Ladish Co Foundation

Ladish Co Foundation is a legacy corporate foundation tied to the former Ladish Co. manufacturing plant in Cudahy, Wisconsin (acquired by Allegheny Technologies in 2011), now run as an independent trust from Elm Grove. Internal foundation data marks it 'preselected_only,' and every third-party source consulted (Candid, Instrumentl, TaxExemptWorld) confirms it has no public RFP, portal, or advertised deadline — it does not solicit or meaningfully review unsolicited proposals. Trustee Gary Vroman summarized the giving philosophy directly in 2021: 'We like to help people who help people.' That is a relationship- and trust-driven mandate, not a competitive grant program.

The grantee list reveals three concentric tiers. The innermost tier is a small number of seven-figure institutional gifts — Rogers Behavioral Health ($2.2M across 5 grants, building construction/capital campaign/general support) and Children's Hospital & Health System ($2.0M plus a related $1.8M entry, both for emergency/trauma care) — reserved for major Milwaukee-area health institutions with which trustees have a sustained, multi-year relationship. A middle tier of $50K-$400K gifts goes to established institutions with existing ties to the Ladish family or Cudahy community: Cristo Rey Jesuit High School ($400K), Milwaukee School of Engineering ($215K for residence-hall renovation and scholarships), Milwaukee Rescue Mission ($170K), and Prevent Blindness Wisconsin ($125K). The outer, largest-by-count tier is $15K-$50K recurring support to hyper-local Cudahy institutions — Cudahy High School, Cudahy School District, Cudahy Family Library, St. Marcus Lutheran School, and Beckum-Stapleton Little League — reflecting the foundation's roots in the company's former plant community.

First-time applicants should not expect a cold LOI to succeed. The realistic path in is a warm introduction: board or staff overlap with an existing grantee, a shared connection through the Milwaukee nonprofit/business network (United Way of Greater Milwaukee is a grantee), or a direct, geographically-specific tie to Cudahy or the broader Milwaukee health/education ecosystem. Trustees Ronald Wiese, Wayne Larsen, Gary Vroman, and Thomas Furman are unpaid volunteers, which reinforces that decisions run through personal vetting rather than staff-driven proposal review.

Across the top-50 grantee sample (138 total grants, $11,788,200 disbursed, average $85,422 per grant), the median individual grant is approximately $50,000 — the average is pulled sharply upward by four outlier health-system gifts ($2.2M, $2.0M, $1.8M, and a self-referential $2.42M 990 entry that appears to be a filing artifact rather than a distinct grantee). Excluding those outliers, grant sizes cluster tightly: 9 gifts of exactly $100,000, a wide band of $30K-$90K institutional support, and a long tail of $15K-$25K community gifts.

Geographically, 129 of 138 grants (about 93%) went to Wisconsin organizations, with Florida (4 grants — including Guadalupe Center in Immokalee, likely a trustee snowbird connection), Minnesota (3), and Illinois (2) rounding out the remainder. This is a hyper-regional funder with only incidental national reach.

By program area, health and human services dominate dollar volume: the Rogers Behavioral Health and Children's Hospital gifts alone account for roughly half of the $11.79M sample, followed by hunger/emergency-needs support (Feeding America Eastern Wisconsin, Hunger Task Force, Milwaukee Rescue Mission — combined ~$285K), disability/vision services (Prevent Blindness Wisconsin $125K, Vision Forward Association $60K combined, Center for Deaf-Blind Persons $30K), and education (Cristo Rey Jesuit $400K, MSOE $215K, multiple Cudahy-area schools totaling roughly $140K).

Annual giving has been volatile but generally in the $2-3.5M range: FY2018 $3.54M, FY2019 $2.36M, FY2020 $3.14M, FY2021 $2.47M, FY2022 $3.21M, and a striking FY2023 near-zero of $20,464 total giving with $0 grants paid — almost certainly a filing-timing anomaly rather than a strategic shift, since Instrumentl reports FY2024 giving rebounded to $3.06M across 47 grants. Total assets have drifted down from $12.45M (2011) to $8.1-10.4M in recent years, with contributions received in occasional years ($2.6M in 2021, $1.2M in 2022) suggesting the corpus is periodically replenished rather than being steadily run off.

