Living Rock Foundation

Living Rock Foundation is not a conventional open grantmaking program — it is a closely held family foundation run by the Eldred family of Southlake, Texas, whose IRS-stated primary purpose is providing part-time secretarial, management, and alternative-investment staffing to its sister public charity, Living Stones Foundation Charitable Trust (roughly $31.5M in assets, offices in Southlake, TX and Culpeper, VA), which itself makes the family's real $1M-$2M in annual charitable grants. Living Rock's own direct grantmaking is small and secondary: the platform's tracked history shows 14 grants totaling $135,000 (average $9,643), and IRS filings show just three outside grants totaling $21,352 in FY2024. Trustees are almost entirely Eldred family members — Chairman Kenneth A. Eldred, President Roberta E. Eldred, Treasurer Justin Eldred, and Trustees Kary, Monica, and Rachel Eldred — plus Vice President Alex Brubaker. Kenneth Eldred is a known Silicon Valley entrepreneur (Inmac, Ariba) and faith-and-work author associated with the 'Kingdom Business' concept, and that personal thesis visibly shapes what the network funds. Every tracked grant purpose reads 'Charitable and Religious Support' or 'Education and Religious Support' — this is an exclusively Christian evangelistic, discipleship, and ministry-education giving program, funding churches (Rockpointe Church, $20,000 across two grants), evangelistic outreach (Evangelical World Prayer Center, $20,000), church-planting networks (Surge Association of Churches, $20,000), ministry training (Victory International Ministry Training College), and youth ministry (Young Life, Sky Ranches Inc). There is no published LOI process, portal, or deadline — application_form_url, application_deadline, and application_process are all blank in the foundation's own IRS record, and livingrockfoundation.org displays only a bare contact page. Grants clearly flow from the Eldred family's personal networks and from Living Stones' own proactive scouting model ('we study our areas of interest and ask organizations appearing to do exceptional work to submit proposals'), not from a public call for proposals. First-time applicants without a warm connection to the family, to a shared church or ministry network, or to Christian philanthropy circles (the foundation funded Professionals in Christian Philanthropy directly in FY2024) should expect a cold approach to go nowhere. The realistic strategy is relationship-building over multiple years, entering through evangelical ministry, marketplace-ministry, or Texas/DFW faith-community channels rather than through a formal application.

Living Rock Foundation held $4,311,562 in total assets at the end of FY2024, down roughly 30% from a 2012 peak of $6,180,479, despite steady annual contributions — a pattern consistent with a pass-through/support vehicle rather than an endowment-building foundation. FY2024 revenue was $1,325,326. The foundation's 990 reports two very different giving figures: a 'total_giving' line that ran $814,745-$991,999 per year from 2018-2022 (which appears to bundle the personnel/management support payments made to Living Stones Foundation Charitable Trust, its stated core purpose), versus the much smaller and far more volatile 'grants_paid' line that captures actual discretionary charitable grants: $412,476 (2012) fell to $242,843 (2013), $98,000 (2014), and then to just $20,500-$62,300 per year from 2018-2021, $25,000 in 2022, and only $10,000 in 2023. Officer compensation tracked a similar collapse, from $241,597 (2022) to $24,044 (2023). Across the 14 grants captured in the platform's grantee history, total disbursed is $135,000 at an average of $9,643 per grant, with individual awards clustering tightly between $5,000 and $20,000: Rockpointe Church, Sky Ranches Inc, Evangelical World Prayer Center, Surge Association of Churches, and Options United each received $20,000 (several across two separate grants); Lighthouse Outreaches and Global Generosity Inc received $10,000; Young Life, Victory International Ministry Training College, and Corem Deo Academy received $5,000 each. Every recorded purpose is religious/educational in nature — no secular general-operating, capital, or research grants appear anywhere in the record. Geographically, Texas leads with 5 of 14 tracked grantees, followed by Arizona, California, and Florida (2 each), and single grants in Georgia, Kentucky, and Louisiana — an 8-state footprint that is nonetheless heavily Sun Belt/Southern in practice, matching the platform's recorded geographic_focus of TX, CA, and FL. At $10,000-$20,000 per typical award against a $4.3M asset base, Living Rock's own discretionary payout rate is a small fraction of the 5% federal minimum distribution when measured on grants_paid alone — the gap is explained by the foundation counting its administrative support to Living Stones Trust as its primary qualifying distribution.

