Llewelyn Foundation

The Llewelyn Foundation (EIN 31-1534056, Springfield, OH) is a small, all-volunteer family foundation — all four trustees (Jonathan B. Lupfer, Caroline Lupfer Kurtz, Willis O. Kurtz, Susan Berseth) draw $0 compensation across every filing year in the record, and there is no paid program staff. That structure shapes everything about how it operates: there is no open online portal, no RFP calendar beyond two annual inquiry windows, and no rapid-response capacity. Grant seekers should treat this as a relationship-driven, invitation-only funder rather than a competitive grants program.

The foundation's giving is almost entirely general operating support — the DB grantee history shows "GENERAL" as the listed purpose for the large majority of its top 50 grants — which signals a strong preference for funding organizations and their core missions rather than narrow, project-specific asks. First-time applicants should lead with organizational credibility (mission fit, track record, financial health) rather than a novel program pitch.

The clearest signal in the data is repeat funding: of the top 50 grantees, most received 2-3 separate grants (e.g., Friends of the Children, EdVestors, Clark Fork Coalition, Cycle Kids, Mystic River Watershed Association, Trinity Boston Connects, City Sprouts, 826 Boston), indicating the foundation builds multi-year relationships once it commits rather than funding one-off requests. The realistic first-time ask is modest — the median grant is $20,000 — with the expectation that a strong first grant can lead to renewal in the following one to two cycles.

Geographically, the foundation funds almost exclusively in two hubs tied to the trustees' personal or family ties: Missoula, Montana and Greater Boston, Massachusetts (65 and 62 of 147 tracked grants respectively — 89% combined). Organizations outside those two metro areas are rarely funded (13% of grants spread across CA, DC, NY, OH, OR, TX, WA, WI combined) and should not expect a cold inquiry to succeed without an unusually strong fit. The practical path in: submit a short inquiry via the website contact form describing health, education, or well-being impact for individuals, families, or communities in one of the two priority regions, and be prepared for the foundation to initiate contact only if it sees alignment — there is no guarantee of a response otherwise.

Llewelyn Foundation's most recent 990 reports a typical grant size with a median of $20,000, ranging from $5,000 to $45,000 across 61 recent grants (average $19,890). The broader 10-year grantee dataset (147 grants, $3,014,815 total, $20,509 average) tells a consistent story: this is a mid-five-figure funder, not a source of transformative six- or seven-figure gifts. The single largest relationship on record is Friends of the Children ($125,000 across 2 grants), followed by EdVestors ($90,000/3 grants), and a cluster of $75,000-$80,000 multi-grant relationships (Clark Fork Coalition, Cycle Kids, Mystic River Watershed Association, Breakthrough Greater Boston, City Sprouts, Trinity Boston Connects).

Geographically, giving splits almost evenly between the foundation's two hub regions: Montana receives 44% of tracked grants (65 of 147) and Massachusetts 42% (62 of 147), with the remaining 13% scattered across eight other states in small numbers (1-4 grants each) — likely one-off or national-relief gifts (e.g., World Food Program USA for Afghanistan relief, Cambridge Community Foundation's COVID-19 fund).

Programmatically, purposes cluster into four recurring themes: education/youth development (Friends of the Children, EdVestors, City Sprouts, Bottom Line, Breakthrough Greater Boston, Missoula Writing Collaborative, school residencies), environment/conservation (Clark Fork Coalition, Mystic River Watershed Association, Blackfoot Challenge, Bitterroot Water Forum, Ecology Project International), food security (Share Our Strength/No Kid Hungry, Lovin' Spoonfuls, Community Food and Agriculture), and housing/basic needs (Homeword, Trust Montana, ESAC Housing Assistance, Missoula Interfaith Collaborative, Poverello Center).

On the financial trend: total assets have been essentially flat for over a decade ($11.2M in 2011 to $12.6M in 2023, peaking at $13.2M in 2021), and contributions received are $0 in every filing year — the endowment is closed and grantmaking is funded solely from investment income, which varies year to year ($498K-$1.77M). Total giving has grown modestly and unevenly: $641K (2011) to $1.03M (2023), with a pandemic-era spike to $1.31M in 2020 (COVID response, food distribution, and relief grants). Because the corpus isn't growing, applicants should expect the annual grants budget (roughly $900K-$1.3M in recent years) to stay in that range rather than expand significantly.

