Ken Jagroo Foundation Inc.

The Ken Jagroo Foundation is a lean, uncompensated family operation — President Nanda Mangal and Treasurer Nandlall Mangal, Ken Jagroo's children, run it with no paid staff and no formal grants portal. The foundation's internal records flag it as 'preselected only,' and its website confirms there is no open RFP: interested organizations must email info@kenjagroofoundation.org to 'learn more' rather than submit through a form. This is a relationship-driven funder, not a competitive-application one, so the realistic path in is a warm introduction, a direct and specific email pitch, or visibility through the family's personal and community networks rather than a cold submission into a queue.

The grantee list confirms this pattern: of 22 top recipients, more than half received grants across 3-4 separate gifts over multiple years (Fiver Foundation: 4 grants/$225,000; Rollstone Foundation: 4 grants/$125,000; Marblejam Kids, The Inn, and St Mary's Healthcare System for Children: 3 grants/$150,000 each; GrowNYC, Coalition for the Homeless, Variety The Children's Charity, America's VetDogs: 3 grants/$75,000-$125,000 each). This is a foundation that builds long-term funding relationships with a fairly stable roster rather than seeking new grantees every cycle — first-time applicants are competing for a small number of new slots that open up each year.

The foundation favors established, brand-recognized New York institutions with operational scale and track records (GrowNYC, City Harvest, NYC Food Bank, Coalition for the Homeless, American Red Cross, Guide Dog Foundation) over early-stage or grassroots organizations — 40 of the foundation's 45 recorded grants (89%) went to New York-based recipients, with just 3 to New Jersey and 2 to Washington, DC. Applicants outside the New York metro region should not expect a serious look.

First-time applicants should lead with credibility signals — financial security, clean audited financials, and 'strong community leadership,' which the foundation's own eligibility language calls out explicitly. Because typical grants are $25,000 and the foundation explicitly offers both general operating and program-based support, applicants should state clearly which type of support they are requesting and be prepared to treat a first grant as the opening of an ongoing relationship rather than a one-time ask.

Total tracked giving in Granted's database: $1,625,000 across 45 grants since the foundation's 2019 founding, averaging $36,111 per grant. The foundation's most recent typical-grant-size data points to a tight $25,000 median/average (min $25,000, max $25,000 across the 3 most recent recorded grants), while historical single gifts to top grantees ranged from $25,000 up to cumulative totals of $225,000 (Fiver Foundation, across 4 separate grants).

Annual cash grants paid (per IRS Form 990-PF) show a clear post-pandemic ramp: $300,000 (FY2019) fell to $75,000 (FY2020, the foundation's only negative-revenue year at -$89,990), rebounded to $300,000 (FY2021), then climbed to $400,000 (FY2022) and $450,000 (FY2023) — a six-fold increase in disbursed grants from the 2020 trough. Total giving (grants plus related expenses) followed the same arc: $328,796 (2019) → $110,949 (2020) → $409,036 (2021) → $605,466 (2022, the peak year) → $586,720 (2023).

Assets have stayed in a narrow $4.7M-$5.3M band since a single $5,000,000 founding contribution in FY2018 (income $2,611,741 most recently reported); there have been no comparable new outside contributions since — $126,772 in 2022 and $21,830 in 2023 were the largest recent inflows. Giving is instead sustained by investment returns, which spiked to $885,972 in 2021's bull market and settled to $280,162 in 2023. This is a closed-endowment family foundation, not one actively fundraising for new capital, which caps how much its total giving can grow year over year.

By geography, 89% of the 45 tracked grants (40 of 45) went to New York organizations, with 3 to New Jersey and 2 to Washington, DC — despite the stated multi-cause mission, dollars are almost entirely New York Metro-focused. By cause, the grantee roster clusters into hunger relief (GrowNYC, Coalition for the Homeless, City Harvest, NYC Food Bank, Interfaith Nutrition Network, Holy Apostles Soup Kitchen), youth/family services (Fiver Foundation, Marblejam Kids, Little Essentials), pediatric health (St Mary's Healthcare System for Children, St Mary's Hospital for Children), and animal welfare (America's VetDogs, Guide Dog Foundation, Humane Society of Westchester).

