Mooneyhan Family Foundation Inc.

Mooneyhan Family Foundation is a Johnson City, Tennessee family foundation, established in 2001 by Ann C. Mooneyhan in honor of her late husband Dr. Jerry Mooneyhan, with roughly $8.9-9.4M in assets and a self-described mission to 'make our communities better places to live.' It is a classic small-staff, board-driven regional funder — the IRS filings list no compensated officers (all nine board members, including President James F. Williams, Secretary Jocelyn Lacey, and Treasurer William Stover, serve at $0 compensation), and there is no dedicated program staff to build a relationship with beyond the board itself. The foundation funds almost exclusively established, direct-service nonprofits already embedded in its three-state footprint (Eastern Tennessee, Southwest Virginia, Western North Carolina) rather than funding pilot programs or new organizations from out of region. Of 133 recorded grants, 98 went to Tennessee organizations, with the remainder concentrated in Virginia (13) and a scattering elsewhere. The relationship model is simple and low-friction by design: a single email Letter of Inquiry (no portal, no multi-stage proposal process) sent to mooneyhanfoundation@gmail.com, reviewed once a year at a single board meeting. There is no LOI-to-full-proposal escalation path described — the LOI functions as the full application. First-time applicants should not expect a site visit or extended cultivation cycle; funding decisions appear to be made largely on the strength of the written inquiry and the board's existing knowledge of Johnson City-area organizations. The grantee list is dominated by repeat, multi-year relationships — 33 of the top 50 grantees received funding across 3-5 separate grants, evidence that the foundation favors sustained partnerships over one-off awards once an organization is inside its funding circle. Coalition For Kids ($205,000 across 5 grants), Second Harvest Food Bank ($170,000/4), Healing Hands ($150,000/5), and Family Promise ($145,000/5) exemplify this pattern of recurring, modest-but-steady support to vulnerable-population-serving nonprofits. For an organization with no prior history with the foundation, the strongest entry point is a well-targeted, geographically eligible program serving at-risk youth, framed tightly around a specific need rather than general capacity.

The foundation's own typical-grant-size data (23 sampled awards) shows a median of $15,000, an average of $22,866, and a range of $2,000 to $80,000, though the written application restrictions cap new awards at $30,000 per organization per year — the $80,000 outlier likely reflects either a legacy award or a multi-year commitment paid in one year. Total giving has grown substantially: from $137,875-$177,674 per year in 2012-2015 to $380,921-$649,075 per year in 2019-2023, alongside asset growth from roughly $2.7M to $9.4M over the same period — a more than 4x increase in giving capacity in under a decade. The most recent complete fiscal year (2023) shows $649,075 in total giving against $584,495 in grants paid and $9,413,355 in total assets, funded by $1,404,619 in net investment income. FY2024 data (partial) shows assets holding steady at $8,914,052 with $381,494 in revenue. Within the top-50 grantee dataset ($2,479,684 across 133 grants, averaging $18,644/grant), the geographic breakdown is heavily Tennessee-weighted: TN (98 grants), VA (13), ME (11), WI (5), NC (3), IL (2), AZ (1) — the Maine and Wisconsin grants are notable outliers to the stated three-state service area, likely reflecting board or founder personal ties (e.g., Kennebunkport Historical Society, The Landing School, both in Maine). By recipient, the largest cumulative relationships are Coalition For Kids ($205,000/5 grants), Second Harvest Food Bank ($170,000/4), Healing Hands ($150,000/5), Family Promise ($145,000/5), and a three-way tie at $120,000 each (Keystone Dental Care, Isaiah 117 House, The River) — all organizations serving vulnerable populations, consistent with the foundation's stated primary interest. Education-adjacent grantees (Johnson City Schools, $97,004/3 grants; Johnson City Schools Foundation, $90,000/3; Johnson County Middle School, $77,400/3) form a secondary cluster reflecting the 'education' component of the mission. Grant frequency skews toward repeat, modest awards ($2,000-$67,500 for most organizations outside the top tier) rather than single large gifts — a pattern consistent with the $30,000 annual per-organization cap and the foundation's preference for sustained, incremental partnership over one-time large infusions.

