Kaye Family Foundation

The Kaye Family Foundation (EIN 13-4092284) is a small, closely held family vehicle run by exactly two uncompensated trustees, Charles R. Kaye and Sheryl Kaye, with no program staff, no grants office, and no public application process. Every aggregator that tracks its Form 990s — Impala Digital, Grantable, Hinchilla — independently confirms the same fact: it does not accept unsolicited proposals and funds by invitation only. That makes this fundamentally a relationship-driven funder, not a proposal-driven one. Its 93-grant giving history splits into two clear tiers. Tier one is a small set of large, recurring institutional commitments — New York-Presbyterian Fund ($2.5M, one grant), Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts ($1,994,000 across 4 grants), Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania ($976,400 across 3 grants), and UJA-Federation of New York ($604,000 across 6 grants) — that read as loyalty gifts to institutions where the Kayes likely sit on boards, are alumni, or have deep personal ties (Penn Hillel also receives $100,000, reinforcing a Penn connection). Tier two is a long tail of 40+ smaller grants, typically $2,500-$50,000, to Jewish communal organizations, medical research charities, human-rights groups, and NYC arts institutions — City Harvest received 7 separate grants totaling $110,553, suggesting the foundation does maintain a modest number of ongoing, non-flagship relationships it renews annually. For a first-time, cold-outreach applicant, the realistic strategy is not to write a strong LOI — there is nowhere to send one — but to find the human bridge: a shared board member, a Penn or UJA-Federation connection, or a program officer at one of the foundation's existing tier-two grantees who can make a warm introduction. Organizations without any such bridge should treat this foundation as effectively closed.

Across the 93 grants captured in this foundation's giving history, total disbursement is $16,001,385, for an average grant of $172,058 — but that average is heavily skewed by outliers and does not represent a typical gift. Independent web research (Impala Digital's 990 analysis) puts the more representative figures at a median first-year grant of $5,000 and median second-year (renewal) grant of $10,000, with the bulk of individual grants clustering in the $5,000-$25,000 band. The distribution is genuinely bimodal: four recipients alone — New York-Presbyterian Fund ($2.5M), Lincoln Center ($1.99M), the University of Pennsylvania ($976K), and UJA-Federation ($604K) — account for roughly $6.1M, well over a third of total tracked giving, while the remaining 40-plus grantees split the rest in increments mostly under $50,000 (many at $5,000, $10,000, or $25,000 flat amounts, typical of a personal/family checkbook rather than a formal RFP process). Geographically, 68 of 93 grants (73%) went to New York recipients, with Pennsylvania a distant second at 7 grants (tied to the UPenn/Wharton relationship), New Jersey and DC at 3 each, and single-digit representation in Florida, Illinois, Minnesota, Missouri, Texas, and Colorado. Annual giving volume is volatile and appears to track the family's contribution inflows rather than a smoothed payout policy: FY2022 saw $6,999,287 in grants paid against $7,466,652 in contributions received that same year; FY2019 saw $4,585,752 in grants against a $14,675,493 contribution surge (net investment income of $12.7M that year); FY2020, by contrast, a quiet year with contributions at $0, saw grants fall to $1,059,716. Total assets have ranged from as low as $179,762 (2011) to $12,184,357 (2019), settling at $8,091,538 as of the most recent filed financials (FY2022); FY2025 web-reported totals show roughly $8.9M distributed to ~90-93 grantees, consistent with the foundation acting as a pass-through 'evergreen' vehicle that the family funds and empties in the same cycle rather than building a large permanent endowment.

The five closest asset-matched peers in the Philanthropy & Grantmaking category are all small, single/dual-trustee family foundations with no public web presence and no disclosed application process — a category where 'peer' mostly means 'similarly sized and similarly opaque,' not similarly focused.

Kaye stands out from this peer set on scale of activity, not asset size: its annual giving of roughly $7-9M substantially exceeds what a ~$4.4M asset base would normally support (a >150% payout ratio in strong contribution years), confirming it operates as a pass-through conduit funded by fresh family contributions rather than an endowment paying out a standard 5%. None of the five peers publish grantee lists, focus statements, or application guidance detailed enough to compare giving philosophy directly — like Kaye, they are almost certainly closely held, invitation-only family vehicles, reinforcing that this entire size tier of foundation is generally not a productive target for cold outreach.

The most recent Form 990 on file was filed 2026-03-08, covering fiscal year 2025, and shows the foundation distributing approximately $8.9 million to roughly 90-93 grantees — in line with, and somewhat above, the $6,999,287 the foundation paid out in FY2022, the last year with full line-item financials in this dataset. No leadership changes have surfaced: Charles R. Kaye and Sheryl Kaye remain the foundation's only two trustees, both uncompensated, a structure that has been stable across every filing year available (2010-2022) and into the 2025 filing. No new program areas, staff hires, RFPs, or public statements were found — the foundation has no press presence, no social media, and issues no announcements of its own; every data point available comes from third-party IRS-990 aggregation (ProPublica, Instrumentl, Impala Digital, Grantable, Candid), not from the foundation itself. The largest identifiable single gifts in the most recent reporting period continue to go to the same anchor institutions seen historically — New York-Presbyterian Fund and Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts — indicating continuity rather than a strategic pivot. Grant seekers should treat the absence of news as itself informative: this is a quiet, low-visibility family foundation that is not building a public grantmaking brand, running competitive cycles, or expanding its applicant pool, and nothing in the FY2025 data suggests that is about to change.

There is no formal application to optimize, so the highest-leverage tips here are about access, not proposal-writing. First, verify identity before doing anything else: this is the Albany, NY-registered Kaye Family Foundation (EIN 13-4092284, trustees Charles R. and Sheryl Kaye), care of 'Chuck Judge, Ayco Co' at PO Box 15201, Albany, NY — a wealth-management/accounting intermediary address typical of a family office-administered foundation, not an operating charity with staff. Do not confuse it with the similarly named but entirely separate 'Kaye Family Foundation' at thekayefamilyfoundation.org (different trustees, different city focus) or send anything to kaye.com, which belongs to an unrelated retired family-business consultant. Second, understand that every third-party source (Impala Digital, Grantable, Hinchilla) independently confirms the foundation does not accept unsolicited proposals and funds by invitation only — spending time drafting a cold LOI or full proposal for this funder is very unlikely to be read, let alone funded. Third, if your organization already has a relationship with one of the foundation's known grantees or affinity institutions — New York-Presbyterian, Lincoln Center, the University of Pennsylvania (including Penn Hillel), UJA-Federation of New York, or City Harvest — use that as your entry point; ask a shared board member, major-gifts officer, or Penn/UJA-Federation contact for an introduction rather than approaching the foundation directly. Fourth, calibrate expectations on size: if a relationship-based introduction does lead to a conversation, realistic first asks fall in the $5,000-$25,000 range based on the median grants in this foundation's history — the seven-figure gifts are reserved for legacy institutional relationships, not new organizations. Fifth, alignment language should lean into the foundation's demonstrated causes — Jewish communal life and Israel-linked programs, medical/health research, human rights, youth development, and NYC arts and culture — since virtually every grant in its history falls into one of these buckets, and a pitch outside them (e.g., environmental, rural, or non-NY/PA/NJ/DC-based work) has essentially no precedent of being funded. Finally, do not mistake the 'accepting_applications: true' flag sometimes shown in aggregator databases for an open door — it reflects the foundation's 501(c)(3) grantmaking eligibility, not an active submission process; the foundation's own documented practice overrides that flag.