Kelsey Trust

Kelsey Trust is a small, family-governed private trust (EIN 04-6609917, established 1988 by Sally Patrick Johnson, trustees Paula D., Stephen P., and Sally P. Johnson) with no paid staff of its own. It outsources grants administration entirely to the Vermont Community Foundation (VCF), which is the real point of contact for every applicant. This structure matters strategically: you are not pitching a program officer employed by Kelsey, you are pitching a VCF grants manager who screens on the Trust's behalf against narrow, watershed-defined criteria before anything reaches the trustees. Geography is the hardest gate — the Trust funds organizations serving the Lake Champlain Basin (Vermont and northeastern New York, per its own stated geographic_focus), with a 'strong preference' for groups physically located inside the Basin. Of 96 grants in the DB grantee history, 90 went to Vermont (69) or New York (21) recipients, with only 5 in Massachusetts and 1 in the Virgin Islands — the MA and VI grants are the exception, not a signal that out-of-region groups compete well. Within the Basin, the Trust favors small, locally rooted nonprofits over large regional or national organizations: top grantees include Shelburne Farms, Intervale Center, Lakeside School, the Adirondack Foundation, and Conservation Law Foundation, alongside human-services groups like Feeding Chittenden, the Greater Burlington YMCA, and Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity. General operating support, not project funding, is the dominant grant type — nearly every recipient in the top-50 list is coded 'General Support.' First-time applicants should expect a light-touch, LOI-first relationship: submit a two-page Letter of Interest through VCF's Online Grants Manager, expect a fast decision (30 days or less per cycle), and do not expect site visits or multi-year negotiations — this is a lean, high-volume-of-small-grants funder, not a high-touch major donor. Repeat funding is common (many top grantees show 2-4 grants), suggesting the Trust rewards continuity once a relationship is established rather than rotating recipients.

The Trust's own typical_grant_size data (30 grants sampled) shows a median of $6,000, average of $6,617, and range of $2,500-$10,000. A broader Instrumentl-sourced 2025 figure widens the observed range to $2,500-$48,500 with an average of $7,700 across 30 awards, suggesting occasional larger multi-year or capacity grants sit above the typical $10,000 ceiling. Total annual giving has hovered in a narrow band for over a decade: $221,545 (2012), $242,219 (2013), $221,458 (2014), $231,988 (2015), then after a data gap, $314,260 (2019), $224,151 (2020), $227,603 (2021), $219,214 (2022), $266,635 (2023), and an IRS-filed $232,000 in grants paid for the most recent DB year (2024, though total_giving for FY2024 is not populated in the extract). Web-sourced 2025 data pegs giving at $223,500. Assets have been essentially static at $3.6-3.9M for over a decade ($3,775,524 in 2012 vs. $3,817,681 in 2024), meaning the Trust is spending close to net investment income each year rather than growing its corpus — net investment income ranged from $118,463 (2021) to $480,287 (2023), with total_giving tracking a few percent above net investment income in most years, consistent with a trust drawing down close to its full 5% payout requirement. Of the DB's 96 recorded grants totaling $785,000 (avg $8,177), geographic concentration is stark: Vermont recipients account for 69 of 96 grants (72%), New York 21 (22%), Massachusetts 5 (5%), and the Virgin Islands 1. By program, general support dominates — every purpose tag in the top-50 grantee list is 'General Support' or 'GENERAL SUPPORT,' with no project-restricted or capital grants visible in the sample, reinforcing that this is an operating-support funder for small nonprofits already embedded in the Champlain Basin's environment and human-services ecosystem.

Kelsey Trust sits at the very small end of the Vermont/Champlain Basin funder landscape — a fraction of the size of Lintilhac Foundation and historically smaller than the now-dissolved High Meadows Fund's typical single grant round.

Kelsey Trust's ~$3.8M asset base is roughly one-seventh of Lintilhac's, and its typical award ($5,000-$10,000) is well below Lintilhac's $13,000 average and $100,000 ceiling — meaning applicants seeking more than $10,000-$15,000 for a single project should treat Kelsey as a complementary, not primary, funding source, and pair it with Lintilhac, VCF's other Basin-focused funds, or larger regional environmental funders for the bulk of project budgets.

No distinct news events, leadership changes, or new program announcements were identified for the Kelsey Trust itself in 2025-2026 — as an unstaffed family trust with no press office, it does not generate independent news coverage. The most concrete recent signal is financial: 990-derived data shows 2025 total giving of $223,500 across 30 awards (average $7,700, range $2,500-$48,500), consistent with the Trust's decade-long pattern of $220K-$266K in annual giving and confirming the program is active and funding in the current cycle. One administrative signal worth flagging to applicants: contact information for the Trust's LOI process varies across sources — VCF's own current fund page lists Emma Marks (emarks@vermontcf.org, ext. 269) while a GrantsforUS/aggregator listing names Jane Mulcahy (jmulcahy@vermontcf.org, ext. 381) as the LOI contact. This discrepancy most likely reflects staff turnover at the Vermont Community Foundation's grants team between when each source was last updated, rather than a change at the Trust itself. Applicants should always confirm the current contact directly on vermontcf.org/funds/kelsey-trust/ immediately before applying rather than relying on any single cached listing. Trustee composition (Paula D. Johnson, Stephen P. Johnson, Sally P. Johnson) has been stable across the IRS filings reviewed, with no compensation paid to any trustee in any year — a hallmark of a lean, purely volunteer-governed family trust.

Apply through the Vermont Community Foundation, not the Trust directly — the Trust has no independent grants staff, and every credible source (VCF's own fund page, GrantExec, fundsforNGOs, GrantsforUS) confirms VCF administers the LOI process end to end via its Online Grants Manager portal. Match your ask to the right cycle: the Spring cycle (LOI due June 1, decisions by June 30) is for education and environment projects; the Winter cycle (LOI due December 1, decisions late December/early January) is for children-at-risk, families, and basic human needs like food, fuel, and shelter. Submitting an environmental proposal to the Winter cycle or vice versa is a common, avoidable mistake given how cleanly the Trust splits its two windows. Keep the LOI itself to two pages plus a one-page organizational statement on letterhead — the Trust's stated instructions are explicit about this length limit and about including the executive director's name, 501(c)(3) status, target population, geographic community served, expected outcomes and success metrics, the amount requested, what percentage of your total project/program budget that represents, the grant period, and a list of other funders already committed. Because the median award is only $6,000-$7,700, requesting a large fraction of a small project's budget (rather than positioning Kelsey as one of several funders) reads as more credible than requesting a large fraction of a big-budget program. Geographic fit is the first filter: confirm your service area falls inside the Lake Champlain watershed map the Trust references (VT and NY counties draining into the lake) before investing time in an LOI — organizations outside the Basin are very unlikely to be funded regardless of program quality, based on the 90-of-96 VT/NY concentration in the grant history. Religious organizations with primarily sectarian purposes are excluded, and the Trust explicitly states it should not be an applicant's predominant funding source, so pair the request with other committed or pending support and say so in the LOI. Given the fast (roughly 30-day) decision turnaround and general-support orientation, this is a good funder for smaller, VT/NY-based nonprofits needing to fill an operating-budget gap quickly rather than for capital campaigns or research-heavy proposals.