Max And Marian Farash Charitable Foundation

The Max and Marian Farash Charitable Foundation is one of Rochester's largest private philanthropies, carrying $342 million in assets and distributing $29.1 million in FY2023. Its founder-mandated 50/50 structure — half of annual grants to secular community causes in Monroe and Ontario Counties, half to Jewish initiatives locally and globally — is baked into the institution's DNA since 1988 and is the first strategic insight any applicant must internalize.

The foundation strongly favors established organizations with multi-year track records in the Rochester metro area. Its top grantees — the Jewish Community Federation ($5.24M across three grants), Jewish Senior Life ($2.28M), the Jewish Community Center ($2.27M), and the YMCA of Greater Rochester ($1.1M) — have all built sustained relationships spanning multiple funding cycles. Across the full grantee database, recipients average 2-3 repeat grants, making clear that Farash thinks in terms of long-term partnerships rather than one-time awards.

First-time applicants should not expect to land a major grant on initial contact. The progression typically runs: pre-application conversation with a program officer → rolling application or RFP submission → smaller grant to establish a track record → repeat engagement → multi-year general operating support. Michael Zimmerman, the Jewish Life Program Officer (585-479-4468), and Todd Waite, the OST Program Officer (585-479-4469), both explicitly encourage contact before applying. These conversations materially shape whether a proposal proceeds.

The application is bimodal: specific RFPs with published deadlines (the Jewish Life General Operating Support RFP closed March 12, 2026; the OST Summer Fun & Learning RFP deadline was January 19, 2026) and a rolling application available year-round via the Fluxx grant management portal. Decisions average 1-3 months. Multi-year grants are available upon request once a relationship is established and remain the preferred instrument for the foundation's largest ongoing commitments.

Organizations spanning both the secular and Jewish program areas — like the Jewish Community Center, Hillel Day School, and the Children's Institute — represent the clearest path to larger aggregate support, as they may submit separate applications across program lines within a single cycle.

The foundation's giving has grown substantially over the five years of available data. Total giving was $14.1 million in FY2020, rose to $20.5 million in FY2021, held at $20 million through FY2022, then jumped 45% to $29.1 million in FY2023. Grants actually disbursed reached $19.1 million in FY2023 versus $10.2 million in FY2022 — a near-doubling. The FY2024 filing shows $342 million in total assets with giving not yet reported, but the trajectory suggests continued expansion.

Grant sizes span an enormous range. The foundation reports typical awards of $1,000–$2,156,000. Internal database records show a median grant of approximately $14,000, a mean of $59,696, and a maximum tracked at $1.64 million across 170 individual grants. Across 503 grants and $35.9 million in total tracked giving, the per-grant average rises to $71,416 — reflecting how a handful of anchor relationships pull the mean upward. Floors dip as low as $500 for highly targeted awards.

By geography, 94% of grants (474 of 503) land in New York State, reflecting the Monroe and Ontario County focus. The remaining 6% covers global Jewish initiatives: organizations like the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee ($490K over three grants), Harold Grinspoon Foundation ($450K), and DC- and Virginia-based education intermediaries.

By sector, Jewish Life clearly dominates. The top 9 grantees by cumulative amount are all Jewish institutions, together accounting for an estimated $15+ million of the total tracked database. The secular secular stream (YMCA: $1.1M; Center for Youth Services: $745K; Rochester Education Fellowship: $743K; TechSoup: $707K; Rochester Institute of Technology: $572K) reflects the out-of-school-time and education mandate. Arts funding appears modestly represented in the grantee list, suggesting that program area operates on a smaller or more invite-oriented basis. Community Response grants appear sporadically, consistent with their emergency-response character.

The net investment income base — $20.6 million in FY2023 on $326.7M in assets — is the engine behind giving. An 8.9% payout rate against assets substantially exceeds the IRS-required 5% floor, indicating a board with appetite to deploy capital into the community.

The foundation sits in a $337–346 million asset band alongside four peer foundations in the Granted database, all categorized under Philanthropy & Grantmaking.

