Lutsey Family Foundation Inc.

The Lutsey Family Foundation runs two entirely separate giving tracks, and applicants need to know which one applies to them. Track one is the Thomas H. Lutsey-Waseda Farms Scholarship: a genuinely open, competitive, formally administered program for graduating Wisconsin high school seniors pursuing agriculture-related majors. Track two is general charitable giving to roughly 30-40 Door County and Green Bay-area nonprofits per year, and here the foundation is explicit that 'no standard form or application process is required' — its own IRS filings and every major grants database confirm there is no portal, no LOI process, and no public deadline for this track. The six-member board is entirely Lutsey family (Thomas J. Lutsey as President; Sharon L., Matthew T., Andrew J., Jeffrey K., and Nicholas P. Lutsey as Directors), all uncompensated, which signals a hands-on, relationship-driven family foundation rather than a staffed grants shop. The grantee list bears this out: repeat, multi-year commitments to a stable set of organizations (Golden House, Boys & Girls Club of Door County, House of Hope Green Bay, Bellin Health Foundation, the Door County and Greater Green Bay community foundations) alongside a long tail of smaller, one-time gifts to churches, food pantries, and youth programs across the same Door County/Green Bay corridor where the family lives and farms. First-time nonprofit applicants without an existing relationship to the family, Waseda Farms, or one of the two community foundations the Lutseys already fund should not expect a cold application to succeed — the realistic path in is through those existing intermediary relationships or direct, personal introduction to a board member. Individual students, by contrast, have a real and fair shot through the formal online application: minimum 3.0 GPA, minimum 19 ACT composite, residence within 150 miles of Green Bay, and a demonstrated agriculture or rural focus (dairy science, animal science, agri-business, veterinary medicine, agricultural engineering, biotechnology, environmental science) are the stated bar, not informal preference.

Total giving has ranged from $253,024 (2013) to $354,582 (2015) across the nine fiscal years with data on file, averaging roughly $313,000 per year with no strong upward or downward trend — giving tracks investment income more than any deliberate scaling strategy. Actual grants paid rose more steadily, from $224,710 in 2012 to $287,657 in 2023 (a 28% increase over 11 years), broadly in line with total assets growing from $4.04 million to $7.92 million over the same period. Officer compensation has been $0 in every year on record, and outside contributions received were $0 in most years — this is a self-funded endowed foundation, not one that fundraises. A multi-year grantee sample (82 grants, $811,623 total, FY2021-2023) shows an average grant of $9,898, but that figure is skewed heavily by one outlier: Golden House, a Green Bay-area organization, received $250,000 across three payments — 31% of the entire sample. Strip that gift out and the remaining 81 grants average $6,895, and roughly two-thirds of recipients received a cumulative total under $5,000 across the sample period. The real range runs from $50 (Sawyer Benefit) up to that $250,000 Golden House commitment. Geographically, 79 of 82 grants (96%) went to Wisconsin organizations, almost entirely concentrated in the Door County/Green Bay corridor; the only out-of-state exceptions were $50,100 to University of Nebraska Foundation (pancreatic cancer research, evidently a family-directed gift) and $20,000 to Family Farmed in Illinois (a good-food/agriculture nonprofit, consistent with the foundation's ag focus). By program area, health-related giving (Bellin Health's NICU capital campaign at $75,000, UNMC cancer research at $50,100) totals roughly $125,000 of the sample, or about 15%; education (the scholarship plus gifts to Notre Dame Academy, Notre Dame of De Pere, and the Greater Green Bay Community Foundation's scholarship fund) accounts for a similarly large share; and hunger relief/human services (Feeding America Eastern Wisconsin, Second Harvest, food pantries, St. Vincent de Paul) appears across many smaller, recurring line items.

Lutsey sits in the middle of this set by asset size but is structurally closer to Fritz Family Foundation than to either community foundation: both are small, uncompensated, family-board-run private foundations without a public grants process for general giving. The two community foundations dwarf Lutsey on both assets and annual payout (15-20x larger) precisely because they pool many donors' funds and run open, staffed grant cycles — which is also why Lutsey routes some of its own giving (the Door County and Greater Green Bay community foundation pledges) through them rather than administering equivalent competitive programs itself. For an individual seeking agriculture-education funding, Wisconsin FFA Foundation and Lutsey's own scholarship are the two genuinely open statewide-adjacent options in this peer set.

Concrete, dated 2025-2026 news specific to the Lutsey Family Foundation is scarce — there is no active press or media presence beyond the foundation's own site and standard 990/grants-database listings. The most recent confirmed filing activity is the FY2024 Form 990-PF, filed November 14, 2025, showing total assets of $7,922,941 and total revenue of $574,660 (up from $164,682 in FY2023), a rebound consistent with broader market performance rather than a change in strategy — net investment income has ranged from $117,519 (2023) to $467,019 (2021) year to year. On the program side, the foundation's own About page now cites over $820,000 in scholarship funds distributed to nearly 125 students since the program's 1986 founding, an increase from the $700,000/109-recipient figure reported in the foundation's last dedicated news post (June 2018), indicating the scholarship has continued issuing new four-year, $10,000 awards each cycle in the years since without any publicized change to its structure or amount. No leadership changes were identified: the board remains six named members of the Lutsey family, led by President Thomas J. Lutsey, with all directors uncompensated across every year on record. No new named programs, major gift announcements, or public statements of shifting priorities were found; applicants should treat the foundation's posture as stable and continuous rather than newly evolving.

For the scholarship track, treat the stated eligibility bar as literal, not aspirational: a 3.0 GPA and 19 ACT composite are minimums, residence must fall within 150 miles of Green Bay, and the intended major must plausibly fall under agriculture broadly defined (dairy science, animal science, agricultural engineering, veterinary medicine, agricultural economics, biotechnology, environmental science, agri-business, food systems). Financial need, demonstrated via a one-page FAFSA Student Aid Report, is part of the evaluation — this is not a merit-only award. Apply as early in the January 1-April 1 window as practical; the foundation states no late applications are accepted under any circumstance, and because two letters of recommendation and an official transcript must arrive through separate email-triggered links tied to the applicant's exact email address, building in buffer time for recommenders and school officials to respond is the single most common point of failure. Complete the online form itself in one sitting (it's built to take about 15 minutes) and prepare personal-statement answers in advance using the resources the foundation provides on its site, since the form does not appear to support saving partial drafts. For the general-giving track, generic proposals or first-contact cold outreach are very unlikely to work — there is no published RFP, no portal, and no stated deadline, and the grantee history shows a strong bias toward organizations with pre-existing multi-year relationships (five-year pledges to House of Hope and Door County Community Foundation, a three-year Bellin Health capital commitment). The most credible entry points are: (1) a project or fund already housed at Door County Community Foundation or Greater Green Bay Community Foundation, both of which Lutsey funds directly; (2) direct alignment with agriculture, rural Wisconsin communities, or Door County/Green Bay-area human services, health, or youth programming, mirroring the existing grantee mix; and (3) a warm introduction to one of the six Lutsey family board members rather than a written proposal sent cold. Given the founder's roots as a dairy farmer and ice-cream entrepreneur (Gold Bond Ice Cream, later Good Humor-Breyers), framing that connects an organization's work to agriculture, rural livelihoods, or the Door County community's practical needs is likely to resonate more than broad mission language.