Livun Foundation

Livun Foundation is a young, family-run private foundation administered by Foundation Source (a back-office compliance provider used by thousands of small family foundations), not an institutional grantmaker with staff or a public program. Its leadership — Sally A. Doherty (Director, President, Secretary, Treasurer) and Karen Marie Weiss (VP) — both report $0 compensation, a strong signal this is a personal philanthropic vehicle rather than a professionally staffed foundation. Its IRS ruling date of February 2023 means it is only about three years old, which explains its thin public footprint. NTEE code T22 places it under 'Philanthropy & Grantmaking,' and its self-reported focus area is 'Community Development,' but in practice 100% of its documented grant history — three grants totaling $36,000 in DB records, plus a $72,000 grant reported for 2024 — has gone to a single recipient: Saint Paul & Minnesota Foundation, restricted to 'The Doherty Family Fund.' That pattern is the defining fact for any grant seeker: this foundation channels its entire payout through one donor-advised fund at a large community foundation rather than sourcing and vetting its own portfolio of nonprofits. There is no independently branded grants program, no published RFP, and no evidence of a review committee or site-visit process. The foundation's own website, livun.org, is a bare Google Sites page revealing only that 'LIV'UN' stands for 'Love Is a Verb' Up North' — no About, Programs, How-to-Apply, or Contact content exists. Grant seekers should treat Livun Foundation as effectively closed to unsolicited applications. The only plausible on-ramp is indirect: Minnesota nonprofits, especially those serving Saint Paul, could approach Saint Paul & Minnesota Foundation's donor-services or program staff to ask whether the Doherty Family Fund accepts grantee recommendations, since some community foundations relay strong local matches to donor advisors even when the advisor isn't actively soliciting. No public evidence confirms that channel is open, but it is the only documented path any organization has used to reach this funder to date. First-time applicants should not expect a cold LOI, written proposal, or reply from the Wilmington, DE, address to lead anywhere.

Livun Foundation's financials show a foundation rapidly building its corpus while ramping up payout from near zero. Total assets rose from $964,591 (FY2021) to $1,970,026 (FY2022) to $3,012,569 (FY2023) to roughly $5.88M-$5.9M (FY2024) — nearly a 6x increase in three years — driven by contributions received of just over $1M in each of 2021, 2022, and 2023 ($1,011,566; $1,004,878; $1,188,678 respectively), plus net investment income that spiked to $739,535 in FY2023. Grants paid tell the ramp-up story most clearly: $0 in FY2021, $3,000 in FY2022, $30,000 in FY2023, and a reported $72,000 in FY2024 (per web-enrichment data; the DB financials record leaves FY2024 grants_paid null). Total giving — grants plus operating costs — followed the same arc: $6,541 (2021), $18,087 (2022), $48,889 (2023). Third-party estimates peg the foundation's required annual payout at roughly $186,000 given its current asset base, meaning the $72,000 disbursed in 2024 falls well short of the 5% minimum distribution requirement — either additional 2024 grants haven't yet surfaced in enrichment data, or the foundation is still building toward full compliance as a young entity. There is no program-area breakdown to analyze (health vs. education vs. arts, etc.) because the entirety of documented giving is a single pass-through vehicle: three grants totaling $36,000 (average $12,000 each) plus the larger 2024 grant, all to Saint Paul & Minnesota Foundation for 'The Doherty Family Fund.' Geographically, 100% of activity is concentrated in Minnesota, specifically Saint Paul, despite the foundation's Delaware administrative address. No matching funds, multi-year commitments, or capital grants appear in the record. In short, this is a single-recipient, single-purpose foundation still in its early growth phase, not a diversified grantmaker.

All six foundations sit in an unusually tight asset band ($5.897M-$5.899M) despite being unrelated organizations spread across five states — a pattern consistent with boilerplate Foundation Source structuring rather than organic asset growth, and it suggests these are peer instances of the same administrative template rather than comparable operating grantmakers. None of the five peers have a listed website, meaning the entire peer set is effectively closed to cold outreach; Livun is distinguished only by having at least one verifiable recipient and a visible (if tiny) giving trend, which none of the peers disclose. For a grant seeker, this comparison mainly confirms that foundations of this size and administrative profile are not viable unsolicited-application targets — time is better spent on foundations with published programs.

Web searches turned up no news coverage, press releases, leadership changes, or grant announcements for Livun Foundation (or 'LIV'UN Foundation') for 2025 or 2026 — the organization does not appear in philanthropy trade press or local Twin Cities news, and shows up only in IRS-filing aggregators such as grantable.co. Its only web presence, livun.org, is a nearly empty Google Sites page that reveals just the meaning of its acronym ('Love Is a Verb' Up North') with no program updates, staff announcements, or grant-cycle news. IRS records show the foundation's determination/ruling date is February 2023, making it only about three years old, which likely explains the thin public footprint. The clearest activity signal is financial rather than editorial: total assets nearly doubled year-over-year between FY2023 ($3.01M) and FY2024 (~$5.9M), and the single reported 2024 grant ($72,000) is more than double the entire prior year's total giving ($48,889 in FY2023) — evidence that founders Sally Doherty and Karen Weiss are actively growing both the corpus and the payout as the vehicle matures, likely working toward the ~$186,000 minimum distribution their asset size now requires. No leadership changes were found; Doherty and Weiss have held the same roles (President/Secretary/Treasurer and VP, respectively, both uncompensated) across every available filing year. Grant seekers should not expect a public announcement cadence from this funder — its only real activity signal surfaces annually in Form 990-PF filings, typically 10-11 months after fiscal year-end, so the most current available data reflects FY2024 (filed in 2025).

Livun Foundation has no documented application process, and the tips below reflect that reality rather than generic grant-writing advice. First, do not submit a cold LOI or proposal to livun.org — the site has no About, Programs, or How-to-Apply page, and enrichment data explicitly lists application_instructions as '__none__'; treat this as a closed foundation for standard cold outreach. Second, the only documented giving channel is the Saint Paul & Minnesota Foundation's 'Doherty Family Fund,' a donor-advised fund — if your organization is Minnesota-based, ideally serving Saint Paul directly (matching 100% of the funder's recorded grants), the highest-leverage move is building a relationship with Saint Paul & Minnesota Foundation's donor-services or program staff and asking whether they relay grantee recommendations to family-named funds; some community foundations do this even when the named advisor isn't actively soliciting. Third, given the foundation's tiny footprint (a single recipient per year, $72,000 total disclosed for 2024) and unpaid leadership, do not expect a review committee, site visits, or a multi-stage process — any grant here would almost certainly be relationship-driven, not proposal-driven. Fourth, correspondence mailed to the address on file ('% Foundation Source, 501 Silverside Rd, Wilmington, DE') will reach a third-party compliance administrator that files paperwork for thousands of unrelated family foundations — it will not forward unsolicited inquiries to Sally Doherty or Karen Weiss, so skip this channel entirely. Fifth, if you can identify a personal or professional connection to Doherty or Weiss (for example, through Twin Cities civic, faith, or philanthropic networks), a warm introduction is far more likely to matter than any written application, given the single-recipient giving pattern to date. Sixth, track the foundation's Form 990-PF filings via ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer or Candid for early signs of diversification — a shift to multiple recipients or a published program statement would be the signal that unsolicited outreach has finally become worth attempting. The most common mistake to avoid: assuming an 'accepting applications' flag in aggregator data means an open process. That flag reflects the absence of an explicit 'closed' statement in the source filing, not a confirmed open door — nothing in the primary IRS record or the foundation's own website supports it.