This peer set is an asset-tier match rather than a focus-area match — all five peers sit within roughly $12.95M-$12.97M in assets (nearly identical to Llewelyn's $12.96M), but none has a public website on file, meaning their giving is effectively invisible to outside applicants and likely runs through personal networks rather than any inquiry process at all. That makes Llewelyn Foundation comparatively more accessible: it publishes a mission statement, defined deadlines (April 30 / September 30), and required application materials, which is unusual transparency for a foundation this size. Grant seekers priced out of larger institutional funders should treat Llewelyn as one of the more approachable options in this asset tier specifically because it discloses a process at all.

Public reporting on the Llewelyn Foundation is thin — as a volunteer-run family foundation with no communications staff, it does not issue press releases. The most concrete recent signal comes from 2025-filing-year grants data aggregated by Instrumentl: a $30,000 grant to EdVestors for "Zeroing in on Math" (continuing a relationship that has delivered $90,000 across three grants historically), a $30,000 grant to Mystic River Watershed Association for "Greenways" work (extending a relationship worth $75,000 across three prior grants), and a $28,000 grant to YWCA Missoula for a child care center mural and wraparound-services program.

Governance has been stable: the same four trustees — Jonathan B. Lupfer (Treasurer), Caroline Lupfer Kurtz (Secretary), Willis O. Kurtz, and Susan Berseth — appear across multiple consecutive filing years with no reported turnover, and none draw compensation. No leadership transitions, new program launches, or structural changes were identified in available records.

The most notable recent-history event visible in the financials is the pandemic-era response: 2020 total giving jumped to $1.31M (from roughly $895K-$1.02M in surrounding years), coinciding with grantee purposes tagged "COVID-19 FUND," "COVID RESPONSE," and "ONLINE AFTERSCHOOL" in the DB grantee list, alongside a one-off $30,000 grant to World Food Program USA for Afghanistan relief — evidence the foundation is willing to flex outside its usual MT/MA footprint for acute national or global emergencies, though this remains the exception rather than the norm.

Because Llewelyn Foundation is invitation-only, the initial inquiry is the entire game — there is no full-proposal portal to win over later if the inquiry fails to land. Submit a short, direct inquiry through the website contact form that explicitly maps your work to the foundation's stated mission language: initiatives addressing "health, education and well-being of individuals, families and communities." Proposals that use this exact framing are more likely to be recognized as a fit than ones that describe impact in generic nonprofit terms.

Geography is the single biggest filter: unless your organization operates in or around Missoula, Montana or Greater Boston, Massachusetts, a cold inquiry has a low probability of success — 89% of tracked historical grants went to those two metro areas. If your organization is outside those regions but has a credible reason for outreach (e.g., a national emergency-relief angle, as with the foundation's one-off Afghanistan relief and COVID-19 fund grants), say so explicitly and don't expect it to become a recurring relationship.

If invited to submit a full proposal, respect the three-page limit strictly — the foundation has specified this cap, and a volunteer trustee board reviewing proposals in their spare time will not reward length. Cover exactly four things: project description and rationale, budget, timeline, and other funding sources (secured or potential). That last requirement is a real signal — the foundation wants evidence your organization isn't solely dependent on them, so name specific co-funders or a sustainability plan rather than leaving that section thin.

Timing matters: inquiries are due April 30 (Spring cycle, awards by June 30) and September 30 (Fall cycle, awards by December 15). Submit inquiries early in the window rather than at the deadline, since a volunteer board needs lead time to review and decide whether to invite a full proposal before the subsequent May 31 / October 31 invited-proposal deadline.

The most common mistake to avoid: treating this like a competitive open RFP and sending an unsolicited full proposal. The foundation's process is explicitly a two-step funnel (inquiry, then invited proposal) — skipping to a full package unprompted wastes trustee attention and signals unfamiliarity with how the foundation operates. Finally, if declined, know that unfunded proposals may be resubmitted at the trustees' discretion — a sharper, more targeted re-inquiry in a later cycle is a legitimate strategy, not a dead end.