Lawry Family Foundation

The Lawry Family Foundation is a closed, relationship-driven giving vehicle run by two trustees, Seth W. Lawry and Cynthia C. Lawry, with no paid staff and no open application process. Its own website and third-party databases (Grantmakers.io, Candid) confirm it does not accept unsolicited proposals and funds only preselected organizations — the single most important fact for any grant seeker to internalize before investing time here. The foundation also runs a parallel Lawry Family Charitable Gift Fund at Fidelity (established 1998, four years before the foundation itself), and decides case-by-case which vehicle funds a given gift, so a recipient's full relationship with the family may not appear in one place.

The grantee list is a clear map of personal ties rather than a competitive portfolio. Alma maters dominate: Colby College ($450,000 across 4 gifts in the DB sample; $250,000+ tier on the foundation's own lifetime list), Williams College ($400,000 across 4 gifts; $1M+ lifetime), plus Bowdoin, Duke, Lehigh, and Stanford Graduate School of Business. Wellesley-area private schools recur (Tenacre Country Day School, Noble and Greenough School), as does a cluster of Belgrade Lakes, Maine institutions (Belgrade Lakes Association/7 Lakes Alliance, Fairfield Maine United Methodist Church, Waterville Community Dental Center, Waterville Opera House, Maine Film and Video Association) consistent with a family vacation-home community. A repeated health cluster — Boston Children's Hospital ($1M+ lifetime, $200,000 in the DB sample), Brigham and Women's Hospital, Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation — suggests a personal or family health connection worth noting if your organization shares that mission.

For first-time applicants without an existing tie, the realistic path is not a cold LOI but slow relationship-building: shared institutional affiliation (alumni, board service, church membership in Weston or Wellesley MA, or the Belgrade Lakes ME community), or introduction through a current grantee or trustee contact. The foundation rewards continuity — many recipients show 2, 4, or 6 separate gifts in the sample data, indicating that once an organization enters the circle, support tends to renew rather than being a single transaction.

The foundation's own reported typical grant size is a median of $12,500 with an average of $37,396 across 24 tracked grants, ranging from $2,500 to $125,000 — a modest, family-scale check size. A broader 36-grant sample tracked in this database totals $1,566,000 with an average of $43,500 per grant, skewed upward by a handful of larger, multi-year commitments to Colby College and Williams College.

Geographically, the giving is concentrated almost entirely in two states: Massachusetts (20 of 36 tracked grants, 56%) and Maine (12 of 36, 33%), with North Carolina and Pennsylvania each accounting for 2 grants (Duke and Lehigh, both alumni ties) — 89% of all tracked grants stay within the MA/ME corridor that matches the foundation's stated geographic focus. Virtually every grant in the sample carries the purpose code 'UNRESTRICTED,' meaning the foundation overwhelmingly funds general operating support rather than restricted projects or capital campaigns.

Annual giving has been volatile and appears tied to fresh capital contributions rather than a steady payout formula. Total giving peaked at $955,404 in FY2021, fell to $581,303 in FY2020, rose to $794,687 in FY2022 (a year with $1,055,000 in new contributions received), then dropped 56% to $347,373 in FY2023 (a year with zero new contributions). Grants paid followed the same pattern: $897,500 (2021), $543,000 (2020), $783,000 (2022), $339,000 (2023). FY2024 total giving was not disclosed in the available filing, though total revenue fell to just $284,287, the lowest in the recent record, implying another constrained distribution year. Total assets have held roughly steady in the $6.9M-$7.9M range since 2019 (currently $7,378,575), riding market performance rather than steady growth — net investment income alone ranged from $19,519 (2014) to $1,897,193 (2020). The foundation's asset base has grown roughly sevenfold since 2013 ($1,008,651), reflecting periodic large capital injections from the Lawry family (contributions received hit $2,247,175 in 2019 and $1,914,456 in 2020) rather than compounding investment returns alone.

The Lawry Family Foundation sits in the middle of this asset-size peer band (all five peers cluster within roughly $300,000 of its $7.38M asset base), which is typical for a second-generation, non-staffed family foundation nationally — this size tier generally distributes 5-10% of assets annually to satisfy IRS minimum distribution rules, consistent with Lawry's $347K-$955K observed range against a ~$7.4M base. Unlike Mary Galloway Home, which maintains a public website (marygallowayhome.org) suggesting at least some outward-facing presence, four of the five peers have no listed website at all — Lawry's own website, though informative about mission and past grantees, similarly offers no open application channel, reinforcing that this entire size tier of family foundations tends to operate as closed, relationship-based giving vehicles rather than publicly competitive grantmakers.

No news coverage, press releases, or public announcements were identified for the Lawry Family Foundation in 2025 or 2026 — consistent with a foundation that has no social media presence, no staff, and no public communications function. The most recent verifiable financial activity in the available data is the FY2023 Form 990-PF, showing $339,000 in grants paid and $347,373 in total giving, a marked pullback from $783,000 / $794,687 in FY2022. FY2024 data shows total assets of $7,378,575 and total revenue of $284,287, but grants paid and total giving figures were not available in this filing, so the most recent full-year giving figure that can be cited with confidence is FY2023.

The foundation's own website grants page lists lifetime cumulative giving figures (e.g., 'over $4 million in grants and donations since inception') rather than a current-year or recent-year grant list, and does not carry a dated news or press section. There have been no reported leadership changes — the two trustees, Seth W. Lawry and Cynthia C. Lawry, have held their roles (uncompensated) since at least 2013 per the financial history reviewed, and the foundation's mission statement and four focus pillars (education, children's health/welfare, community, environment) are unchanged from its earliest public materials. Grant seekers should not expect a public announcement of new funding rounds or priority changes from this funder — direct outreach or a personal connection remains the only reliable channel for current intelligence.

There is no formal application process, portal, LOI, or published deadline for the Lawry Family Foundation — this is the single most important thing to know before approaching them. The foundation and multiple third-party databases (Grantmakers.io, Candid/Foundation Center) confirm it does not review unsolicited requests and funds preselected organizations only. Treat any outreach as relationship-building, not application submission.

What to do instead: identify a genuine point of connection before reaching out. The grantee pattern points to specific communities worth checking for overlap — Colby College, Williams College, Bowdoin, Duke, Lehigh, and Stanford Graduate School of Business alumni networks; Wellesley/Weston-area private schools (Tenacre Country Day, Noble and Greenough); the Belgrade Lakes, Maine community (7 Lakes Alliance, Fairfield Maine United Methodist Church, Waterville-area institutions); and children's health/welfare organizations, given the recurring gifts to Boston Children's Hospital, Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, and Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. If your organization or a board member has any of these ties, lead with it explicitly.

If you have no existing connection, a brief, low-pressure email to info@lawryfamilyfoundation.org introducing your organization is the only available channel — but calibrate expectations low, since the foundation's stated posture is that personal connections drive selection, not proposal quality. If you do get a conversation, align your pitch with the foundation's own stated three-part evaluation: (1) demonstrated effectiveness against your mission, (2) how their specific contribution would expand your reach or impact (not just backfill budget), and (3) the strength of your governance and stewardship. Because virtually every tracked gift was unrestricted general operating support, do not propose a narrowly restricted project grant — ask for flexible funding and explain broadly how it strengthens the organization. Calibrate the ask size to their pattern: the median grant is $12,500 and the range tops out at $125,000 for the typical grant; requests above $500,000 have historically gone only to multi-decade relationships (Boston Children's Hospital, Williams College) built through years of cumulative giving, not a first ask.