Newrium Foundation Inc.

Newrium Foundation Inc. is an unusually young, closely-held family foundation — its IRS determination (ruling date January 2025) makes it roughly a year and a half old — administered through Foundation Source, a national back-office platform that many small family foundations use specifically to keep a low public profile while a family, not a staff, directs the giving. The entire governance structure is two people: Jackie Xu, who holds President, Director, Secretary, and Treasurer simultaneously, and Hui Zhang, a second Director. Both draw $0 compensation, which is the clearest available signal that this is a personal giving vehicle rather than an institutional grantmaker with program staff. The record contains no grantee list, no typical grant size, no grants page URL, and no application form URL. Most tellingly, the data flags this foundation as `preselected_only: true` with `application_instructions` explicitly set to none — despite an `accepting_applications: true` flag that appears to be a default rather than an active invitation. In practice, that combination means Newrium directs its dollars to organizations the founders already know or have identified themselves, not to responsive applicants. Its published mission field is unfilled ("At Newrium Foundation, Inc." with no further text), and the foundation's own website did not return usable content during this research, reinforcing that there is no public-facing program to apply into yet. For grantseekers, the realistic strategy is not to write and submit a cold proposal — there is nowhere designated to send one, and the profile strongly suggests it would go unread. Instead, treat Newrium as a long-shot, relationship-first prospect: look for any personal, professional, alumni, religious, or community tie to Xu or Zhang, and pursue an introduction through that channel rather than institutional channels. Given the foundation's tiny footprint, grantseekers should not invest significant proposal-writing time here until a public grants page, a named program contact, or a disclosed grantee list appears in a future IRS Form 990-PF filing — at that point the actual funding pattern, not this report's inference, should drive the approach.

The financial record spans two fiscal years and shows a foundation in a capital build-up phase rather than an active distribution phase. FY2023: total assets $756,402, total revenue $762,902 (almost entirely a single $762,896 contribution), net investment income of just $6 (funds were parked, not invested, for most of the year), total giving of $6,500, and $0 in grants paid on the grants-paid line specifically — officer compensation was $0. FY2024: total assets jumped to $3,589,284, a 4.7x increase, on total revenue of $2,861,225 — implying a second, much larger contribution of roughly $2.8 million landed sometime during the year. Grants paid, total giving, officer compensation, net investment income, and contributions received for FY2024 are not yet disclosed in the data available (likely because the full 990-PF grant schedule for that year has not yet posted). There is no grantee list to analyze — the top_50 grantee table and by-state breakdown are both empty, and total_grants is recorded as 0. That makes it impossible to compute a median grant size, program-area split, or geographic distribution from actual disbursements; none exists on the record yet. One useful benchmark: private foundations must distribute roughly 5% of net investment assets annually to stay compliant. On the current ~$3.59M asset base, that implies an expected annual payout in the neighborhood of $150,000–$180,000 once Newrium is distributing at a steady-state level — a figure far above the $6,500 given in FY2023 on a smaller ~$756K base. The gap suggests FY2023 was a stub or setup year with only a token distribution, and that meaningful grantmaking, if it follows the typical private-foundation payout pattern, has either just begun or is still ahead. Grantseekers should not read the FY2023 $6,500 figure as indicative of Newrium's eventual grant size — it reflects a foundation in its first operating year, not a steady-state giving pattern.

Newrium sits in a cluster of nearly identically sized "Philanthropy & Grantmaking" category vehicles, all clustered within about $1,000 of each other's asset base — a sign these were matched by asset proximity rather than by shared cause focus.

None of the five peer foundations list a website in the underlying data, and none has a disclosed giving figure, application process, or grantee list either — this entire peer set appears to be small, closely-held family or personal foundations of the same archetype as Newrium: asset-matched but not necessarily mission-matched. The practical takeaway for a grantseeker is that comparing Newrium against "typical" $3.5M foundations in this category is of limited use, since the whole comparison set shares the same low-transparency, non-responsive profile rather than a common program focus.

The single notable event in the record is financial rather than programmatic: total assets grew from $756,402 to $3,589,284 between FY2023 and FY2024, driven by a roughly $2.8 million contribution reflected in FY2024's total revenue of $2,861,225. That is the closest thing to "news" available — most likely a large personal or family contribution to seed the foundation for future grantmaking, rather than any publicized program launch. No leadership change has occurred: Jackie Xu and Hui Zhang have held the foundation's only two governance seats since its IRS determination in January 2025, and both remain uncompensated. Four targeted web searches — for 2025/2026 grant awards, application guidance, news announcements, and funding priorities — returned no results specific to Newrium Foundation Inc.; search engines instead surfaced unrelated organizations with similar-sounding names (e.g., Newro Foundation, New Now Foundation). The foundation's own website, newriumfoundation.org, did not return usable content when fetched during this research. Given the January 2025 ruling date, Newrium is approximately 18–20 months old as of September 2026, which is consistent with an organization still in its formation and asset-building period rather than one with an established public grantmaking record. Grantseekers should not expect to find press coverage, annual reports, or a program announcement — none exists yet — and should instead monitor future IRS Form 990-PF filings for the first real signal of active giving.

There is no formal application to optimize for at Newrium — no LOI form, online portal, published deadline, or listed program officer exists in the data, and `application_instructions` is explicitly blank. The most important tip is therefore process-level: do not submit a generic cold proposal, because there is no queue for it to enter. Given `preselected_only: true`, grants appear to go to organizations the two officers, Jackie Xu and Hui Zhang, already know personally or professionally — so the highest-value move is identifying any real-world connection to either of them (shared board service, alma mater, religious or cultural community, employer network, or local Wilmington/Delaware ties) and pursuing a warm introduction rather than a mailed request. If direct contact is unavoidable, remember that correspondence is very likely to be screened by Foundation Source, the third-party administrator listed on the foundation's record — a firm that provides back-office services to hundreds of family foundations nationally — rather than reaching Xu or Zhang directly; a generic inquiry sent to a general mailbox has a low chance of reaching a decision-maker. A common mistake to avoid: treating the NTEE code T22 ("Philanthropy & Grantmaking") as a cause preference. It is a legal/administrative classification for private foundations and grantmaking intermediaries, not an indication that Newrium funds nonprofit-sector infrastructure, capacity-building, or similar causes — the actual cause focus is currently undocumented anywhere public. On sizing an ask: FY2023's total giving was just $6,500 against a $756K asset base, so until later 990-PF filings show a larger, steady-state grant pattern, any initial request should be modest — a concise, one-page concept note rather than a full multi-year proposal — since the foundation has not yet demonstrated capacity for large single grants. Timing also can't be optimized in the usual sense: with no disclosed deadline or review cycle, any response will likely be driven by the founders' personal calendar rather than an annual grant cycle, so persistence and relationship-building matter more than hitting a submission window.