direct relationships among the five directors.

Across the 29 grants captured in the foundation's grantee history, total giving is $1,152,000 at an average of $39,724 per grant; a separate typical-grant-size summary in the same filings shows a median of $25,000 with a range of $10,000 to $75,000 across the ten largest distinct awards, while the single largest cumulative relationship — three grants to The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center totaling $425,000 (averaging ~$141,700 per grant) — sits well above that typical band and pulls the overall average up sharply. Below that outlier, the giving is modest and geographically concentrated: Judi's House ($166,000 across 2 grants, Colorado), Animal Rescue New Orleans ($100,000/2), New Orleans Ballet Theatre ($90,000/4), Son of a Saint ($86,000/2), Youth Empowerment Project ($80,000/2), Mayo Clinic ($75,000/3), and Bridge House ($55,000/2) round out the top tier, with several $10,000-$20,000 single or repeat gifts to smaller local nonprofits (Acadiana Wildlife Education and Rehab, Wings of Hope, the Gleason Initiative Foundation, Second Harvest Food Bank of Greater New Orleans and Acadiana, Bayou Community Foundation, Lower Eastside Girls Club). By state, Louisiana grantees account for 18 of 29 recorded grants (62%), consistent with the foundation's New Orleans base, followed by Texas (3), Minnesota (3, largely the Mayo Clinic relationship), Colorado (2), Missouri (2), and New York (1) — a footprint that tracks the family's personal and medical-care connections more than a formal geographic mandate. On the balance-sheet side, total assets ran from $4.85M (FY2012) up to a peak of $6.22M in FY2021 on a $1.43M net investment gain, then eased back to $5.41M by FY2023 as markets cooled; annual grants paid have ranged from a low of $70,000 (FY2019) to a high of $427,500 (FY2015), with the most recent complete years showing $291,000 (FY2021), $226,000 (FY2020), $317,500 (FY2022), and $252,500 (FY2023) — a payout that has generally tracked 5-7% of assets, roughly in line with private-foundation minimum-distribution norms rather than an aggressive or expanding giving posture.

The Kavanagh Family Foundation sits in a cluster of similarly sized ($5.4-5.5M asset) private foundations classified under Philanthropy & Grantmaking, none of which appear to run open grant programs — a common pattern among small, single-family vehicles this size.

What stands out is how tightly these five peers cluster on asset size (all within roughly $10,000 of $5.41-5.42M), which reflects a database-driven asset-band grouping rather than a shared program strategy — four of the five, including Kavanagh, have no discoverable public application process, and only Adelante Foundation maintains an active website. For a grant seeker, this peer set is instructive mainly as a reality check: at this asset scale, family foundations overwhelmingly give by relationship and referral rather than open competition, so the operative strategy is identical across most of the list — find the human connection, not the portal.

No foundation-issued news releases, leadership announcements, or program launches were found for 2025-2026 — expected, given the foundation has no communications function and its listed web domain is a personal family site rather than an institutional one. The most concrete recent signal is administrative: Instrumentl and ProPublica records show a Form 990-PF filed November 12, 2025 (with an earlier related filing dated August 26, 2025), covering fiscal year 2024 activity, at which point total assets stood at $5,413,566 and total revenue was $272,377; a specific FY2024 grants-paid figure was not available in the data reviewed here, leaving a one-cycle gap after the confirmed FY2023 total of $252,500 in grants paid. Leadership has been stable across the filings reviewed: the same five directors — Dylan M. Kavanagh (President), Danielle H. Kavanagh (Treasurer), Mark A. Fullmer (Secretary), William H. Langenstein III, and Darren K. Crumpton — recur across consecutive filing years with no compensation reported, indicating a continuing, unpaid family/friends governance structure rather than any recent board turnover. The foundation's largest and most notable historical commitment remains its three-grant, $425,000 relationship with The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, alongside sustained multi-year support for New Orleans-area organizations such as New Orleans Ballet Theatre (four grants), Son of a Saint, Bridge House, and Youth Empowerment Project — these longstanding relationships, rather than any new 2025-2026 initiative, appear to be the best available indicator of where continued funding is most likely to flow. Grant seekers should treat the absence of public news as normal for this funder rather than as a sign of dormancy: the foundation continued filing and reporting assets/revenue through late 2025 with no indication of winding down.

There is no open application process to optimize for here — the foundation's own filings list no application form, no deadline, no grants page, and describe grant purposes uniformly as 'general organization support' to preselected recipients, and independent databases confirm it does not solicit or accept unsolicited proposals. Given that, the realistic strategy for a nonprofit hoping to eventually be considered is relationship-building rather than proposal-writing: (1) Identify any existing connection to New Orleans civic and philanthropic circles, since 62% of recorded grants (18 of 29) have gone to Louisiana organizations and the directors are locally based (365 Canal St, New Orleans); a warm introduction through a shared board member, donor, or civic event is far more likely to matter than a written proposal. (2) Study the existing grantee list for pattern-matching rather than fit-testing against a stated mission (none is published) — the foundation favors community-facing, direct-service organizations (youth mentorship: Son of a Saint, Youth Empowerment Project; recovery/human services: Bridge House; food security: Second Harvest Food Bank of Greater New Orleans and Acadiana; arts: New Orleans Ballet Theatre) alongside a few larger, personally-motivated medical relationships (MD Anderson Cancer Center, Mayo Clinic) that likely trace to family health history rather than an open medical research program — an organization outside these lanes should not expect a fit. (3) If any prior contact or grant has occurred, lean into continuity: the data shows the foundation repeats gifts to the same organizations across multiple years (New Orleans Ballet Theatre received four separate grants, MD Anderson three, Bridge House and Judi's House two each), so an existing grantee's best move is a low-friction check-in or impact update rather than a full re-application, and a new organization's best long shot is offering something concrete and low-cost for the family to observe firsthand — a site visit, an event invitation, or a small-scale pilot — rather than mailing a formal proposal packet that has nowhere to go. (4) Because officer compensation is $0 across all reported years and the same five names recur, do not expect a staffed intake process, a response to cold email, or a formal rejection/acceptance timeline; silence should be read as 'not currently a fit' rather than a pending decision. (5) Given the modest and somewhat volatile payout level (grants paid ranged $70,000-$427,500 over the last decade, tracking investment performance), organizations should not anchor expectations to the $425,000 MD Anderson relationship — a $10,000-$25,000 general-support gift is the realistic median outcome even for an organization that successfully builds a relationship.