Lida Foundation

Lida Foundation is a small, closely-held Philadelphia family trust run entirely by trustees Linda S. and David L. Glickstein, with zero paid staff and zero officer compensation reported across every available filing year. There is no grants administrator, no online portal, and — per its own IRS instructions — "no application form," only a requirement to submit the purpose of the grant and proof of 501(c)(3) status. That combination (no staff, no deadlines, no form) is the clearest signal available: this is a relationship-driven funder, not a responsive one built to process cold applications at scale.

The grantee list confirms it. Of the foundation's 266 recorded grants totaling $2.69M, 247 (93%) went to Pennsylvania organizations, and the overwhelming majority carry the purpose code "GENERAL OPERATIONS / GENERAL SUPPORT" rather than project-restricted funding. Nearly every top recipient — Friends of the Wissahickon ($280,000 across 4 grants), Philadelphia Orchestra, Wilma Theater, Opera Philadelphia, Ballet X, Philadelphia Ballet — received grants in 4-5 consecutive years, indicating the Glicksteins fund the same core roster of Philadelphia arts, environmental, and civic institutions year after year rather than rotating in new grantees.

For a first-time applicant with no prior relationship, this means: don't expect a portal, an RFP, or a formal review committee. Expect a personal letter addressed to the trustees, ideally with some pre-existing connection to Philadelphia's arts, women's health/reproductive rights, or civic/environmental scene (Planned Parenthood of Southeastern PA, Women's Law Project, and Abortion Liberation Fund of PA also appear as repeat grantees). New organizations should treat the first ask as an introduction, not a proposal for a specific project — general operating support is what this funder actually writes checks for, not restricted program grants.

Typical grant size ranges from $200 to $75,000, with a median of $5,000 and an average of $9,708 per grant (per the foundation's own reported typical-grant-size data, based on 55 grants). Looking at the fuller historical grantee dataset (266 grants, $2,686,750 total, average $10,101), the pattern is consistent: most individual checks are modest, but cumulative multi-year support to anchor institutions is substantial — Friends of the Wissahickon ($280,000/4 grants), Planned Parenthood of Southeastern PA ($171,600/5 grants), Philadelphia Orchestra ($146,400/5 grants), Wilma Theater ($140,100/5 grants), and Opera Philadelphia ($132,000/5 grants) make up the top tier.

Geographically, giving is almost entirely Pennsylvania-concentrated: 247 of 266 tracked grants (93%) went to PA-based organizations, with small numbers to New York (9), Colorado (5), Connecticut (2), Massachusetts (2), and Virginia (1) — likely reflecting board or family connections outside the region rather than an active multi-state program.

By sector, performing arts and cultural institutions dominate the visible grantee list — orchestras, theater companies (Wilma, Bearded Ladies, Theatre Exile, Arden, Lantern, Pig Iron, Azuka, 1812 Productions, Philadelphia Theatre Company), dance (Ballet X, Philadelphia Ballet), and public media (WHYY, WRTI) — alongside a secondary cluster of reproductive-rights/women's advocacy groups and Chestnut Hill/Wissahickon-area civic and environmental organizations, consistent with the foundation's Chestnut Hill (19118) address.

On total giving trend: annual distributions have declined gradually from a 2021 peak of $647,496 (on $6.16M assets) to $508,759 in 2023 and roughly $475,500-$481,000 in 2024 (on $5.67M assets), tracking the foundation's slow asset drawdown — total assets fell from $6.44M (2019) to $5.67M (2024) as the foundation, which receives $0 in new contributions, distributes more than it earns in most years.

Lida sits at the small end of this peer set — closest in scale to the Zeldin Family Foundation, another unstaffed, deadline-free Philadelphia-area family trust with an almost identical typical-grant range ($200-$49,500 at Zeldin vs. $200-$75,000 at Lida). Both stand in sharp contrast to the staffed, larger institutions (Fels Fund, Independence Foundation, Wyncote) that run competitive RFP or LOI cycles with program staff reviewing applications; Lida and Zeldin instead run on trustee discretion and long-standing relationships, making them far harder for an unconnected applicant to break into but comparatively simple to sustain a relationship with once funded.

No news coverage, press releases, leadership changes, or public program announcements were found for Lida Foundation in 2025 or 2026 — expected for a foundation with no staff, no website of its own, and no communications function. The lida.org domain resolves to an unrelated Denver-based experimental theater company (The LIDA Project) rather than the foundation, and no other active foundation website could be located; the "website" field in current records should be treated as unverified and likely wrong.

The most concrete recent data point is the FY2024 Form 990-PF, filed October 3, 2025, which reported $481,480 in revenue against $515,747 in expenses (a $34,267 net loss for the year) and $5,665,792 in year-end net assets. The foundation made approximately 24 grants in 2024 — notably down from the 50-55 grants per year typical of 2019-2023 — while total dollars distributed stayed roughly comparable to 2023, suggesting the trustees consolidated giving into fewer, larger awards rather than pulling back overall generosity. Leadership remains unchanged: Linda S. and David L. Glickstein continue as the sole trustees, both uncompensated, exactly as in every prior filing year on record. No successor trustees, new board members, or governance changes have surfaced.

There is no application form, no deadline, and no online portal — the foundation's own IRS filing states this explicitly: "THE FOUNDATION DOES NOT HAVE AN APPLICATION FORM BUT REQUIRES DETAILS OF THE PURPOSE OF THE GRANT AND VERIFICATION OF THE TAX-EXEMPT STATUS OF DONEES." Treat any outreach as a direct letter to Linda and David Glickstein (contact address: % Linda S. Glickstein, 504 W. Mermaid Lane, Philadelphia, PA 19118; phone 215-247-5578), not a submission to a review committee.

Because the grantee list is dominated by 4-5-year repeat recipients receiving general operating support, the strongest positioning is as an ongoing institutional partner, not a project-based grant seeker — lead with your organization's core mission and financial stability, not a narrowly scoped program ask. Organizations in Philadelphia performing arts (theater, dance, opera, orchestra), public media, women's health/reproductive rights, or Chestnut Hill/Wissahickon-area civic and environmental causes are the clearest fit given the visible grantee pattern; a proposal well outside those lanes faces a materially harder path with two trustees making every decision personally.

Common mistakes to avoid: submitting a generic, mass-distributed proposal (the lack of a portal and the family-trust structure both signal this funder screens out anything that reads as a form letter); asking for restricted project funding when the demonstrated pattern is general operating support; and following up aggressively — with two family trustees and no staff, there is no intake team to escalate to. Because there are no stated deadlines, timing outreach around fiscal-year planning (the foundation's returns show a fiscal year ending in fall, with the FY2024 return filed October 2025) is unlikely to matter as much as it would for a foundation with a formal cycle — a well-timed, low-pressure introduction is more valuable than hitting a specific submission window that doesn't functionally exist.

Given the emphasis on tax-exempt verification, have your 501(c)(3) determination letter and most recent Form 990 ready to send alongside any inquiry — the foundation's filing explicitly calls this out as a requirement, not a formality.