Liljestrand Foundation

The Liljestrand Foundation is not a conventional grantmaking funder — it is a private operating foundation (IRS ruling dated May 2008) whose entire purpose is to preserve and operate the Liljestrand House, a 1952 Vladimir Ossipoff-designed modernist landmark in Honolulu on the Hawaii and National Registers of Historic Places. Its own filing data marks it 'preselected_only,' lists no application instructions on file, and third-party databases (Candid, GuideStar, Grantmakers.io) independently confirm it 'only makes contributions to preselected charitable organizations' and does not solicit or accept unsolicited requests for funds. Grants paid to outside organizations were $0 in every year of financial data reviewed (2019-2023), even as total program spend ran $311,000-$365,000 annually — that money funds tours, preservation work, design programming, and staff, not third-party grants. A first-time applicant should not expect to file a proposal and receive a check. The realistic door in is partnership, not solicitation: the foundation actively invites the 'global nonprofit community' to use Liljestrand House itself for charitable, cultural, and educational purposes, and employs a dedicated Director of Programs & Partnerships (Michael Koster) as the natural point of contact for exactly this kind of collaboration. Under President Shan Liljestrand (daughter of founding president Bob Liljestrand, who led the foundation from 2007 until his death in October 2021) and Executive Director Kristi Cardoso, the board is heavily credentialed in architecture and design (FAIA, LEED AP, IIDA, NCARB), which means proposals framed around modernist preservation, design education, or East-West cultural dialogue will land far better than a generic operating-support ask. Organizations already connected to the foundation's confirmed affiliate networks — Iconic Houses, DOCOMOMO US, the Hawaii Museums Association, or Google Arts & Culture — have the clearest warm-intro path. The right pitch is a concrete joint program (an exhibit, lecture series, design charrette, or educational partnership hosted at or with the house), not a budget request; organizations expecting a traditional funder relationship will be disappointed.

Because Liljestrand is an operating foundation, its financials describe self-directed spending, not a grants portfolio, and there is no median or range of grant size to report — cumulative third-party grants across 2019-2023 total $0. Total assets grew from $3.34 million (FY2019) to $3.80 million (FY2024), roughly 14% over five years, driven mainly by investment returns: net investment income rose from $52,554 (2019) to a peak of $208,220 (2022), before easing slightly. Reported 'total giving' — actually program and operating expense under the 990-PF operating-foundation test — has held in a narrow band: $345,945 (2019), $311,339 (2020), $323,969 (2021), $356,600 (2022), and $365,040 (2023), all spent in-house. The single largest disclosed program line is $242,956 for 'preserving the Liljestrand Home, its contents, and its architectural documentation.' Officer compensation for Executive Director Kristi Cardoso climbed from $41,942 (2019) to $81,000 (2023), roughly doubling as the ED role was formalized into full-time leadership — a clearer growth signal than any grant trend. Revenue is dominated by investment income on the roughly $3.8 million endowment (42% of FY2023's $496,717 in revenue) supplemented by family and donor contributions, which swung widely year to year: $259,064 (2021), $141,125 (2020), $65,715 (2022), $117,867 (2023). FY2024 revenue jumped to $602,205, the highest in the dataset, though a comparable total-giving figure was not yet available at filing. Geographically, 100% of spending is concentrated on a single site — the Liljestrand House on Tantalus Drive in Honolulu — with no multi-state or multi-program distribution to break down. The takeaway for prospective partners: program expense and staff investment have both roughly doubled since 2019, indicating the foundation is scaling its own public-facing programming, not building toward third-party grantmaking capacity.

All six foundations sit within a tight $3.78-3.84 million asset band, which suggests this peer set was generated by asset-size and NTEE-code matching rather than genuine mission or applicant overlap — a house museum, an antique museum, a nature-education institute, and two undifferentiated family foundations are grouped together mainly by balance-sheet size. Liljestrand is the only one of the six with confirmed public detail (a named staff and board, a documented operating-foundation structure, and $0 in outside grants), while the other four/five disclose no comparable program or application information and are plausibly similar single-family or single-asset vehicles rather than open grantmakers. Grant seekers should treat this entire peer cohort as low-probability, relationship-only prospects rather than a competitive application pipeline.

The Liljestrand Foundation was created in 2007 by the Liljestrand family specifically to preserve the family's 1952 Ossipoff-designed home after founding president Bob Liljestrand began opening it for tours; he led the foundation until his death on October 23, 2021, after which his daughter Shan Liljestrand became President. Day-to-day leadership is now professionalized under Executive Director Kristi Cardoso, whose compensation rose from $41,942 in 2019 to $81,000 in 2023 as the position moved from part-time to full leadership. The foundation's most recent Form 990-PF was filed November 6, 2025, covering activity through the FY2024 period, and reported total assets of $3.80 million and total revenue of $602,205 — up sharply from $496,717 in FY2023, likely reflecting stronger investment performance on the endowment. Effective January 1, 2026, the foundation restructured the levels and benefits of its 'Friends of Liljestrand' membership program, its clearest recent public-facing change. The foundation's website publishes a steady, roughly monthly cadence of preservation-project updates — entries dated February 24, 2026, October 27, 2025, July 2, 2025, and several dates in spring 2025 (May 21, May 19, May 13, April 21, April 4, March 19) — reflecting ongoing conservation work on the house rather than a single headline announcement. A foundation-produced video, 'Modern Hawaii & the Liljestrand House: Future of the Foundation,' frames public messaging around the house's modernist legacy and the organization's direction after Bob Liljestrand's passing. No new grant programs, RFPs, or funding initiatives surfaced in any 2025-2026 search — consistent with the foundation's longstanding preselected-only, no-unsolicited-requests posture. For grant seekers, the notable 'news' here is investment in the foundation's own staffing, membership program, and site conservation, not any expansion into outbound grantmaking.

There is no standard grant proposal, LOI template, deadline calendar, or online portal to use here — the foundation's own filing lists no application instructions, and it is independently confirmed by Candid and GuideStar as accepting no unsolicited funding requests, making contributions only to preselected organizations. Submitting a generic grant application is very unlikely to receive a response; the far better path is contacting Michael Koster, Director of Programs & Partnerships, to propose a concrete collaboration — an exhibit, lecture, design charrette, or educational program hosted at or with Liljestrand House — rather than requesting cash. Frame any outreach around the foundation's nine stated values (craftsmanship, sustainability, imagination, adaptability, heritage, documentation, hospitality, honesty of materials, and 'immigration of ideas') and its confirmed affiliate networks: Iconic Houses, DOCOMOMO US, the Hawaii Museums Association, and Google Arts & Culture. Organizations already inside those networks have a natural warm-intro path and should reference it explicitly. Because the board carries heavy architecture and design credentials (FAIA, LEED AP, IIDA, NCARB among its members), proposals with genuine design, preservation, or East-West cultural-dialogue substance will be received far better than boilerplate nonprofit funding requests — this is a funder (and partner) that thinks like an architecture institution, not a general community foundation. The single most common mistake to avoid is treating Liljestrand like a typical small family foundation with an open grants budget: its own numbers show zero dollars paid to unrelated third parties in every year from 2019 through 2023, despite spending $311,000-$365,000 annually on its own programs. Build the relationship before making any ask — attend a Design Series event or house tour, engage with the preservation-projects content on its website, and let a program officer see genuine engagement with the house's mission before proposing anything. If cash support is the real goal, recognize the foundation itself depends on donor contributions ($65,715-$259,064 per year, 2020-2023) — it functions more as a fundraising peer in the Hawaii arts and preservation space than as a funding source for outside groups its own size or larger.