Kirk Foundation

The Kirk Foundation is a small, closely held family foundation (EIN 45-5436980, PO Box 3988, Norfolk, VA) run entirely by two people — John W. Kirk III (Director/President) and C. Shireen Kirk (Director/Secretary/Treasurer) — with zero officer compensation reported across every filed year in our data. Our own record flags it `preselected_only: true` with no published application form, deadline, or instructions, and every independent aggregator we checked (Cause IQ, Grantable, Instrumentl, GrantStation) independently confirms the same fact: this funder does not accept unsolicited proposals. Its own domain, kirkfoundation.org, currently shows only a "Launching Soon" placeholder with a bare contact form, reinforcing that there is no formal public-facing grants program to apply into.

What this means practically: the Kirk Foundation behaves less like an institutional grantmaker with published guidelines and more like a personal philanthropic vehicle for the Kirk family's own charitable relationships. Of its 18 tracked grants totaling $2,250,188, 17 went to Virginia organizations and 1 to Kentucky — and the recipient list reads like a map of personal and institutional loyalty: Second Presbyterian Church in Roanoke ($750,000 across 3 gifts for the "Alexa House Project"), Hampden-Sydney College ($500,000 for an athletic endowment challenge), Carilion Clinic Foundation ($500,000, general purposes), and the Asphalt Institute Foundation ($250,000 for a named "Kirk Scholars Program" — almost certainly a family-branded scholarship). Smaller gifts went to a preschool, a YMCA capital campaign, a children's playground fund, a community college foundation, a Boys & Girls Club, and William & Mary's alumnae initiatives fund.

For a grant seeker with no prior connection to the Kirk family, this is effectively a closed door. There is no LOI process, no board meeting calendar, and no program officer to contact. The only realistic paths in are: (1) an existing personal relationship with John or Shireen Kirk, (2) affiliation with an institution already in their circle (Roanoke-area churches, Hampden-Sydney College, Carilion Health System, William & Mary), or (3) a warm introduction through a mutual board member or advisor. Cold outreach — mailed proposals, email inquiries, or portal submissions — is very unlikely to be reviewed and should not be a strategy priority.

Total tracked giving across our data is $2,250,188 across 18 grants, averaging $125,010 per grant, though the typical (median) award is far smaller at $62,500 — the average is pulled upward by a few large, multi-year commitments. The foundation's own IRS-derived `typical_grant_size` field shows a $2,000–$250,000 range (n=8, median $62,500, average $91,774), while the full grantee history in our data ranges from $8,000 (William & Mary, across 4 gifts) up to $750,000 (Second Presbyterian Church, across 3 gifts) — so single-check sizes are more modest, and the largest totals accumulate through repeat, multi-year support of a handful of favored institutions rather than one-time mega-gifts.

Year-over-year giving is volatile rather than steadily growing. Total giving by fiscal year: FY2012 $66,603, FY2013 $770,604, FY2014 $676,368, FY2015 $64,052, FY2019 $732,888, FY2020 $737,936, FY2021 $524,233, FY2022 $506,359, FY2023 $286,614. This boom-bust pattern (roughly $60-70K in low years vs. $700K+ in high years) suggests giving is timed to specific capital campaigns or family decisions rather than a fixed annual payout formula. Total assets have stayed in a narrow band, from $3.94M (2013) down to $2.88M (current), with net investment income ($167,964 in FY2023, $527,394 in FY2022) as the primary revenue source rather than new contributions — contributions received were $0 in FY2023 and FY2021, suggesting the corpus is largely self-sustaining rather than actively replenished by new family gifts in most years.

By geography, 17 of 18 tracked grants (94%) went to Virginia, with 1 to Kentucky. By purpose, the largest dollar concentrations are: capital/building campaigns (Alexa House Project, $750,000; Kirk Capital Campaign, $75,000; CCAP2 Campaign, $20,000), higher-education endowments and scholarships (Hampden-Sydney athletics $500,000; Kirk Scholars Program $250,000; William & Mary alumnae fund $8,000), healthcare (Carilion Clinic Foundation, $500,000), and youth/community services (YMCA $75,000, Boys & Girls Club $12,000, Addy Grace Foundation playground $50,000, Larchmont preschool $85,188).

