Nord Foundation

Nord Foundation is a small, closely-held family foundation run by four uncompensated directors — Arlen D. Nordhagen (President/Treasurer), Wendy Nordhagen (Vice President/Secretary), Fred V. Lian, and Ken J. Timboe — operating out of a PO Box in Franktown, Colorado since its 1997 IRS ruling. IRS Form 990-PF data flags the foundation as preselected-recipients-only: application_instructions is blank, there is no application form URL, and no deadline is on file. Independent directory data corroborates this, describing a funder that 'does not accept unsolicited requests for funds.' This is not a foundation with an LOI-to-proposal-to-site-visit pipeline; it is a closed, relationship-driven giving vehicle that mirrors the Nordhagen family's personal ties to evangelical Christian ministry work.

The grantee list reveals two clear tiers. A core group of roughly a dozen 'anchor partners' — Healing Waters ($357,025 across 4 grants), Foundation For The Nations ($313,200), Crosspurpose ($310,000), Serge ($303,420), Christian World Outreach ($217,500), and Tears ($201,767) among them — receive consistent, multi-year support at $50,000-$90,000+ per year. A second, larger tier of smaller or newer partners (Orphanos, Eurasia Partners Network, Park Church Denver, My Quiet Cave) receive one-off or occasional gifts of $4,000-$12,000. This pattern suggests new relationships enter at a modest, exploratory dollar level and only scale into anchor-partner territory after several years of demonstrated fit.

For first-time applicants, the practical strategy is not to write a stronger cold proposal — it is to find the warm introduction. Organizations with existing ties to Denver Seminary, Colorado Christian University, Young Life (Denver/Littleton), Cru, or Crosspurpose sit inside the same network the foundation already funds, and a referral from one of these hub organizations is far more likely to open a dialogue than an unsolicited letter to the PO Box.

Nord Foundation's typical grant size (based on a 34-recipient sample) runs from $2,158 to $88,611, with a median of $15,000 and an average of $23,682 — figures skewed upward by the anchor-partner tier. A broader four-year window in IRS data shows 130 total grants worth $2,975,105 (average $22,885), while the most recent full year reported by Grantable.co (2024) shows just 20 grants totaling roughly $669,000 at an average of $33,000 — a 34.3% year-over-year jump in grant size, meaning the foundation is now writing fewer, larger checks rather than spreading dollars thin. The foundation's own program description moved from 'Donations to 31 Charitable Organizations' to '34 Charitable Organizations' in its latest filing, so the roster is still growing modestly even as per-grant size rises.

On the balance sheet, total assets grew from $5.65M in 2014 to $9.86M in 2022 and $11.46M in the most recent filing (fiscal year ended November 2025) — growth funded almost entirely by investment returns (net investment income of $699,470 in 2022 alone) rather than new family contributions, which were $0 in 2020, 2021, and 2022. As a non-operating private foundation, Nord must distribute roughly 5% of net investment assets annually (a minimum of about $630,000 per the FY2025 filing) — but it disbursed $834,034 that year, well above the required floor, indicating active rather than merely compliance-driven giving.

Every identifiable program dollar in the grantee data goes to Christian ministry: global missions and international outreach (Serge, Tears, NYC International Project, Eurasia Partners Network), Colorado poverty/homelessness relief (Crosspurpose, Denver Rescue Mission, Alternatives Pregnancy Center), Christian higher education (Denver Seminary, Colorado Christian University, Southeastern University), and apologetics (Reasons To Believe). Geographically, grant counts concentrate in Colorado (61 of 130 tracked grants), with secondary clusters in Florida (15), Oregon and Utah (6 each), and smaller counts in Illinois, Minnesota, New York, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, and Tennessee — a footprint that tracks the family's and directors' personal networks rather than a formal regional program.