These five peers were matched purely on asset size (all within roughly $2,600 of Ken Jagroo's $4,879,548 in total assets) and shared IRS Philanthropy & Grantmaking classification, not on geography or cause overlap — most are single-family, low-visibility foundations with no public grant portals, which is itself informative: Ken Jagroo is unusually transparent for its size class, maintaining a live website with a named eligibility page, whereas four of five size-matched peers have no discoverable web presence at all. Among asset-matched peers, only Stitt Foundation (also NY-based) offers a comparably public-facing footprint, making it the closest true comparison for process and positioning.

No 2025 or 2026 press coverage, award announcements, or news mentions of the Ken Jagroo Foundation were found in web search — consistent with a two-person, uncompensated family foundation that has never issued press releases. The most recent publicly available financial detail is the FY2023 Form 990-PF, showing $450,000 in grants paid and $586,720 in total giving against $4,895,635 in year-end assets. A FY2024 filing is reflected in Granted's database with $510,050 in total revenue, but the corresponding grants-paid and total-giving figures for FY2024 were not available at the time of this report, meaning the most recent full picture of the foundation's giving is FY2023.

Leadership has been stable since founding: Nanda Mangal (President) and Nandlall Mangal (Treasurer), both of whom take no compensation, continue to run the foundation across every filing year reviewed. There is no evidence of new program launches, staff hires, or strategic pivots — the foundation's website language ('Pure happiness comes from helping others in any way you can and with a good heart') is unchanged from its founding framing.

The foundation's internal accepting_applications flag is set to true, but its own preselected-only designation and website copy ('please contact us to learn more') indicate this means it will entertain direct outreach rather than that it runs any open, competitive cycle. Grant seekers should not expect a published RFP, deadline calendar, or portal to appear; any change would likely surface first as a website update rather than press coverage.

There is no formal application, portal, or downloadable form — the foundation's own Grant Eligibility page directs all interest to a single channel: email info@kenjagroofoundation.org (or call (631) 738-9100) and ask to be considered. Treat the first contact as a relationship-opening conversation, not a proposal submission; come prepared with a concise, one-page-equivalent pitch rather than a full grant application packet, since there is no indication anyone reviews long unsolicited documents.

Because 89% of the foundation's 45 tracked grants went to New York-based organizations (with only a handful to New Jersey and DC), lead with your New York Metro service footprint in the first paragraph — an out-of-state program with no NY presence is a mismatch regardless of cause fit. Name-check the foundation's specific language: it screens for organizations that show 'financial security and good standing' and projects that demonstrate 'collaboration, partnership and strong community leadership' — mirror this phrasing with concrete evidence (audited financials, named partner organizations, board/community leadership bios).

State explicitly which of the foundation's two grant types you're requesting: 'operational' (general operating support, which the foundation says it values for the flexibility it gives grantees) or 'program-based' (tied to a specific initiative with measurable impact, especially for populations with the greatest need). Vague, both/either requests are a mismatch for a funder that names these as two distinct tracks.

Given that a majority of the foundation's top grantees were funded 3-4 times each (repeat funding is the norm, not one-off gifts), the strongest opening ask is one that can plausibly become a multi-year relationship — mention willingness to report back on outcomes and to sustain contact even if year one funding is modest (the recent typical grant size is $25,000). Because there is no published deadline or cycle, and grants-paid totals have trended upward each of the last three years ($300K → $400K → $450K), earlier-in-year outreach (Q1) is a reasonable hedge against funds being committed later in the fiscal year. The single biggest mistake to avoid: submitting a generic, mass-distributed LOI with no NY-specific framing — a foundation this small and personally run is likely to notice and deprioritize form-letter asks.