Mostyn Foundation Inc.

Mostyn Foundation Inc. is a closely held Choate-family vehicle administered by Silvercrest Asset Management (c/o James C. Edwards & Co.), with zero paid officers and zero outside contributions in every filing year on record — it runs entirely off its own investment corpus. Trustees are Arthur B. Choate, Stephanie O. Choate and Timothy S. Choate, with Nicholas E. Christin as Secretary and Bart Johnston as Treasurer; a more recent filing lists Stephanie Choate as President and Timothy S. Choate as Co-President, suggesting a possible leadership transition from Arthur B. Choate worth confirming directly. Our database flags 'accepting_applications: true' with an online submission process, but third-party aggregators (Instrumentl, TheShareWay) independently characterize the foundation as giving 'exclusively to preselected charitable organizations' — and the grant data supports that read: many top grantees (Wild Oceans Inc, Free Arts of NYC, the International Game Fish Association, Diabetes Research Institute, Heartstrong Horsemanship) each appear in four consecutive sampled years, meaning most of the foundation's ~$396,000 annual capacity is already committed to renewing standing relationships rather than funding new applicants. Treat this as a relationship-first, trustee-directed funder, not a competitive open RFP. First-time applicants have the best odds through a warm introduction — a shared board connection, a Silvercrest Asset Management contact, or a peer relationship with an existing grantee such as Wild Oceans or Bonefish & Tarpon Trust — rather than a cold portal submission, since no functioning application form, deadline, or instructions could be verified on any channel. Given the foundation's modest scale (30-45 grants per year, no program staff), proposals should be scoped tightly: a specific, bounded project request rather than a general operating or multi-year capacity ask. Trustee interests cluster visibly around recreational fisheries and marine conservation, the Islesboro, Maine community, equine-assisted therapy, and hospitality-industry relief — proposals aligned to one of these clusters are competing for a narrower, more receptive pool than the catch-all 'GENERAL' purpose code that covers most smaller one-off grants.

The foundation's most recent typical-grant data (n=31) shows a median grant of $7,500, an average of $12,581, and a range of $1,000-$90,000. A broader multi-year sample of 138 grants totaling $1,548,000 (average $11,217) shows heavy concentration at the top: Wild Oceans Inc alone received $372,000 across 4 grants (roughly $93,000/year, marine conservation), followed by Free Arts of NYC at $190,000 (4 grants, general) and the International Game Fish Association at $128,000 (4 grants, marine conservation/general). Together these three anchor grantees absorbed $690,000 — about 45% of the sampled total — leaving the remaining ~47 organizations in the top-50 list to split the other 55%, mostly in $2,500-$45,000 increments across one to four grants each. Geographically, the foundation's own record tags a Florida/New York focus, and the grantee-state breakdown bears that out at the top of the list: Florida (24 grants), New York (19), and DC (18, largely national-serving nonprofits headquartered there), followed by California (7), Massachusetts, North Carolina, Oklahoma and Virginia (6 each), Washington (5) and Maryland (4). Roughly 37 of the 138 grants (27%) went to states outside this top-10 grouping, indicating a genuinely national footprint despite the formal FL/NY geographic tag. Annual charitable disbursements have been remarkably stable across 15 years of filings: $317,500 (2011), $293,750 (2012), $465,500 (2013, the observed peak), $300,000 (2014), $315,000 (2015), $342,000 (2019 and 2020), $426,000 (2021), $390,000 (2022), $369,000 (2023), and approximately $396,000 in the most recent FY2025 filing. Total assets grew from $3.72M (2011) to $6.17M (2025) — a roughly 66% increase driven almost entirely by net investment income ($70,000-$789,000/year), since the foundation reported $0 in outside contributions in every year of the dataset, confirming it is a pure endowment vehicle with no active fundraising arm.

