Landis Family Foundation

Landis Family Foundation is a small, closely-held family foundation run entirely by unpaid Landis family directors (Gregory J., David A., James M., and Russel J. Landis, plus Yvonne Martello) alongside Executive Director Lynda Russo, and its own filings mark it "preselected only" with no listed application form or instructions. This is not a foundation that reviews open LOIs or cold proposals in any conventional sense -- its $538,661 in tracked grants across just 8 awards to 3 organizations shows a foundation that concentrates deeply rather than spreads broadly. The wealth originates from Landis Plastics Inc., a Chicago-area thin-wall injection-molding packaging manufacturer the family built from a single machine (1954) into a five-plant, 2,000-employee operation before its 2003 sale to Berry Plastics -- and that manufacturing legacy shows up directly in the Foundation's stated mission ("creating direct pathways to enable equitable access to workforce and entrepreneurial opportunities in the manufacturing industry") and in its largest grantee, mHUB Chicago, a hardtech/advanced-manufacturing innovation hub. First-time applicants should understand the relationship progression here is inverted from a typical open-call funder: the Foundation appears to identify and build multi-year, named partnerships (the mHUB relationship is a three-year, $500,001 commitment naming an entire fellowship program) rather than accepting unsolicited single-year grant requests. Its two smaller grantees -- Chicago Police Foundation ($19,500 across 3 grants for officer trauma-kit training) and UW Foundation ($19,160 across 2 grants funding a Landis Family Visiting Professorship and the UW Neurosurgery Innovation Fund) -- both suggest personal or professional ties (University of Wisconsin connections are plausible given the family's Wisconsin grantmaking footprint). Organizations without a warm introduction through the board, through mHUB, through UW, or through Chicago civic/public-safety networks should expect a low probability of response. The realistic strategy is relationship-building through shared networks and geographic/mission alignment (Chicago and Madison, WI; workforce training in skilled trades or manufacturing), not a cold submission.

Giving has scaled unevenly but is trending upward. Total giving was $209,120 in FY2022, roughly doubled to $407,756 in FY2023, and FY2025 disbursements (filed May 2026) reached approximately $465,899 on total revenue of $1,103,652 -- the largest revenue year in the record. Grants paid (a narrower cash-basis figure) were $173,167 in FY2022 and $192,327 in FY2023. FY2021 was effectively dormant ($418 total giving, $61,370 in total assets, reflecting a low-asset transition year), and FY2020 activity was COVID-relief focused: a single $5,000 program funding meals for roughly 100 unemployed Park City, UT restaurant workers' families. Total assets have held steady in the $4.1M-$4.5M range across FY2022-FY2024 ($4,553,836 / $4,200,769 / $4,119,349), funded primarily by investment income and asset sales rather than new contributions (net investment income of $614,091 in FY2022 vs. contributions received of $0). Across the 8 tracked grants totaling $538,661, the average award is $67,333, but this average is misleading given concentration: mHub Chicago received $500,001 across 3 grants (93% of total dollars, implying roughly $166,667 per annual installment of the 3-year fellowship deal), Chicago Police Foundation received $19,500 across 3 grants (~$6,500 each), and UW Foundation received $19,160 across 2 grants (~$9,580 each). The realistic grant-size range for a new grantee, based on the two non-flagship relationships, is roughly $6,500-$10,000 per award unless the Foundation is establishing a new flagship partnership at mHub's scale. Geographically, funding is 100% Midwest and concentrated: 6 of 8 grants (75%) went to Illinois organizations and 2 of 8 (25%) to Wisconsin, with zero grants outside these two states. By program area, workforce/manufacturing training dominates (93% of dollars via mHUB), followed by public safety/first-responder training (Chicago Police Foundation) and medical education/neurosurgery research (UW Foundation).

The Foundation sits among a cluster of similarly small, family-run Philanthropy & Grantmaking-classified private foundations nationally, none of which maintain a public grants website -- a strong signal that all five peers below are, like Landis, invitation-only or relationship-based funders rather than open-call grantmakers.