This is a remarkably tight cohort — all six foundations sit within about $2,200 of $4.31M in assets, the classic footprint of a family foundation funded once with a fixed initial gift and drawn down slowly ever since. None of the five peers maintain a public website or disclose an application process, and Living Rock's own site offers no grants information beyond a mailing address — reinforcing that foundations at this asset tier overwhelmingly operate through personal referral rather than open competition. Living Rock's one structural distinction is its formal, IRS-documented tie to a much larger ($31.5M) sister public charity, Living Stones Foundation Charitable Trust, which at least publishes a stated (if invitation-only) sourcing philosophy — giving prospective applicants something concrete to study that none of the five undisclosed peers offer.

The most recent verifiable activity is Living Rock Foundation's Form 990-PF for fiscal year 2024, filed October 22, 2025, reporting $1,325,326 in revenue, $1,209,042 in expenses, $745,968 in charitable disbursements (61.7% of expenses), and net assets of $4,311,562 with just two employees. Within that filing, only three named outside grants appear: Steven Brooks International ($10,000), Serve Hope International ($6,352), and Professionals in Christian Philanthropy ($5,000) — a mix leaning toward global missions work and Christian-philanthropy field infrastructure, a modest shift from the churches, prayer centers, and ministry schools (Rockpointe Church, Evangelical World Prayer Center, Surge Association of Churches, Victory International Ministry Training College) that dominate the platform's longer-run grantee history. No press releases, leadership changes, or new program announcements surfaced in web search for 2025 or 2026 — Living Rock Foundation maintains no visible media presence, consistent with a low-profile, single-family administrative vehicle rather than a public-facing grantmaker. Trustee composition appears unchanged from the DB snapshot: Kenneth A. Eldred remains Chairman, Roberta E. Eldred President, Justin Eldred Treasurer, and Alex Brubaker Vice President, alongside Trustees Kary, Monica, and Rachel Eldred. The more financially significant recent trend sits in the numbers themselves rather than in any announcement: officer/trustee compensation fell from $241,597 in FY2022 to $24,044 in FY2023, tracking a parallel decline in grants_paid from $25,000 to $10,000 — a retrenchment in the foundation's active operating role that predates and likely explains the very small FY2024 grant slate. Barring a new filing or announcement, expect continued small ($5,000-$10,000), faith-focused, personally-sourced grants rather than any newly opened program.

There is no formal application channel to optimize for — application_form_url, application_deadline, and application_process are all blank in the foundation's own IRS record, and livingrockfoundation.org carries no program information beyond a Southlake, TX mailing address and info@livingrockfoundation.org. The single most important tip is to recognize what this foundation actually is: an administrative-support vehicle for Living Stones Foundation Charitable Trust, the $31.5M sister public charity that does the family's real $1M-$2M/year of grantmaking. Living Stones has stated publicly that it proactively studies organizations in its areas of interest and invites the ones 'appearing to do exceptional work' to submit proposals — so being noticed matters far more than submitting anything unsolicited, and it currently cites 'commitments and limitations' that preclude adding new ministries, meaning even a strong fit may face a closed door for now. Align any messaging with Chairman Kenneth A. Eldred's documented philanthropic thesis — 'Kingdom Business'/faith-and-work integration, discipleship, and building 'self-sustaining kingdom-building ministries' rather than organizations dependent on indefinite subsidy. Target the specific niches this family's giving has actually funded: church planting and networks (Surge Association of Churches), evangelistic outreach (Evangelical World Prayer Center, Lighthouse Outreaches), Christian ministry training and education (Victory International Ministry Training College, Corem Deo Academy), youth ministry (Young Life, Sky Ranches Inc), and international missions (Serve Hope International, Steven Brooks International). A concrete, evidence-based path into this network is Christian philanthropy infrastructure — the FY2024 grant to Professionals in Christian Philanthropy suggests the Eldreds are active in that association, so engaging with PCP-affiliated events, directories, or member introductions is a more promising route than a cold pitch. The most common mistake would be treating Living Rock like a typical open-call foundation and investing time in a polished, generic proposal: with roughly $10,000-$20,000 typical award sizes and a support-organization mandate, the realistic addressable opportunity for an unfamiliar applicant is very small, and outreach should be short, mission-first, low-ask, and anchored in shared Christian-ministry language rather than conventional grant-proposal structure.