Mostyn is the smallest and least publicly accessible of this marine-conservation-adjacent peer set on every dimension: its ~$396,000 annual budget is roughly one-fifth of Munson's and one-quarter of Fink's giving capacity, and its top-grantee concentration (three organizations absorbing 45% of sampled dollars) suggests even less room for new relationships than the raw figures imply. Applicants who cannot get traction with Mostyn's closed, trustee-driven process should pivot to Munson, which is the only peer here with a published, twice-yearly LOI deadline and an explicit welcome for fisheries/marine-conservation proposals from Florida, Alabama, DC and the Caribbean Basin — a much more tractable entry point for an unsolicited application.

No independent news coverage, press releases, or social-media activity could be located for Mostyn Foundation Inc. specifically; web searches for foundation news returned only nonprofit-data aggregators and an unrelated Welsh arts venue that happens to share the name 'Mostyn.' The most concrete recent activity signal is the foundation's own filing history: a Form 990-PF was posted to public trackers on Sept. 11, 2025, and again on Feb. 10, 2026, reporting FY2025 total revenue of $1,162,040, total expenses of $469,910, charitable disbursements of $396,000, and year-end net assets of $6,170,429 — all consistent with the foundation's stable, low-variance giving pattern over the past 15 years. Leadership listed on the foundation's most recent public filing (Stephanie Choate as President, Timothy S. Choate as Co-President, Nicholas E. Christin as Secretary, Bart Johnston as Treasurer) differs slightly from an earlier record in our database showing Arthur B. Choate as President, suggesting a possible generational leadership transition within the Choate family that applicants should confirm before addressing correspondence. On the grantmaking side, the clearest recent shift is a cluster of Ukraine-related humanitarian grants (Razom Inc, Nova Ukraine, Leleka Foundation, The 1K Project) that appear alongside the foundation's long-standing marine-conservation and Maine/Islesboro commitments — evidence the trustees added a responsive cause area following Russia's 2022 invasion without displacing their core giving pattern. The absence of any dedicated foundation website, grants page, or communications staff (confirmed by the mostyn.org domain actually belonging to a Welsh arts centre) reinforces that this remains a low-visibility, closely held family philanthropy.

Verify the application channel before writing anything: our database lists an 'online application' process, but no live form URL, deadline, or instructions exist in any public record, and independent aggregators describe the foundation as giving to preselected organizations only. Call the administrator of record — c/o Silvercrest Asset Management / James C. Edwards & Co, 1330 6th Avenue, 38th Floor, New York, NY 10019, (480) 305-2028 (note the Arizona area code despite the New York address, another sign this is administered by an outside wealth manager rather than an in-house program office) — and ask directly whether a cycle is currently open. Because the foundation has zero paid staff and zero officer compensation across every year on file, a warm introduction through a trustee (Arthur B., Stephanie O., or Timothy S. Choate), Secretary Nicholas E. Christin, Treasurer Bart Johnston, or Silvercrest itself will outperform a cold inquiry by a wide margin. Size the request realistically: the typical grant is $1,000-$90,000 with a $7,500 median and $12,581 average, and the small number of grants approaching six figures ($90K-$105K per aggregator data) all went to decade-plus relationships like Wild Oceans Inc — a first-time ask in the $2,500-$20,000 range is far more realistic. Use language that maps to a visible trustee interest cluster: recreational fisheries/marine conservation (the largest and most consistent category), the Islesboro, Maine community, equine-assisted therapy, hospitality-industry disaster relief, or Ukraine humanitarian response — proposals outside these clusters are competing in the crowded catch-all 'GENERAL' bucket that covers most of the smaller, one-off grants. A common and easily avoidable mistake is sending materials to mostyn.org, which belongs to a Welsh arts centre and has nothing to do with this foundation — confirm the correct mailing or email address by phone first. Since no formal deadline is on record, note that this foundation's peers in the same marine-conservation space (Curtis & Edith Munson Foundation) run informal spring/fall LOI windows tied to board meetings, and Mostyn's own 990-PF filings cluster around September and February — a reasonable proxy for when trustees are actively reviewing giving decisions.