All six foundations in this peer set hold within a tight $4.51M-$4.52M asset band -- an artifact of how this peer cohort was built (similarly sized foundations in the same NTEE category) rather than a meaningful strategic similarity. What differentiates Landis is public evidence of an actual programmatic identity: a named, three-year fellowship partnership with a specific dollar commitment ($500,001 to mHUB), which none of these five peers have any public record of. Grant seekers should treat Landis as more findable and more thesis-driven than a typical trust-administered peer of this size, but no less closed to unsolicited outreach.

The single most significant confirmed event in the Foundation's recent history is the May 17, 2022 signing of a three-year sponsorship agreement with mHUB, Chicago's hardtech and manufacturing innovation hub, under which mHUB's existing fellowship program (previously supporting 25+ fellows since its 2020 launch) was renamed the "Landis Family Fellowship." The program supports 10-20 engineers and entrepreneurs annually with six months of prototyping-lab access, mentor networks, and paid contract work ($2,000-$5,000/month) through mHUB's Hardtech Development Services. Executive Director Lynda Russo was quoted framing the partnership around a workforce gap: "There's an estimated 2.1 million unfilled manufacturing jobs in the U.S., and the lack of skilled labor continues to be a challenge." mHUB's Shannon McGhee (Director of Community Impact) called the naming a recognition of "an important Midwestern manufacturing legacy." On the financial side, the Foundation's most recent Form 990-PF (fiscal year 2025, filed May 15, 2026) reported total revenue of $1,103,652 and charitable disbursements of approximately $465,899 -- both up materially from FY2023 ($54,689 revenue / $407,756 total giving) and FY2024 ($477,062 revenue / $558,482 total expenses), suggesting the Foundation is entering a higher-activity phase. No additional 2025-2026 news, leadership changes, or new program announcements beyond these filings and the mHUB relationship were found in available web sources; the Foundation does not appear to issue press releases or maintain an active public communications presence, so this financial-filing trend is the most current signal available.

There is no open application process to game here -- the Foundation's own IRS filing marks it "preselected only," with application_instructions recorded as none, and no grant portal, LOI form, or public RFP could be located. Practical guidance follows directly from that reality: (1) Do not submit a cold LOI through a generic online form; there is no evidence one would ever be reviewed. (2) Build a warm introduction. The strongest paths in are through mHUB Chicago (the Foundation's flagship grantee and namesake fellowship partner), the University of Wisconsin Foundation (funds the Landis Family Visiting Professorship and UW Neurosurgery Innovation Fund, implying an alumni or personal tie to Wisconsin), or Chicago civic/public-safety circles (Chicago Police Foundation grantee). A referral from any of these three networks is more likely to get a hearing than an unsolicited email. (3) Match the Foundation's actual footprint: fund-seekers should be based in or serving Chicago, IL or Madison, WI -- 100% of tracked grants (8 of 8) fell in these two states, and there is no evidence of national or even broader-Midwest giving. (4) Align language with the stated mission -- "equitable access to workforce and entrepreneurial opportunities in the manufacturing industry" -- since this is the only program area with a multi-year, named commitment ($500,001 over three years to mHUB); public-safety and medical-education grants appear to be smaller, relationship-driven exceptions rather than a second open program area. (5) If a direct approach is attempted, contact@landis.org is the Foundation's listed contact and Lynda Russo (Executive Director/Director) is the named point of contact -- but temper expectations given the preselected-only posture. (6) Common mistake to avoid: treating this like a standard $4-5M-asset family foundation with a rolling LOI cycle -- the data shows the opposite pattern, a small number of deep, named, multi-year partnerships rather than a diversified annual grants list. (7) A notable data-quality flag for applicants: the website on file (landiscommunities.org) resolves to an unrelated Lititz, PA senior-living organization, not this Foundation -- treat any "Landis Family Foundation" website found online with skepticism and verify against EIN 84-4325443 before relying on it.