The Kirk Foundation sits in a cluster of very small, single-family private foundations classified under the same NTEE code (T20, Philanthropy & Grantmaking) with near-identical asset sizes (~$2.88M) — these appear to be structurally similar "family fund" vehicles rather than direct programmatic competitors, and most have no public website or disclosed application process either.

The near-identical asset figures across all six foundations (all clustering within roughly $2,000 of each other around $2.885M) strongly suggest these are grouped by our data pipeline as a size/category cohort rather than genuine strategic peers — none publish grantee lists, mission statements, or application guidance, which is itself the dominant pattern for foundations at this asset scale: they are personal giving vehicles, not staffed grantmaking institutions. A grant seeker should not expect any of these to behave like a mid-size or national foundation with published RFPs; relationship access is the operative variable across the entire peer set, not program fit.

No foundation-specific press coverage, leadership transitions, or new program announcements were found in web searches covering 2025-2026; searches for "Kirk Foundation" news are dominated by unrelated organizations of the same name (a Kirk Gibson Parkinson's foundation running a golf fundraiser in August 2026, a Charlie Kirk memorial foundation, and separate Kirk-named foundations in South Florida and Missouri). This absence of coverage is itself informative: the Kirk Foundation of Norfolk/Roanoke, VA operates with no communications presence, no annual report, and — as of this research — a foundation website (kirkfoundation.org) that displays only a placeholder "Launching Soon" page with a bare name/email contact form, suggesting the family may be in the early stages of formalizing a more public-facing web presence but has not yet published any program content.

Third-party 990-tracking aggregator Instrumentl reports 2025 distributions of roughly $1.4M, which — if accurate — would mark a significant increase over the $286,614 given in FY2023 per our own IRS BMF-sourced financial history. This would be consistent with the foundation's established multi-year pattern of concentrating large gifts (like the $750,000 Alexa House Project commitment to Second Presbyterian Church, paid across three grants) into specific years rather than spreading giving evenly, rather than indicating any new strategic direction. Leadership remains unchanged: John W. Kirk III (President) and C. Shireen Kirk (Secretary/Treasurer) are listed as the sole directors and officers across every year of filings in our records, with no compensation drawn in any year — a strong indicator this remains a hands-on, unstaffed family operation rather than a growing institution.

Given the foundation is confirmed `preselected_only` with no published application form, deadline, or instructions (our record lists `application_instructions: "__none__"` and `application_deadline: null`), and every third-party aggregator (Cause IQ, Grantable, Instrumentl, GrantStation) independently confirms invitation-only, unsolicited-proposal grantseeking strategies (cold LOIs, portal submissions, mailed proposals) should not be a priority use of time for organizations without an existing connection.

The more productive strategy is relationship-based: (1) Map your board, major donors, and institutional leadership for any existing personal ties to John W. Kirk III or C. Shireen Kirk, or to the organizations they already fund — Second Presbyterian Church in Roanoke, Hampden-Sydney College, Carilion Clinic Foundation, the Asphalt Institute Foundation, or William & Mary. A warm introduction through one of these institutions' leadership is far more likely to succeed than any cold approach. (2) If your organization is based in the Roanoke/Hampden-Sydney/Williamsburg corridor of Virginia, or in Kentucky (the foundation's only two funded states), note that geographic and community proximity appears to matter — every tracked grant has gone to these areas. (3) Watch kirkfoundation.org for any change from its current "Launching Soon" placeholder; if the family formalizes a public program page or application process, it will likely appear there first, and monitoring the domain periodically costs nothing. (4) Frame any eventual outreach around capital campaigns, named funds/scholarships, or building projects — the two largest tracked gifts (the $750,000 Alexa House Project and $500,000 Hampden-Sydney athletic endowment challenge) were both structured as named capital or endowment campaigns rather than general operating grants, suggesting the Kirks respond to concrete, named giving opportunities they can attach their family name to.

Common mistake to avoid: treating this like a typical mid-size foundation with a grants portal. There is no portal, no board cycle to target, and no program officer — spending time drafting a formal LOI or full proposal without a relationship in place will very likely go unread. If your organization has no connection to this funder or region, your time is better spent on foundations with genuinely open, published application processes.