These five peers were selected purely on asset-size proximity (all within $12,000 of Mooneyhan's $8,914,052 in total assets) and share the same broad 'Philanthropy & Grantmaking' NTEE classification, but public data on their actual giving levels, geographic footprint, and application posture was not available in this dataset. What sets Mooneyhan apart within this asset tier is transparency and accessibility: it publishes a specific focus area (vulnerable young people), a specific geographic scope (three-state Appalachian region), a specific award cap ($30,000), and an open, no-portal email LOI process — features that are often absent at similarly-sized single-family foundations, many of which operate as closed, invitation-only vehicles for a founder's personal giving. Grant seekers should treat Mooneyhan as a comparatively approachable ~$9M funder relative to peers of the same size, precisely because it has a published grants page and named submission channel.

No foundation-specific press releases, leadership transitions, or program launches surfaced in web search for 2025-2026; the foundation does not appear to issue public announcements or maintain an active news presence (its Facebook page shows minimal activity and no dedicated press outlet was found). The most concrete recent signal is administrative: third-party grant databases (Instrumentl, Candid/Foundation Directory) refreshed their profiles of the foundation on January 16, 2026, incorporating figures from the FY2023 Form 990-PF ($9,413,355 in assets, $649,075 in total giving, $584,495 in grants paid). Those same aggregators list an upcoming deadline of August 1, 2026, which sits one day after the foundation's own stated July 31 email cutoff — a minor discrepancy applicants should resolve by confirming directly with the foundation rather than relying on third-party deadline trackers. No new board appointments were identified beyond the nine directors and officers already on file (President James F. Williams, Secretary Jocelyn Lacey, Treasurer William Stover, and directors/board members Mary Craig Hart, Steven L. Lacey, Leighton Hart, Thomas O'Connor, Amy Sentell, and Angie Charles), all serving without compensation. The most recent verified organizational activity on file is the FY2024 partial filing showing $8,914,052 in assets and $381,494 in revenue, and the foundation's own record was last verified/enriched in the underlying data as of June 20, 2026, with no indication of a funding pause, wind-down, or strategic pivot — the pattern of steady, recurring grants to the same core grantees (Coalition For Kids, Second Harvest Food Bank, Healing Hands, Family Promise) through the most recent complete grant-level data appears to be continuing uninterrupted.

Apply by email, not by portal — the entire application is a Letter of Inquiry sent to mooneyhanfoundation@gmail.com; there is no online form, so applicants should write a tight, self-contained LOI rather than expecting a follow-up application stage. Submit well before July 31: the board meets only once a year, in September, so missing the deadline means waiting a full additional year for a decision — build this into any project timeline and avoid time-sensitive asks tied to a specific fall/winter start date unless the September approval-to-funding window (funds typically disbursed within 60 days of board approval, i.e., roughly November) still works. Anchor the request to vulnerable young people if at all possible — this is explicitly the foundation's primary interest, ranked above its secondary categories of education, cultural enrichment, and spiritual development, and the grantee data bears this out (Coalition For Kids, Family Promise, Isaiah 117 House, Healing Hands are all youth/family-crisis-oriented). Keep the ask at or below $30,000 — this is a hard written cap per organization per year, and the typical award is far lower (median $15,000 across sampled grants), so requesting the maximum without strong justification may read as poorly calibrated. Avoid the foundation's explicit no-fund categories: annual campaigns, endowments, general operating support (as a labeled ask — even though 990 data codes most grants 'operations' internally), fundraising events, individuals, and anything of a political nature; frame the request as a specific program or project need instead. Confirm eligibility on geography first — organizations must be located in or serve Eastern Tennessee, Southwest Virginia, or Western North Carolina; this appears to be enforced as a hard screen (98 of 133 recorded grants went to Tennessee organizations alone). A common mistake for out-of-region applicants is assuming national or regional 'vulnerable youth' framing alone will qualify them — it will not substitute for local presence. Because the foundation limits organizations to one proposal per 12-month period, do not submit multiple simultaneous requests from affiliated programs within the same organization; consolidate into a single, well-justified ask. Given the all-volunteer, uncompensated board and lack of program staff, there is no indication of a formal cultivation or site-visit process — the LOI itself needs to carry the full case, so include concrete, quantified need and target-population data rather than assuming a later conversation will fill gaps.