Navesink Foundation

Navesink Foundation is a small, closely-held family trust (EIN 13-7154218, tax-exempt since August 1998), administered through the family office Tripar at 47 W River Rd, Rumson, NJ, with Nancy Devlin as the sole currently-named trustee (former co-trustee J Hugh Devlin is now listed as deceased in filings). It is not the similarly named Navesink Country Club Foundation that actually owns the navesinkfoundation.org domain — a distinct, newer (2021) Monmouth County nonprofit. This is a critical distinction: any application instructions found at that URL belong to the club foundation, not to this one.

The foundation's own data flags it as accepting grants on a preselected basis only, with no published grants page, LOI form, or deadline. Four years of tracked grant history (170 total grants to roughly 40 distinct organizations) show the same recipients funded at nearly identical dollar amounts year after year — this is relationship-driven, loyalty-based giving, not a competitive RFP process. The single largest relationship, Hydrocephalus Association ($200,000 across four years, or $50,000/year), is four times larger than any other grantee, strongly suggesting a personal or family connection to that cause rather than a programmatic priority that a new applicant could compete for.

Giving clusters around two communities: Monmouth County, NJ (Rumson, Fair Haven, Red Bank — 80 of 170 tracked grants) and Indian River County, FL (Vero Beach/John's Island — 40 of 170), almost certainly reflecting where board members live. First-time applicants should recognize that unsolicited national appeals have effectively no documented path to funding here. The realistic opportunity is a warm introduction through a current grantee, a shared board connection, or direct, low-key correspondence through Tripar — and a modest ask: outside the top five grantees, awards run $1,000-$5,500. Given contracting total giving (from ~$174K in 2022 to ~$142.5K in grants paid in 2023) and a deficit FY2024, this is a funder in slow retreat, not expansion, so multi-year or large capital asks are unlikely to land regardless of fit.

Typical grant size, per the foundation's own profile data: median $1,500, average $3,612, range $3-$50,000. That $3 floor is an artifact, not a real program grant — it corresponds to tiny partnership pass-through 'charitable contribution' line items (e.g., $6 to NGL Energy Partners LP, $4 to Crestwood Equity Partners LP) generated by K-1 investment holdings, not discretionary giving.

Total giving has declined steadily: $319,200 (2014) and $283,216 (2015) fell to $198,695 (2019), $158,472 (2020), $171,770 (2021), $174,044 (2022), and $169,123 (2023); grants paid specifically were $250,020 (2014) down to $166,660 (2019) and $142,500 (2023). Assets tracked the same slide, from $5.24M (2012) and $4.87M (2014) to $3.38M-$3.51M across 2021-2024, a roughly 34% decline over a decade. FY2024 shows a $106,358 revenue year against $207,358 in expenses — a rare deficit year.

Of the $593,260 in grants captured across the top-50 grantee list (170 grants, avg $3,490), concentration is steep: the top grantee, Hydrocephalus Association, alone accounts for $200,000 (about 34% of that total). The next four largest — Take A Breather ($48,500), John's Island Foundation ($40,000), Parker Family Health Clinic ($40,000), and Indian River Hospital Foundation ($27,500) — add another $156,000. That leaves roughly $237,000 split across the remaining ~35-38 organizations, mostly in $1,000-$5,500 increments repeated identically across the four tracked years (e.g., CurePSP and VNA of Central Jersey at $20,000 over four years/$5,000 per year; Rumson Country Day School and Lunch Break near $13,750-$14,000 over four years).

Geographically, NJ and FL dominate (80 and 40 of 170 tracked grants, 71% combined), with small single-digit counts trailing to MD (12), NY and CA (8 each), and CT, DC, IL, PA (4 each) and IN (3) — a pattern consistent with personal connections of trustees and family rather than an open, programmatic geographic focus.

Candid/IRS data group Navesink with five other foundations purely by asset size — all sit within about $60,000 of Navesink's $3.45M in total assets — but none share its NTEE classification (all five read 'Unknown,' same as Navesink itself) and none are based in New Jersey, so this is an asset-tier comparison, not a true mission or geographic peer set.

No financial or programmatic detail was available in the data bundle for the five peers beyond name, state, and assets, so giving levels and application posture can't be verified here — a caveat applicants should weigh before assuming these foundations behave like Navesink. The one recognizable name, Isabel Allende Foundation (founded by the author), is reported to fund women's and girls' education and empowerment — a useful reminder that even within this narrow $3.4M-$3.5M asset band, strategy and focus vary widely, from Navesink's quiet, relationship-based local giving to a founder-driven thematic program elsewhere.

Across four targeted web searches, no grant announcements, press coverage, or leadership news turned up specifically for the Navesink Foundation at EIN 13-7154218 for 2025 or 2026 — unsurprising for a foundation of this size with no communications function and no public grants page.

The most important finding from this research is a source-of-confusion correction: the website on file, navesinkfoundation.org, actually belongs to the Navesink Country Club Foundation, a separate organization founded in 2021 by the Navesink Country Club's Board of Governors during the COVID-19 pandemic. That club foundation's reported 2025-2026 activity — $30,000 in community grants to three Monmouth County organizations, a $5,000 scholarship, a coat drive serving 100+ families, and $45,000 in 2026 educational awards to six employees and family members — should not be attributed to the Navesink Foundation profiled in this report.

The most recent verifiable activity for the actual foundation is its FY2024 Form 990-PF, which shows $106,358 in revenue against $207,358 in expenses (a roughly $101,000 net deficit) and $174,138 in charitable disbursements, with net assets reported between $3.21M and $3.45M depending on source. Filings also show former co-trustee J Hugh Devlin now listed as deceased, leaving Nancy Devlin as the sole named trustee — a leadership transition worth monitoring, since single-trustee family foundations sometimes reduce giving or begin winding down after a founding spouse's death.

There is no application to fill out: application_form_url, opportunities_url, and a published deadline are all absent from the foundation's own data, and the 'preselected only' flag means unsolicited requests are not the intended channel. Do not mistake the apply/contact guidance on navesinkfoundation.org for this foundation's process — that page and its info@ inbox belong to the unrelated Navesink Country Club Foundation.

The only documented, credible address for this foundation is through its family-office administrator: 'Navesink Foundation, c/o Tripar, 47 W River Rd Ste A, Rumson, NJ 07760,' with correspondence addressed to Trustee Nancy Devlin. A concise paper letter is more likely to be seen than a cold email, given the absence of any public-facing grants infrastructure.

The strongest lever available to an applicant is a warm introduction. Four years of consistent grant history show roughly 40 repeat recipients, including Hydrocephalus Association, Take A Breather, John's Island Foundation, Parker Family Health Clinic, Indian River Hospital Foundation, CurePSP, VNA of Central Jersey, Riverview Medical Foundation, Rumson Country Day School, Lunch Break, and United Way of Indian River County. If your organization's board, donors, or volunteers overlap with any of these, use that relationship to request an introduction rather than approaching cold.

Geographic and thematic fit matter more than polish here: the foundation's 170 tracked grants are overwhelmingly concentrated in Monmouth County, NJ and Indian River County, FL (71% combined), and in health, hospital-foundation, neurological/rare-disease, and basic-needs/emergency-relief causes. An organization outside those two communities, or without a clearly adjacent mission, has essentially no documented precedent for funding.

Size the ask realistically: outside the top five grantees, awards cluster at $1,000-$5,500, repeated nearly identically year over year. A modest, specific, recurring-relationship request is far more consistent with this foundation's actual behavior than a large one-time capital ask — especially given giving has contracted from roughly $174,000 (2022) to $142,500 in grants paid (2023), with a deficit year on the books for FY2024.