Monticello College Foundation

Monticello College Foundation is a lean, single-purpose grantmaker chartered in 1843 for "the promotion of female education" — a mission it has held for over 180 years and applies literally: every top grantee in its history is an accredited college, university, or education-adjacent nonprofit (museum, library, archeology center) running a program specifically for women or girls. With only $11.6 million in assets and a single part-time Executive Director (Laura Shansey, $27,000 compensation) supported by an all-volunteer board of roughly 15 trustees, this is not a foundation built for high-touch cultivation — there is no program officer layer, and the application process is a straightforward outline-and-review model rather than a multi-stage courtship. First-time applicants submit a concise (two-page) project outline covering need, objective, personnel, and timeline, plus institutional documentation; there is no formal LOI-to-full-proposal funnel beyond that. Relationship progression instead shows up in the grantee list itself: Washington University has received 8 grants totaling $1,134,749, spanning an endowed lecture series, an education endowment, and the Olin Fellowship program — evidence that once a project fits, the foundation renews and expands support over many years rather than one-off giving. Lewis & Clark Community College (16 grants, $195,000), Illinois College, Newberry Library, and Center for American Archeology show similar multi-year patterns (4-8 grants each). First-time applicants should treat their opening proposal as a foothold for a recurring relationship, not a single transaction, and should propose a specific, named scholarship, fellowship, or internship line rather than general program support. The board favors "innovation, creativity, and greatest need" within a narrow band of eligible activities — professional educational associations, women's education agencies, and accredited two- and four-year colleges/universities in the Midwest — and explicitly declines individual grants, capital projects, operating expenses, endowed chairs, exchange-student funding, social-service agency support, and online scholastic programs.

Grant sizes cluster tightly around a median of $17,500 (average $24,259), with a documented range from $1,000 up to $181,700 for any single award, though the largest cumulative relationships run far higher — Washington University's 8 grants total $1,134,749. Across the 117 grants captured in the foundation's history (roughly $2.79 million distributed, averaging $23,848 per grant), Illinois absorbs 57 grants (49%) and Missouri 23 (20%), reflecting the foundation's Godfrey, IL base near St. Louis; Kentucky, Iowa, and Wisconsin each carry 8-9 grants (7-8%), with Michigan (5), Nebraska (3), Pennsylvania (3), and Indiana (1) rounding out a Midwest-concentrated but not exclusively Illinois/Missouri footprint. By program type, undergraduate and graduate scholarships dominate purpose descriptions (the large majority of line items reference "scholarship"), with a secondary but consistent stream of research fellowships (Olin Fellowships, MCF Research Fellowship, Summer Research Fellows) and experiential internships (Women in Archeology, Museum Education, Education Internships, filmmaking apprenticeships). On the balance sheet, total assets have grown slowly but steadily from $9.08 million (2012) to $11.59 million (2024), a ~28% gain over 12 years driven almost entirely by net investment income (which swung from $480,659 in 2015 to $1,358,525 in 2014) rather than new contributions — contributions received are consistently minimal ($10,250-$26,206 per year). Annual giving has held in a $542,000-$819,000 band for a decade, dipping to a low of $542,074 in 2019 and holding at $777,969-$818,690 from 2020-2023; FY2024 grants-paid data was not yet finalized in this dataset (total revenue was $773,181), and the foundation's own site reports FY2025 giving fell to roughly $575,000 across 39 grantees — a meaningful step down worth flagging to prospective applicants sizing their ask for the FY2026 cycle. The payout rate (giving divided by assets) runs roughly 5-7% annually, consistent with a foundation drawing down investment gains to fund a stable, moderate grants budget rather than aggressively expanding.

Monticello College Foundation is a small, single-issue funder compared to the broader field of women's-education and Midwest scholarship grantmakers, most of which operate with 2-4x its asset base and correspondingly larger giving budgets. Its differentiator is focus and continuity — a narrower mission (women's education specifically, not women's issues broadly) and 180+ years of uninterrupted grantmaking to the same handful of Midwest institutions, versus peers with broader issue portfolios or larger, more competitive applicant pools.

Note: exact current annual-giving figures for the peer set were not available within this research pass and are marked accordingly rather than estimated; only Monticello's own IRS 990 data and website were used to state its giving range with confidence.

The foundation's own "Grant Awards" page documents its July 2024-June 30, 2025 cycle in detail: 27 named grantees totaling approximately $575,000, headlined by a $110,000 Ann W. and Spencer T. Olin Chancellor Fellowship grant to Washington University, a $47,500 multi-scholarship award to Lewis and Clark Community College, and a $35,000 nursing-emphasis women's scholarship grant to Illinois College. Other notable FY2025 awards include $30,000 each to the Center for American Archeology (Women in Archeology internships) and the Newberry Library (postdoctoral research fellowship for women), and a $27,000 award to the National Great Rivers Research & Education Center. Leadership has been stable: Laura Shansey continues as Executive Director (a role she has held across multiple filing years at $27,000 compensation), Christopher A. Kreid chairs the board with Alice Milnor Norton as Vice Chair, and the roughly 15-member board shows almost no turnover between the two most recent 990 filings captured in this dataset. No merger, major gift, executive transition, or new-initiative announcement surfaced in this research pass — this is a quiet, steady-state funder rather than one undergoing change. One important data-hygiene note for applicants: this foundation's website is https://monticellofound.org — the domain monticellocollege.org (listed as the foundation's website in some records) now resolves to an unrelated, unaffiliated gambling site and should not be used or shared as a contact point.

Time the ask to one of two annual windows: proposals are due August 31 for the fall board meeting and February 28 for the spring board meeting, with all applicants notified within 30 days of the relevant board meeting and approved grants distributed by June 30 of that fiscal year — there is no rolling review. Keep the initial submission to a two-page outline (11-point font or larger) covering the institution's name and CEO/project-lead contact information, an analysis of need, the proposed objective, available/required personnel and financial resources, the method for achieving the objective, and a completion timeline, signed by the chief executive officer. Attach a one-page institutional description (brief history plus current enrollment, endowment, and finance data), proof of 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status (and confirmation you are not a private foundation), a recent fiscal year-end income statement and balance sheet, and a current budget; returning grantees substitute a progress/impact report on the prior grant in place of the institutional description. Submit 10 physical copies (stapled only — no folders or binders) or a PDF directly to Executive Director Laura Shansey at lshansey@lc.edu; sloppy formatting or over-designed packets read poorly to this all-volunteer board. The single biggest fit mistake to avoid is proposing anything outside the women's-education lane — the foundation explicitly will not fund individual grants, capital projects, general operating expenses, endowed chairs, exchange-student programs, online scholastic programs, or social-service agency support, no matter how compelling the broader cause. Because the average award is $17,500-$24,000 (with the largest single grants topping out near $110,000-$182,000 and reserved for long-tenured relationships like Washington University's Olin Fellowship), first-time applicants should request a specific, modestly scoped scholarship, fellowship, or internship line rather than a large multi-year ask — smaller, well-defined requests match the observed pattern far better than ambitious opening asks. Geographic fit matters: 69% of grant volume goes to Illinois and Missouri institutions, so applicants outside the nine-state Midwest footprint (IL, IA, IN, KS, KY, MI, MO, NE, WI) face a steep uphill climb regardless of program quality.