Mosi Foundation

A critical data note must come first: this foundation's own database record lists 'mosi.org' as its website and a mission about 'Tampa Bay's Center of Science and Innovation' — but that is a mismatch. The Mosi Foundation covered by this EIN (74-3071480) is a private, non-operating family foundation based at 74 Pasture Lane, Bryn Mawr, PA, run by President Gerald A. Isom and Vice President Evelyn R. Isom alongside three compensated officers (Jana L. De Leon, Jennifer O'Malley, Karen M. Schmid, each paid $5,000/year). It has no relationship to the Tampa science museum branded 'MOSI.' Grant seekers should disregard mosi.org entirely when researching this funder.

With that corrected, the real picture is a closed, trustee-directed vehicle, not a competitive grants program. It carries $3.29M in assets (FY2024) and gave $629,265 across 27 awards to roughly 14 distinct organizations in its most recent reported year — a typical footprint for a small family foundation that recycles gifts to a fixed circle of institutions rather than soliciting proposals. Of the 113 grants captured across the available filing history, 56 went to Pennsylvania organizations and 44 to Maine organizations, with a handful to California and Illinois — a pattern consistent with trustees who split time between the Philadelphia Main Line and coastal Maine (Rockland/Camden).

The grantee list itself is the strategy: two organizations — Farnsworth Art Museum (19 grants, $1.27M) and Trekkers Inc (17 grants, $470,689), both Rockland, ME-based — account for 57% of all tracked dollars. The remainder flows to Philadelphia-area colleges, hospitals, and independent schools (Community College of Philadelphia, The Franklin Institute, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Shipley School, Susquehanna University, Villanova, Penn) plus a few outliers tied to individual trustees' alma maters (Pepperdine, Northwestern). There is no LOI portal, no published deadline, and 'application_instructions' in this foundation's own data is literally blank. Unsolicited applications from organizations with no existing tie to the Isom family or its Maine/Philadelphia network face very long odds; the realistic path in is a board or personal introduction, not a cold proposal.

Giving is small-dollar and multi-year, not one-off. FY2024: $629,265 distributed across 27 awards (average $25,200; instrumentl-reported range $983-$135,915). The platform's own typical-grant-size calculation shows a median of $16,301, mean of $27,006, across a $2,500-$120,620 range — corroborating that most individual checks are modest, with occasional larger, multi-year commitments to anchor grantees.

Historically, annual giving has ranged from a low of $283,212 (2012) to a high of $882,276 (2019), tracking the foundation's asset base and investment performance rather than any stated programmatic budget: total assets grew from $1.80M (2012) to $2.54M (2019) to $3.29M (2024), while officer compensation held flat at $15,000/year (split three ways) across the period. FY2023 shows the fullest recent picture: $707,170 total giving, $648,847 in grants paid, $504,721 in contributions received, and $128,742 in net investment income against $2.77M in assets.

Concentration is the defining feature of the portfolio. Across the 113 grants captured in the platform's grantee history (total $3,045,898 tracked), the top two recipients — Farnsworth Art Museum ($1,270,201 across 19 grants) and Trekkers Inc ($470,689 across 17 grants) — together account for 57% of all dollars. The next tier is Philadelphia-area institutional giving: Community College of Philadelphia ($194,539/6 grants), The Franklin Institute ($144,944/6), Children's Hospital of Philadelphia ($131,834/6), French American International School ($105,545/7), Points North Institute ($100,597/5), and Pepperdine University ($99,245/5). Below that, grants taper to $2,500-$60,000 gifts to a long tail of schools, hospitals, and camps (Shipley School, Susquehanna University, Bryn Mawr Hospital, Penn, Delaware Christian Camp, Barnes Foundation, Lankenau Medical Center, Baldwin School, Villanova, Abramson Cancer Center). By geography: PA (56 grants), ME (44), CA (12), IL (1) — a two-hub pattern (Philadelphia Main Line + midcoast Maine), not a national or thematic footprint.