Figures for peer foundations beyond Ladish itself are directional estimates from general public knowledge of the Milwaukee philanthropic landscape, not verified against fresh 990 data in this research pass, and should be confirmed independently before citing. What is confirmed is that Ladish sits at the small end of Milwaukee-area corporate/family foundations by both asset base and annual payout, and — unlike open-LOI funders such as Faye McBeath — operates a fully closed, relationship-driven model with no public application mechanism.

The clearest documented recent activity is the August 2021 opening of the Ladish Co. Foundation Center on Rogers Behavioral Health's Oconomowoc campus, funded by a $2 million gift — the foundation's largest single disclosed commitment in the last decade. The center houses the Rogers Behavioral Health Foundation, a research center, a family room built in partnership with Ronald McDonald House Charities Eastern Wisconsin, and the Tadross Family Chapel. Trustee Gary Vroman's quote from that announcement ('we like to help people who help people... a building that's going to be filled with hope and healing') is the only public on-record statement of the foundation's giving philosophy found in this research.

More recently, Instrumentl's aggregation of the foundation's latest available Form 990-PF (data refreshed April 2026) shows FY2024 giving of $3,061,375 across 47 grants — consistent with pre-2023 payout levels and suggesting the anomalous near-zero FY2023 filing was a timing issue rather than a wind-down.

The foundation also runs a small, separate scholarship program (2 annual $2,500 awards for Wisconsin residents pursuing metallurgy/materials science degrees, administered jointly with ASM International's Material Advantage program). Multiple scholarship-aggregator sites list this program as inactive/not accepting applications as of February 28, 2026 — this should be reconfirmed directly with ASM Foundation rather than assumed dead, since foundation scholarship cycles often pause and resume year to year.

No other 2025-2026 press coverage, leadership changes, or new program announcements surfaced in this search. That silence is itself informative: this is a low-public-profile, non-marketing foundation whose activity is documented mainly through IRS filings and occasional grantee-side press releases (like the Rogers Behavioral Health story) rather than its own announcements.

There is no open application process to optimize for — application_form_url, application_deadline, and application_instructions are all blank or null in the foundation's own filings, and Candid, Instrumentl, and TaxExemptWorld each independently confirm no advertised RFP exists. Treat this as a closed, trustee-relationship funder, not a competitive grant program.

The single highest-leverage move is securing a warm introduction. Look at the grantee list for organizations you or your board already have ties to — United Way of Greater Milwaukee, Milwaukee School of Engineering, Cristo Rey Jesuit High School, or any Cudahy-area school or civic group — and ask a shared contact to make the connection rather than submitting a proposal cold. Given that four trustees (Ronald Wiese, Wayne Larsen, Gary Vroman, Thomas Furman) are unpaid volunteers making decisions personally rather than through program-officer review, a direct, low-pressure phone call to the foundation's listed number, (414) 418-7415, to ask how the foundation currently considers new organizations is more productive than a mailed proposal package.

When you do get a hearing, lead with concrete community impact and, where relevant, capital/facility need — the two largest disclosed gifts (Rogers Behavioral Health, Children's Hospital) were both capital or program-expansion asks tied to measurable health outcomes, not general operating requests. For education and human-service organizations, emphasize direct service delivery to the Milwaukee/Cudahy area; the recurring small gifts to Cudahy High School, Cudahy Family Library, and Beckum-Stapleton Little League show the foundation values its historical tie to the former Ladish Co. plant community as much as institutional prestige.

The most common mistake would be treating this like an open-RFP funder — a well-written unsolicited LOI sent to a general foundation address is very unlikely to generate a response, based on the complete absence of a public intake process across every research source checked. If pursuing the ASM International metallurgy scholarship track instead of general grants, verify current-cycle status directly at asmfoundation.org before investing applicant time, since aggregator sites flagged it inactive as of February 2026.