Lake Family Foundation

Lake Family Foundation is a small, closely-held private foundation based in Chicago, IL (EIN 36-3613199), governed entirely by members of the Lake and Giron families — C. William Lake III (President), Susan B. Lake (Secretary/Treasurer), Katherine Giron (Director/VP), Peter Lake, Kerry Lake, and in some filing years Cesar Giron — all serving as uncompensated volunteers. There is no program staff, no published mission statement, and no discoverable live website: the domain listed in public records, lake.org, currently resolves to an unclaimed GreenGeeks hosting placeholder rather than an active foundation site. The mailing address is a Chicago PO Box (PO Box 803878, Chicago, IL 60680-3878) held in care of Charles W. Lake Jr., with a listed phone number of (312) 630-6000 and no public contact email on file.

The foundation receives $0 in new contributions every year on record — its giving is funded entirely by investment income (dividends and asset sales) off a stable endowment of roughly $9.8M (2011) growing to $11.5M (2023-2025). That structure, combined with an all-volunteer family board and the absence of any published RFP, application form, or funding guidelines (our records show application_instructions as unspecified), points strongly to a legacy family philanthropic vehicle that sustains a small, familiar set of relationships rather than a foundation that actively solicits or reviews a broad applicant pool. The one piece of itemized grant-purpose data available in filings is coded 'GENERAL' (unrestricted operating support), reinforcing that this funder writes relationship-based, flexible checks rather than competitive program grants.

For first-time applicants, the realistic strategy is to treat this as a warm-introduction prospect, not an open competition: identify any existing tie to the Lake or Giron families, Chicago civic/religious/community networks, or an organization already known to be a repeat recipient, and lead with a concise letter of inquiry rather than a full unsolicited proposal. Given the tiny, all-volunteer governance structure, expect a personal (not institutional) review process, a long and informal cultivation timeline, and no guarantee of a response to cold outreach.

Total charitable giving has grown from $331,589 in FY2011 to $720,380 in FY2023, with ProPublica-sourced aggregate figures showing $758,819 in FY2024 and $724,041 in FY2025 — a roughly 2.2x increase over the period, a CAGR of approximately 6.7%. Grants paid specifically rose from $270,000 (FY2011) to $646,900 (FY2023), a CAGR of about 7.6%. This growth tracks the foundation's net investment income, which ranged from $414,059 (2015) to $1,129,472 (2019) depending on market conditions, rather than any new capital contributions — contributions_received is $0 in every year on record.

Total assets have stayed in a narrow band: $9.83M (2011) to $11.56M (2023), with the most recent ProPublica filing showing $11,484,775 in net assets (FY2025). Payout rate (total giving ÷ total assets) tells the clearest story: it ran a lean 3.4-3.8% from 2011-2013, then stepped up to a consistent 5.5-6.7% from 2014 onward (6.23% in 2023, 6.65% in 2022, 5.49% in 2021, 6.07% in 2020, 6.42% in 2019) — comfortably above the 5% federal minimum distribution requirement for private foundations, indicating the board has chosen to spend down most annual investment gains rather than compound the principal.

Grantee-level detail is limited in the available data: the underlying 990-PF filings capture only two aggregate recipient lines, both labeled 'See Attached Schedule' rather than itemized individual grantees, totaling $1,327,520 (average $663,760 per aggregate line) with a state tag of IL. This is a known gap in how smaller foundations' attached-schedule grant lists get parsed — the true number and size of individual grants is larger and more granular than these two summary lines suggest, and we cannot responsibly state a median individual grant size from this data. What we can say with confidence: 100% of the purpose-coded giving captured is 'GENERAL' (unrestricted), and the only geography tag present is Illinois, consistent with a Chicago-rooted, general-operating-support funder.

Lake Family Foundation's payout rate (5.5-6.7% of assets annually in recent years) sits within the healthy range for an active closely-held family funder, but its governance model — an all-volunteer family board, no staff, no public application system — sets it apart from both larger corporate foundations and community foundations in its own market.

Against true operating peers — other small, closely-held family foundations near $10-15M in assets — Lake Family Foundation's payout rate and unrestricted 'GENERAL' purpose coding are typical of the category. Against Chicago's more visible corporate and community funders like Aon Foundation, it stands out for having no public-facing program information at all, which should reset applicant expectations toward a slow, relationship-driven cultivation process rather than a competitive RFP.

No foundation-specific news, press coverage, leadership changes, or grant announcements for this entity (Lake Family Foundation, EIN 36-3613199, Chicago, IL) were found in web searches covering 2025-2026. Search results for the foundation's name were dominated by two unrelated organizations that share the same name — a Sioux Falls, SD nonprofit (lakefamilyfoundation.org, which publicly lists support for The Banquet meal ministry, Bishop Dudley Hospitality House, and Children's Home Shelter for Family Safety) and a Reno, NV-associated filer indexed on Instrumentl — neither of which is this Chicago EIN 36-3613199 entity, and applicants should be careful not to conflate them.

The most current verifiable activity comes from IRS Form 990-PF filing data aggregated by ProPublica: FY2025 shows $750,556 in total revenue against $764,877 in total expenses, with $724,041 (94.7% of expenses) going to charitable disbursements and net assets holding at $11,484,775. FY2024 shows $758,819 in charitable disbursements (95.4% of expenses) — both consistent with, and slightly above, the FY2023 level of $646,900 in grants paid and $720,380 in total giving on $11,559,680 in assets. Leadership has shown no turnover across the observed filing years: C. William Lake III (President), Susan B. Lake (Secretary/Treasurer), Katherine Giron (Director/VP), and Peter Lake and Kerry Lake (Directors) appear consistently, all uncompensated — a signal of long-tenured, stable family governance rather than recent organizational change.

Because no published application form, RFP, deadline, or funding guidelines could be located for this foundation — its listed website (lake.org) is an unclaimed hosting placeholder, and our own database records show no application instructions on file — applicants should calibrate expectations accordingly and lean on relationship-building rather than a formal proposal process:

• Do not expect an online portal. No functioning grants portal or intake form exists at the foundation's listed domain; treat any site claiming to be a live lake.org funding page with suspicion.
• Lead with a phone call. Call (312) 630-6000 before mailing anything, to confirm whether the foundation is currently reviewing unsolicited requests and who the appropriate recipient is.
• Use mail, not email. No public contact email is on file. Address written inquiries to: Lake Family Foundation, % Charles W. Lake Jr., PO Box 803878, Chicago, IL 60680-3878.
• Frame the ask as general operating support. Every itemized purpose in available filing data is coded 'GENERAL' (unrestricted) — this funder appears comfortable with flexible, non-project-specific requests rather than tightly scoped program grants.
• Anchor to Chicago/Illinois. The only geographic tag present in the data is IL; organizations with a clear Chicago-area or Illinois community tie are the safest fit for a cold approach.
• Prioritize a warm introduction. With a small, all-volunteer family board and no program staff, a personal connection to the Lake or Giron families, or to an organization already receiving support, will carry far more weight than proposal polish alone.
• Keep it short. A 1-2 page letter of inquiry, plus your most recent Form 990 and a one-page budget, is more appropriate than a lengthy formal proposal given the review is done personally by family board members, not program staff.
• Avoid mass-mailed appeals. A board this size, with zero paid staff and no public solicitation history, is unlikely to respond to anything that reads as a form letter; specificity about the family's known community ties (Chicago civic, religious, or human-services organizations) will stand out more than generic mission-alignment language.