Kolatch Family Foundation

The Kolatch Family Foundation operates as a closed, trustee-directed private foundation in which all grants flow from the personal relationships of Jonathan L. Kolatch and Mindy S. Kolatch, the foundation's sole trustees. The foundation's IRS filings explicitly state that it "only makes contributions to preselected charitable organizations and does not accept unsolicited requests for funds." There is no application portal, no request-for-proposals process, no letter of inquiry gateway, and no program officer to cultivate.

Understanding the giving philosophy requires understanding the trustees' lives. Jonathan Kolatch is a Columbia University and Harvard Business School alumnus who became a partner at Goldman Sachs before founding Redwood Capital Management, a high-yield credit hedge fund based in Englewood Cliffs, NJ. This background explains the foundation's gravitational pull toward elite academic medical institutions (Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Montefiore Medical Center) and high-status community anchors. Mindy Kolatch serves as a teacher at Ramaz School — the prominent Modern Orthodox day school on Manhattan's Upper East Side — and sits on the board of the Kaplen JCC on the Palisades in Tenafly, NJ. These affiliations account directly for grants to Ramaz School (4 grants totaling $40,000), the Moriah School of Englewood ($125,000+), and the broader Bergen County Orthodox Jewish institutional ecosystem.

The foundation's preferred grantee profile is: an established Orthodox or Modern Orthodox Jewish institution in Bergen County, NJ, or Manhattan; a Jewish educational institution (K-12 or higher education) with personal ties to the trustees; an Israel-connected organization with mainstream Zionist alignment; or a healthcare institution serving the New York metropolitan Jewish community. All 249 documented grants were designated for General Support — no restricted or programmatic grants have been identified.

For organizations that already have a community relationship with the Kolatch family through synagogue affiliation, day school connection, or Jewish federation involvement, the path to grantee status is a natural extension of that existing relationship, not a formal solicitation. Congregation Ahavath Torah (25 grants across the data period) exemplifies this: sustained community connection generates sustained philanthropic support.

The Kolatch Family Foundation has grown from $2.04 million in annual giving in 2015 to $7.84 million in fiscal year 2024 — a nearly fourfold increase over nine years that tracks the foundation's asset growth from $38.3 million to $102.4 million. Annual giving from FY2018–FY2024 (excluding a 2021 anomaly) has been remarkably consistent: $4.33M (2018), $5.26M (2019), $6.03M (2020), $6.37M direct grants (2021), $6.33M (2022), $6.67M (2023), and $7.84M (2024).

The FY2021 total giving figure of $18.55 million is an outlier explained by large transfers to donor-advised fund vehicles: $10 million to National Philanthropic Trust (in two grants), $5 million to Fidelity Charitable Giving Fund, and $4 million to JP Morgan Charitable Giving Fund. These DAF transfers represent the family staging capital for future flexible philanthropy, not direct charitable distribution. Stripping these out, the foundation's direct charitable grant-making has grown steadily from approximately $4.3M to $7.8M annually.

Across 249 documented grants totaling $23.6 million, the distribution is sharply bimodal. Median grant size is $10,000 — reflecting a large number of small, recurring annual gifts ($1,000–$25,000) to synagogues and local institutions. The average of $94,886 is dramatically skewed upward by occasional large commitments ($250,000–$5,000,000). Grant sizes range from $56 to $5,000,000.

Geographically, 85% of grant activity concentrates in New York (128 grants) and New Jersey (85 grants), with the remaining 15% scattered across DC (10 grants, mostly national Jewish organizations), Florida (7 grants), Ohio (4), Pennsylvania (3), Arizona (3), California (2), Illinois (1), and Montana (1).

By programmatic focus, estimated giving from available grantee data breaks down as: Israel-related causes approximately $1.26M (Etzion Foundation $1M, Amit Children $262K, others); Jewish religious and synagogue support approximately $910K; Jewish K-12 and higher education approximately $370K; healthcare approximately $130K; Jewish federations and umbrella organizations approximately $580K; and human services/food security approximately $350K. The foundation gives exclusively General Support — no project grants are documented.

The foundation's five database peers were identified by asset size, though none share identical geographic or programmatic focus.

