Mano Foundation

Mano Foundation is a young, tightly closed family foundation — recognized tax-exempt in May 2022 and seeded with a single $12.9 million contribution that year — now run entirely by five family trustees (Karen Hunter, President; Alexa Kuehn and Kristopher Kuehn, Vice Presidents; Amanda Fowler, Secretary; Brian Hunter, Treasurer) with zero paid staff. Its IRS filings and every third-party funder database (CauseIQ, Grantable, Grantmakers.io) point to the same fact: the foundation's application_instructions field is explicitly blank, and its own disclosures state it 'only makes contributions to preselected charitable organizations and does not accept unsolicited requests for funds.' There is no LOI portal, no grants page, and no published deadline. This is not a foundation running a competitive RFP process — it functions as a personal giving vehicle for the Hunter/Kuehn family.

For applicants, this reshapes the entire strategy: success depends on relationship access to a trustee, not proposal quality. Organizations that have received support cluster tightly around two geographies — Oklahoma (Norman, Tulsa, Oklahoma City) and the Austin, Texas corridor (Georgetown, Round Rock, Dripping Springs), plus Laredo — mirroring where the family plausibly lives, works, or has personal ties. First-time applicants with no organizational presence in these communities have no track record of being funded.

The clearest pattern in the grantee list is relationship depth over breadth: Brookwood in Georgetown (a vocational and residential program for adults with disabilities) has received three consecutive, escalating gifts — $35,000 in FY2023, $50,000 in FY2024, and $60,000 in FY2025 — making it the largest and most consistent grantee on record. Tulsa Cornerstone Assistance Network and 4atx Foundation show similar multi-year renewal. This suggests that once an organization is inside the circle, the foundation tends to deepen support annually rather than rotate to new causes. For any organization with an existing personal connection to the Hunter or Kuehn families, the realistic path is a warm introduction and a concise, direct ask — not a formal proposal, since there is no submission process to prepare for.

Mano Foundation's giving has grown unevenly since inception, tracking a foundation still finding its steady-state payout. FY2022 was a seed year with $0 in grants paid against $12.98 million in contributions received. FY2023 saw the first real giving: 21 grants totaling $253,500, averaging $12,071 each, split almost evenly by state (11 grants to Oklahoma, 10 to Texas) — well below the roughly 5% mandatory distribution on a $13 million corpus (approximately $650,000-$700,000). FY2024 giving nearly tripled to $647,000 across 38 grants (average $17,000), with Texas taking 51% ($457,000) and Oklahoma 48% ($433,000), plus a first, small Colorado grant ($10,000, 1%). FY2025 giving settled back to an estimated $503,000-$579,000 across 25+ grants — closer to the mandated payout floor.

Grant sizes span a narrow, modest band: $5,000 at the low end (Blue Dog Rescue, Colin's Hope) to $60,000 at the high end (Brookwood in Georgetown, FY2025) — no grant on record approaches six figures. Median grant size across the visible 21-grant FY2023 cohort is roughly $10,000-$11,500.

By program focus, the FY2023 grantee list (the most granular data available) breaks down roughly as: animal welfare/rescue ~24% of grants (Wild Heart Ranch Wildlife Rescue, Oklahoma Alliance For Animals, Pause4paws, Blue Dog Rescue, Divine Canines); family/social-services crisis support ~24% (Casa De Misercordia, Tulsa Girls' Home, Foster Village, Tulsa Cornerstone Assistance Network, The Ronald McDonald House); disability and health rehabilitation ~14% (Brookwood, Ruthe B Cowl Rehabilitation Center, Limbs For Life Foundation); faith-based ministry outreach ~14% (Changing Lanes Ministries, His House Outreach Ministries, Light Of Hope); and general youth/community programs ~24% (4atx Foundation, Pop-Up Birthday, Beheard Movement, Iron Gate, Colin's Hope). No grants target arts, higher education, medical research, or environmental causes in any filing year reviewed — the portfolio is consistently direct human- and animal-services focused.