Nord Foundation sits in a peer group of private foundations clustered tightly around $11.46M in total assets — Price Foundation Inc. (KY), Nan H Altmayer Charitable Trust (AL), John H & Ella K Miller Memorial Trust (TX), George J Hubert Jr Foundation Inc. (OH), and the Keith and Cecilia Terasaki Family Foundation (CA) all fall within roughly $11.455M-$11.461M of assets, all classified under the same 'Philanthropy & Grantmaking' NTEE category, and none of them list a public website in available data:

This near-identical asset banding looks like an IRS BMF size-tier artifact rather than genuine program overlap — these foundations are not necessarily faith-focused or Colorado-tied peers, just similarly-sized private foundations. What distinguishes Nord Foundation within this set is that it is comparatively more identifiable: independent directories (Grantable, CauseIQ, ProPublica) surface its grantee list, leadership, and giving trend, whereas its five asset-matched peers disclose no public website or grantmaking detail at all. Grant seekers should not expect any of these peers to be more accessible alternatives — this entire asset tier of foundation tends toward closed, relationship-based giving.

No independent news coverage of Nord Foundation (EIN 84-1409115, Franktown, CO) was found — this is expected for a foundation of its size and closed operating model, and search results are further complicated by an unrelated, much larger organization with a similar name, the Nord Family Foundation of Amherst, Ohio (EIN 34-1595929), which operates an open online application portal at nordff.org and should not be confused with this foundation. Note separately that the domain listed in this foundation's own record, nordfoundation.org, resolves to yet a third, unrelated entity — the New Orleans Recreation Development (NORD) Commission — meaning this foundation currently has no identifiable public website.

The most concrete recent activity is financial: the foundation's latest available Form 990-PF (fiscal year ended November 2025) shows net assets of $11,458,960, total revenue of $1,533,291 (49% dividends, roughly 50% asset sales), and charitable disbursements of $834,034 — up from about $669,000 disbursed in 2024 across 20 grants, itself a 34.3% jump in average grant size over 2023. Leadership has been stable across every year of available data: the same four uncompensated directors (Arlen D. Nordhagen, Wendy Nordhagen, Fred V. Lian, Ken J. Timboe) appear in every filing, with no reported turnover, new hires, or compensation changes. There is no evidence of a name change, merger, or new program launch — the foundation's stated mission description simply grew from 'Donations to 31 Charitable Organizations' to '34 Charitable Organizations' between filings, consistent with modest, steady expansion of its existing partner network rather than a strategic pivot.

The single most important fact for any prospective applicant: Nord Foundation does not run a public application process. Its IRS filing data leaves application_instructions blank and lists no application form URL or deadline, and independent grant directories describe it as funding only preselected organizations that do not accept unsolicited requests. A polished cold LOI mailed to the PO Box 206, Franktown, CO 80116 address is very unlikely to generate a response — there is no published mechanism for receiving or reviewing one.

The realistic path in is relational, not procedural. Every identifiable grantee sits within the same evangelical Christian ecosystem: global missions and discipleship organizations (Serge, Tears, Foundation For The Nations, NYC International Project), Colorado-based poverty and homelessness ministries (Crosspurpose, Denver Rescue Mission, Alternatives Pregnancy Center), Christian higher education (Denver Seminary, Colorado Christian University, Southeastern University), and faith/worldview education (Reasons To Believe). Organizations without a credible tie to this network, or without a shared board member, alumni connection, or ministry partnership with one of these anchor grantees, have essentially no documented path to funding.

When a warm introduction does exist, calibrate the ask to the observed pattern: new relationships appear to start small, in the $4,000-$12,000 range, before scaling toward the $50,000-$90,000+ level reserved for partners with 3-4 consecutive years of track record (Healing Waters, Foundation For The Nations, Crosspurpose, and Serge all show this exact multi-year escalation). A common mistake would be to over-invest in a formal, metrics-heavy proposal package styled for an institutional funder — nothing in the available data suggests Nord Foundation runs site visits, requires standardized reporting templates, or works on a fixed review cycle. The foundation's fiscal year ends in November, so board-level giving decisions likely cluster in the months surrounding year-end. Alignment language should speak directly to ministry impact — discipleship, gospel outreach, poverty relief rooted in Christian mission, or Christian education — rather than generic nonprofit-sector metrics.