Among this peer set, only the Onion Foundation (onionfoundation.org) maintains a public-facing website, suggesting it may accept some external inquiries. The Hardesty Family Foundation, despite larger assets at $142 million, is based in Oklahoma and publicly discloses no grantmaking priorities.

For meaningful benchmarking, Kolatch's FY2024 payout rate of approximately 7.7% of assets substantially exceeds the IRS-mandated 5% minimum distribution requirement for private foundations, signaling active philanthropic intent rather than a wealth-preservation strategy. Its 89 annual grants across a $102M asset base is consistent with a hands-on, personally engaged trustee model rather than a professionally staffed foundation. Organizations seeking a useful peer comparison for Kolatch should look to similarly structured Modern Orthodox Jewish family foundations in the NY/NJ metro area, such as the UJA-Federation of New York's network of affiliated family foundations.

No press releases, public announcements, or news articles from or about the Kolatch Family Foundation were found for 2025 or 2026. The foundation maintains zero public communications presence — no dedicated grantmaking website, no social media accounts, no annual reports, and no press coverage of individual grants.

The most recent confirmed public record is the Form 990-PF filed October 1, 2024, covering the fiscal year ending October 2024. It documents $7.84 million distributed across 89 grants, with foundation revenues of $37.1 million (primarily investment income: $6.3M dividends, $22.2M other investment income, $4.7M from asset sales) and total assets of $102.4 million. This represents a meaningful step up from the prior year's 72 grants and approximately $6.67M in giving.

CauseIQ and Instrumentl data were refreshed February 17, 2026, confirming the $102.4M asset figure remains current. No leadership transitions have been reported; Jonathan and Mindy Kolatch have served as the foundation's sole trustees since its founding in April 1998.

The foundation operates from what is believed to be the offices of Redwood Capital Management (Jonathan Kolatch's hedge fund) at 910 Sylvan Avenue, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, with IRS records listing 144 Walnut St, Englewood, NJ as the official address. No staffing beyond the two trustees is publicly documented. The absence of staff, program officers, or public-facing communications infrastructure is consistent with a family foundation operating exclusively through trustee personal relationships.

The Kolatch Family Foundation explicitly does not accept unsolicited grant applications. This is not a de facto policy — it is stated in IRS filings. No grant-writing skill, no compelling case statement, and no cold outreach strategy will unlock this foundation. Organizations that attempt to submit proposals, call the listed phone number (201-568-8005) seeking funding, or email % Jonathan Kolatch will not receive grants as a result. This is the single most important fact for any grant seeker to internalize.

That said, the foundation does award approximately $7.8 million annually, and those funds go somewhere. Understanding how organizations actually enter the grantee roster is the actionable insight:

• Community membership matters most. Every major grantee — Congregation Ahavath Torah, Manhattan Day School, Moriah School, UJA-Federation, Ramaz School — has a direct institutional or personal connection to Jonathan or Mindy Kolatch through religious community, school affiliation, or professional network. If your organization lacks any such connection, funding from this foundation is not realistically accessible.

• Target the institutions in the Kolatch orbit. Engage genuinely with the Kaplen JCC on the Palisades (where Mindy Kolatch serves on the board), Congregation Ahavath Torah in Englewood, and the Bergen County Orthodox Jewish institutional network. Leadership roles, volunteer involvement, and gala participation are how relationships that eventually lead to trustee awareness are built — over years, not months.

• Align your language with their identity. When (and only when) a genuine relationship exists, conversations about funding should use language rooted in Jewish communal responsibility, support for Israel and Jewish continuity, and strengthening the fabric of the NY/NJ Jewish community. Secular framing of Jewish organizational work is less resonant than explicit articulation of Jewish communal purpose.

• General Support requests only. Based on 249 documented grants, the foundation has never made a restricted or project-specific grant. If a relationship-based conversation does occur, position your organization's core operating needs — not a specific program.

• Timing is informal. There are no published grant cycles, deadlines, or review windows. The foundation's fiscal year ends in October, with filings due the following year — but trustee decisions appear to be made on a rolling, relationship-driven basis throughout the year.