All five peers share Mano's exact NTEE classification (Philanthropy & Grantmaking) and near-identical asset size ($13.17M-$13.18M), strongly suggesting they are structurally similar vehicles — small, family-controlled private foundations rather than staffed grantmaking institutions. None publish grant-level giving data, application processes, or program information in the available records, and none surfaced in searches conducted for this report, reinforcing that this asset tier ($13M) commonly corresponds to closed, relationship-driven giving rather than public grant programs. Applicants should not expect any of these five peers to run an open RFP either; the realistic diligence step for all of them is the same as for Mano — pull the organization's most recent Form 990-PF for named grantees, then look for a personal or professional link to the listed officers before investing time in outreach.

No independent news coverage of Mano Foundation was identified. Searches for foundation news and announcements in 2025-2026 surfaced only unrelated organizations that share the 'Mano' name — including Mano a Mano International Partners (Bolivia health clinics), Mano en Mano (Maine), and the MANO Project (Hispanic Access Foundation) — none affiliated with this Norman, Oklahoma foundation. The foundation's listed website, manofoundation.org, currently fails to resolve (DNS lookup failure at time of research), despite being recorded as its official site in enrichment data from February 2026; applicants should not rely on it as a live channel.

The most recent verified activity comes from the foundation's FY2025 Form 990-PF, aggregated by CauseIQ and cross-checked against ProPublica's Nonprofit Explorer (EIN 88-1525219): total assets of $13,170,381, total revenue of $830,831 (driven by $459,587 in investment income and $371,244 in securities gains), and an estimated $579,344 in charitable disbursements across 25+ grants. The single largest identified grant, $60,000 to Brookwood in Georgetown, represents the third consecutive year of escalating support to that grantee and the largest gift on record from this foundation. No leadership changes were found — the same five trustees (Karen Hunter, Alexa Kuehn, Kristopher Kuehn, Amanda Fowler, Brian Hunter) have held their roles since the foundation's 2022 inception.

Mano Foundation does not run an application process in any conventional sense — its own IRS disclosures state it funds preselected organizations only and does not accept unsolicited requests, and no third-party funder database (CauseIQ, Grantable, Grantmakers.io, Instrumentl) lists an LOI portal, RFP, or deadline for it. Treat any generic 'apply here' guidance from grant-database tools as not applicable to this specific funder.

Given that reality, the only actionable strategy is relationship-building, not proposal-writing:

• Map your board, major donors, and existing funders for any personal or professional connection to trustees Karen Hunter, Brian Hunter, Alexa Kuehn, Kristopher Kuehn, or Amanda Fowler — all five appear to be the sole decision-makers, with no program staff to route a cold submission through.
• Prioritize outreach only if your organization is physically based in, or serves, Norman/Tulsa/Oklahoma City, OK or the Austin-Georgetown-Round Rock-Dripping Springs corridor in TX (plus Laredo, TX) — every confirmed grant since 2023 has gone to organizations in these specific metro areas, with one small Colorado exception in FY2024.
• If a warm introduction exists, come prepared with a one-page summary (mission, budget size, specific funding need, and measurable past-year outcomes) rather than a formal application — there is no standard form to fill out.
• Calibrate the ask to their demonstrated range: $5,000 to $60,000, with most grants in the $10,000-$17,000 band. A request outside that range does not match how this foundation gives.
• If your organization already has some connection, however small, to a current grantee — Brookwood in Georgetown, Tulsa Cornerstone Assistance Network, 4atx Foundation, or Hospitality House of Tulsa — that grantee's leadership may be a more realistic introduction path than a direct cold approach.
• Don't wait on a public deadline or cycle; because giving is discretionary and relationship-driven, timing is dictated by when a trustee becomes personally aware of your organization, not a fixed calendar.
• Monitor the annual Form 990-PF (via ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer, EIN 88-1525219, typically filed 10+ months after fiscal year-end) for newly appearing grantee names — that is the only public signal of whether the foundation is expanding its circle.