Farash stands apart from its asset-size peers in two meaningful ways. First, its giving volume is unusually transparent: $29.1 million in FY2023, versus peers whose giving figures are largely undisclosed — suggesting Farash is among the more active distributors in this cohort. Second, its application process is substantially more open than comparably sized foundations. While the Jewish Foundation of Cincinnati operates on a similar Jewish-community mandate and asset base, it relies primarily on invited relationships. Farash maintains published RFPs with hard deadlines, a rolling open application track, and program officers who actively encourage pre-application contact — a combination that makes it meaningfully more accessible for well-aligned Rochester-area nonprofits.

The dominant story of the past 18 months is Project Campfire. Announced in September 2024 as a $16 million, nine-year initiative, it provides full camperships for Jewish youth in grades 3-10 from seven Rochester-area counties to attend Camp Seneca Lake at no cost. The February 10, 2026 release of an independent evaluation by Third Plateau Social Impact Strategies confirmed positive first-summer outcomes, with measurable increases in Jewish engagement among participants. This is the foundation's largest single programmatic commitment in its history and signals a board willing to bet big on longitudinal, population-level change.

On January 22, 2026, the foundation released its 2026 Report to the Community, documenting collaborative outcomes across Jewish Life, Out-of-School Time, Arts, and Community Response programming. The report emphasized multi-year partnership stories rather than individual grants, consistent with the foundation's relationship-first philosophy.

The foundation also established a $500,000 challenge grant for the Greenbaum Center for Jewish Life at the University of Rochester, structured to catalyze matching philanthropy from other donors. The University of Rochester already appears as a top-10 grantee ($985K across three grants), making this challenge an extension of a deep institutional relationship.

The 2024 formalization of the Out-of-School Time RFP cycle — with structured information webinars and technical assistance workshops — represents a meaningful operational maturation of what had been a more informal grantmaking track. CEO Jennie Schaff's compensation increase from $250,000 to $300,000 reflects the growing institutional complexity the foundation is managing.

Understand the 50/50 mandate before writing a word. Max Farash's 1988 founding instruction — half secular, half Jewish — is not a preference, it is a structural budget constraint. Position your organization unambiguously within one of these two streams. Proposals that straddle both without a clear program anchor confuse program officers and rarely succeed.

Call before you submit. Michael Zimmerman (Jewish Life, 585-479-4468) and Todd Waite (Out-of-School Time, 585-479-4469) are not gatekeepers — they are active co-architects of strong proposals. The foundation website for Jewish Life explicitly invites this contact. A 20-minute call can reveal whether a concept is fundable, which program track is the right fit, and whether an RFP or rolling application is the better timing.

Use their language precisely. The foundation's public materials consistently foreground "collaboration and innovation." Demonstrate specifically how your program partners with other Rochester organizations (name them) and articulate what is genuinely new about your approach. Generic community-benefit language is table stakes, not differentiation.

Quantify Monroe and Ontario County beneficiaries. The geographic requirement is strict: organizations anywhere can apply, but direct benefits must flow to Monroe or Ontario County residents. State explicitly how many residents benefit, in which zip codes or communities, and how you measure that reach.

Match your ask to your relationship stage. The median grant in the database is approximately $14,000. First-time applicants anchoring their ask near this range — rather than stretching for six figures — have significantly better odds. Anchor relationships like the Jewish Federation's $5.2M developed over years of funded activity. Enter at a manageable level and build.

Exclude ineligible uses from your budget. No endowments, campaigns, capital expenses (except within Jewish Life priorities), individual scholarships, research, or lobbying. If any portion of your budget touches these categories, segregate it explicitly from the Farash ask or restructure the request.

Set up Fluxx early. The portal requires Multi-Factor Authentication and can take time to configure. Pam Schlierf (pschlierf@farashfoundation.org) handles admin access. Do not attempt setup the week of a deadline.

Plan for the denial rule. If declined, do not reapply to the same program — denials are final within a cycle. Instead, pursue a different program area, deepen your community relationships, and return in a future cycle with a stronger track record.