Leland Wild Foundation

Leland Wild Foundation is not a conventional grantmaking foundation, and grant seekers should recalibrate expectations before investing time here. IRS filings for FY2021-2023 all show grants_paid of $0 — the foundation has never issued a cash grant to an outside organization in the data available. Instead, it is an *operating* private foundation that directly manages its own asset: 194.2 acres across six parcels in Norfolk, Massachusetts, received in December 2022 from Leland Wild LLC (formed 2012), tracing back to the Metacomet Land Trust's 2014 acquisition of the former Norfolk Airport site. Every dollar of "total_giving" reported on the 990 — $26,986 (FY2021), $6,165 (FY2022), $284,056 (FY2023) — funds direct stewardship of that land: invasive species removal, trail maintenance, signage, insurance, and environmental consulting, not third-party grants. Governance is minimal: one compensated Executive Director, Kyle Pribish (compensation rose from $15,279 in FY2021 to $61,078 in FY2023 as programming ramped up), plus two unpaid trustees, Charlotte Richardson and Henry Mccance. There is no grantee list in the data bundle (zero records) and no matched public grants, which is consistent with the foundation's own site, which contains no grants page, no RFP, no typical-grant-size disclosure, and no application form. The database's "accepting_applications: true" and "is_grantmaker: true" flags reflect generic IRS classification defaults, not an active solicitation — nothing on lelandwild.org describes a funding program. First-time "applicants" should abandon the LOI-to-full-proposal mental model entirely. The realistic path in is programmatic partnership: the foundation explicitly welcomes public participation in stewardship (volunteer trail work, invasive removal, bird box monitoring, litter collection, light carpentry, photography, and guided environmental-education walks) and has supported Eagle Scout projects and school partnerships. Norfolk-area schools, scout troops, sister land trusts, conservation commissions, and outdoor-wellness nonprofits are the best-fit collaborators — organizations able to co-design an on-site activity, not organizations seeking a check. Treat this as pitching a landowner/operating partner for shared programming, not pitching a funder for a grant.

The numbers confirm this is a land-stewardship operating budget, not a grants budget. Total assets on the 990 grew from $1,111,362 (FY2021) to $3,109,033 (FY2022) to $4,101,937 (FY2023), while a separate IRS BMF asset snapshot puts current assets at $8,880,526 — the two figures reflect different valuation points (990 book value vs. BMF/fair-market snapshot) but both confirm a small, asset-light foundation rather than a major funder. Revenue is driven almost entirely by contributions plus investment income: $1,134,213 in contributions and $1,125,190 in net investment income in FY2021; $2,000,000 in contributions against just $1,743 in investment income in FY2022 (a year with minimal market gains); and $1,188,980 in contributions plus $1,087,722 in investment income in FY2023. Against that, total giving/program spend was $26,986 (FY2021), $6,165 (FY2022), and $284,056 (FY2023) — a roughly 46x jump in the most recent year as the foundation moved from legal/title work into active land management, consuming just 24% of that year's contributions rather than compounding into an endowment. Grants paid to external organizations were $0 across all three years — 100% of program spending stayed in-house on the Norfolk, MA property. The single disclosed program on the 990 is simply "conservation," with FY2023 program expenses of $250,336 (about 88% of that year's total giving), covering maintenance equipment, signage, property repairs, fuel, insurance, environmental consulting, and legal fees. There is no program-area breakdown beyond this single line, no geographic distribution (100% of activity is the one Norfolk site), no grantee list, and no matched public grant opportunities in the data bundle — because, structurally, there is nothing to distribute.

Leland Wild Foundation sits inside a size-matched cohort of five foundations, all clustered within about $40,000 of each other in reported assets ($8,880,526-$8,886,246) and all classified under the same "Philanthropy & Grantmaking" NTEE category. Beyond that shared bracket, none of these organizations disclose a website, giving totals, or an application process in the available data, so this table should be read as an asset-size benchmark rather than a strategic peer set.

The tight asset clustering appears to be a database size-matching artifact rather than evidence of a genuine philanthropic peer group — none of the five listed peers have public websites on record, so no one can benchmark payout ratios or program focus against them. What does distinguish Leland Wild Foundation from a typical member of this asset bracket is verifiable and specific: it is a confirmed *operating* foundation tied to one physical property, with $0 in grants paid in every year on record, rather than a distributive grantmaker.

The foundation's last clearly documented major milestone is the December 2022 transfer of six parcels (194.2 acres total) from Leland Wild LLC into the Leland Wild Foundation, formalizing a conservation structure that traces back to the Metacomet Land Trust's 2014 acquisition of the former Norfolk Airport site (the airport operated there from the 1960s until closing in the late 1990s, after which residential development proposals failed). The FY2023 990 shows the clearest sign of post-transfer momentum: total program spending jumped to $284,056 from just $6,165 the prior year, and Executive Director Kyle Pribish's compensation rose to $61,078 from $4,583 in FY2022 and $15,279 in FY2021, indicating a shift from legal/organizational setup toward active, staffed land stewardship. Web searches turned up no 2025 or 2026 press releases, funding announcements, or leadership changes — the most recent substantive content found anywhere is the foundation's own Property Updates page, describing spring/summer stewardship activity (delayed hay cutting to protect grassland-nesting birds, ongoing invasive species management) dated to approximately May 2024. The foundation maintains an active public Calendar page and social presence (Facebook and Instagram @leland_wild_foundation) for stewardship and volunteer events, and it is listed in the Massachusetts Land Trust Coalition's service-provider directory. No new grant programs, RFPs, board changes, or major gifts were identified. Trustees Charlotte Richardson and Henry Mccance remain unpaid board members with no reported turnover. In short, the organization's "activity" continues to be physical site management — trails, signage, vernal pool protection, bird monitoring — rather than any external-facing funding initiative.

Because Leland Wild Foundation runs no grants program, the following tips address how to realistically engage with it rather than how to win a cash award. First, do not submit a standard letter of inquiry or grant proposal — there is no grants portal, no listed typical grant size, no application_form_url, and no RFP page anywhere on lelandwild.org; a generic funding request is very unlikely to get a substantive response. Second, lead with a stewardship or programming pitch rather than a budget ask: the site's own language repeatedly invites "the public to participate in its care," and documented engagement types include trail maintenance, invasive species removal, litter collection, planting projects, light carpentry, bird and wildlife monitoring, photography for the website/social media, and leading environmental-education walks — frame any proposal as one of these activities. Third, use the only two documented contact channels: info@lelandwild.org or the contact form at lelandwild.org/contact/; the phone number on file, (617) 502-4040, routes to Choate Hall & Stewart, the law firm serving as registered agent, not a program office, so a cold call there is unlikely to be productive. Fourth, time outreach to the growing season — the foundation's documented activity (hay-cut timing for nesting birds, invasive removal, bird box monitoring) clusters in spring through fall. Fifth, mirror the foundation's own four guiding principles verbatim in any pitch — conservation, stewardship, environmental education, and wellness — since a proposal that maps cleanly onto these four buckets will read as pre-aligned with their stated mission. Sixth, emphasize youth and education access if relevant: the foundation's framing stresses that "the planet belongs to future generations" and prioritizes connecting youth with outdoor spaces, making school partnerships, scout troops, and educational programming the closest strategic fit. Seventh, plan for a waiver requirement — all volunteers must complete a waiver form before working on site, so build that into any project timeline. The single most common mistake would be treating Leland Wild Foundation as a fundable peer to similarly sized grantmaking foundations (e.g., Altom Carlson Foundation, Brooks Family Foundation Trust) — it is structurally different, and a conventional grant application will most likely go unanswered.