The database matched this foundation against five peers of nearly identical asset size (all clustered at ~$3.28-3.29M, all classified under NTEE 'Philanthropy & Grantmaking'). None of the five has a public website on file, which is itself the peer signal: this is a size class of small, closed, single-family or single-trust vehicles, not mid-size institutional funders with published RFPs.

Mosi Foundation is the only one of the six with enough grant-level transparency (via Form 990 Schedule I) to reconstruct a real strategy — its peers' 990s don't surface the same recipient detail in public databases. Grant seekers researching any foundation in this asset tier should expect the same pattern: trustee-directed giving to a small, stable set of relationship-based grantees, with no competitive process to apply to.

No news coverage, leadership changes, or new program announcements were identified for the actual Mosi Foundation (EIN 74-3071480) covered in this report — expected for a foundation of this size with no website, no communications function, and no public grant program to announce. The most recent verified financial data point is FY2024 (per ProPublica/Instrumentl): $507,378 in revenue, $690,768 in expenses, $629,265 in charitable disbursements across 27 awards, and $3,286,108 in net assets, down slightly in net income terms (-$183,390) versus FY2023. Officer roster was unchanged from FY2023 to FY2024: Gerald A. Isom (President, unpaid), Evelyn R. Isom (Vice President, unpaid), Jana L. De Leon (Secretary, $5,000), Jennifer O'Malley (Treasurer, $5,000), and Karen M. Schmid (Director, $5,000).

A separate item worth flagging prominently: web searches for "Mosi Foundation" surface extensive 2025-2026 news about Tampa's Museum of Science & Industry (rebranded 'Museum of Science & Innovation,' commonly shortened to MOSI) — a new Digital Dome Theatre and Saunders Planetarium opened in 2025, a January 2026 name-change ceremony, and a 2026 education-wing expansion. None of this activity belongs to the foundation in this report; it is a same-name, unrelated Florida nonprofit museum. Grant seekers should not conflate the two organizations when pitching this Bryn Mawr, PA funder.

There is no formal application channel to optimize for here — the foundation's own record lists 'application_instructions' as blank, no deadline, and no application form URL, and Instrumentl independently confirms '0 live grant opportunities.' Advice for this funder is therefore about access, not proposal craft:

• Do not cold-submit an LOI or proposal. With 14 grantees in the most recent reported year and the same two anchor recipients (Farnsworth Art Museum, Trekkers Inc) appearing across most of the filing history, this reads as a closed, relationship-based giving vehicle rather than an open competition. Cold outreach is unlikely to be read, let alone funded.
• Look for a genuine connection point before reaching out. The grantee list clusters tightly around two geographies — Rockland/Camden, Maine (arts, youth development, documentary film, craftsmanship) and the Philadelphia Main Line (independent schools, Penn-affiliated hospitals, Villanova/Susquehanna). An organization with a board member, alumni tie, or program footprint in one of those two places has a materially better shot than one without.
• If you do have a connection, lead with a warm introduction, not a written proposal. A personal note from a trustee, staff member, or existing grantee (especially Farnsworth or Trekkers, which appear to be long-tenured relationships) is the realistic path in.
• Right-size the ask. Individual grants run $2,500-$135,915, with a median around $16,000-$25,000. Requests should match this small-foundation scale — a multi-hundred-thousand-dollar ask would be out of pattern for every grant observed.
• Expect multi-year, incremental support rather than a single large gift. Farnsworth received 19 separate grants and Trekkers 17 — this foundation appears to fund the same organizations repeatedly over many years rather than making one-time large awards.
• Common mistake to avoid: confusing this foundation with Tampa's MOSI science museum. Any pitch that references the wrong 'MOSI' (interactive science exhibits, Tampa Bay, STEAM programming) will immediately signal that the applicant did not do basic diligence on the actual funder.