Oberweiler Foundation

Oberweiler Foundation is a small, founder-directed private foundation (incorporated 2000 by Siegfried and Anna Weiler, still listed as President and Treasurer) that funds almost exclusively within five northern Illinois counties — Cook, Du Page, Kane, Lake, and McHenry. Internal grantee data confirms this: 107 of 114 tracked grants (94%) went to Illinois organizations, with only scattered exceptions in OH, PA, and WI, typically veteran-serving groups with regional footprints. Applicants outside this geography should not apply.

The Foundation explicitly favors organizations 'providing unique and innovative solutions' to persistent problems within four narrow categories — alternative medicine/wellness, veterans' transition support, wilderness/wetlands protection, and assistance to sick or abused children 12 and under — over groups simply meeting basic needs. Guidelines state a preference for applicants with limited budgets and restricted access to alternative funding sources, meaning small and mid-sized community nonprofits are more competitive than large, well-endowed institutions, even though the Foundation does fund larger players occasionally (Comer Children's Hospital, The Nature Conservancy, Lurie Children's Hospital).

The relationship model is strictly staged: a 2-page Letter of Proposal by mail, reviewed first by Executive Director Mary Rowe (whose compensation has risen from $154,329 to $185,600 across recent filings, suggesting a stable, empowered staff role) and then the Review Committee, which meets bi-monthly February–October. Only invited applicants may submit the formal Chicago Area Common Grant Application; unsolicited full applications are discarded. Successful grantees undergo a site visit, sign a grants contract, and commit to quarterly reporting — Oberweiler behaves more like an engaged, relationship-driven funder than a check-writer, and grantee data shows real loyalty: BraveHearts, Comer Children's Hospital, Green City Market, Brushwood Center, and Friends of the Forest Preserve all show 2-3 recorded grants apiece, indicating the Foundation renews and deepens relationships with proven partners rather than constantly rotating grantees. First-time applicants should expect the LOI stage to function as a genuine filter, not a formality — align the letter tightly to one of the four categories and lead with evidence of unmet need and organizational capacity.

Based on the Foundation's own FY2025 grants list, Oberweiler distributed $871,100 across 56 grants, averaging roughly $15,555 per grant. That mirrors the Foundation's stated typical range in aggregated IRS data: median grant $15,000, average $14,025, spanning a low of $300 to a high of $35,000 for standard program grants (multi-year commitments and large institutional partners like Comer Children's Hospital run higher, up to $40,000/year).

Program-area allocation in FY2025 was uneven: Assisting Sick/Abused Children took the largest share at $369,100 (42% of total giving) across 28 grants, Environment followed at $212,000 (24%), Veterans at $180,000 (21%), and Alternative Medicine trailed at $85,000 (10%), with a small 'Other' category ($25,000, 3%) for youth workforce development (YouthBuild Waukegan). Cumulative historical grant counts confirm the same ordering of priority: Children (212 grants historically), Environment (116), Veterans (64), Alternative Medicine (55) — children's programs consistently receive both the most grants and the most dollars.

Financially, total assets have been essentially flat-to-declining in recent filings: $12.55M (FY2021) → $12.34M (FY2022) → $11.69M (FY2023), tracking market volatility in net investment income (from $1.31M in 2021 down to $187K in 2023). Despite that, total giving has held near or above $1M annually since FY2021 ($998K, $1.18M, $1.05M), up substantially from $625K in FY2011 and $826K in FY2019 — the Foundation has structurally increased its payout even as its asset base softened. Direct grants paid (distinct from total giving, which also covers officer compensation and administrative costs) ran $632,413 in FY2023 against $1,053,938 in total giving, meaning roughly 40% of outflow covers overhead, primarily the $186,600 Executive Director compensation. Geographically, funding is near-exclusively Illinois: 94% of tracked grantees (107 of 114) are IL-based, with occasional exceptions for veteran-support organizations with multi-state reach.

Oberweiler sits within a cluster of similarly-sized private foundations classified under the same Philanthropy & Grantmaking NTEE category, all holding roughly $11.7-11.75M in assets — though this reflects asset-size proximity rather than shared program focus, since most peers are pass-through or donor-directed vehicles rather than direct programmatic funders in Oberweiler's four categories.

What distinguishes Oberweiler from this asset-matched peer set is transparency and process: it publishes a full grants list by year and fiscal category on its own website, maintains published guidelines and exclusions, and runs a defined bi-monthly review cycle — none of which is evident for the listed peers, several of which lack even a public website. For grant seekers, this makes Oberweiler unusually researchable relative to same-size foundations, but its invitation-only formal application stage keeps it firmly in the 'high-diligence, relationship-first' tier rather than an open-application funder.

The most concrete recent activity is the published FY2025 grants list (56 grants, $871,100), which shows the Foundation actively funding through at least the 2025-2026 grant years via multi-year commitments — Comer Children's Hospital's Integrative Medicine Program ($40,000/year for 2024, 2025, and 2026) and Brushwood Center at Ryerson Woods' Art and Wellness In Nature program ($25,000/year for 2025 and 2026) are both explicitly structured as renewable, multi-year awards rather than single grants. This is a meaningful operational signal: the Foundation is willing to lock in 2-3 year funding for proven partners, which reduces annual reapplication churn for grantees who reach that tier.

Seasonal/recurring programming continued as well — a fall/winter 2025 grant to Operation Warm funded coats and/or shoes for roughly 400 low-income children in northern Illinois, consistent with prior years' pattern.

No leadership transitions, new program area announcements, or governance changes surfaced in web research; the Foundation's site contains no news or press section, and IRS filing data shows Mary Rowe continuing as Vice President/Executive Director with compensation that has risen steadily across recent years ($154,329 → $165,481 → $185,600), suggesting institutional continuity rather than transition. Founders Siegfried and Anna Weiler remain listed as President and Treasurer respectively. Given the absence of a dedicated news/press page, grant seekers should treat the annual grants-by-year pages as the most reliable proxy for 'what's changing' at this Foundation — shifts in program-area dollar allocation year over year are the clearest available signal of evolving priorities.

Lead with the two-page Letter of Proposal — Oberweiler will not review unsolicited full 'Grant Application' packets, so treat the LOI as the actual gatekeeping document, not a formality. Structure it exactly to match the required components: agency description/history, mission statement, project description (need, execution plan, beneficiaries, evaluation method, and explicit alignment to one of the four funding categories), a financial overview (amount requested, budget breakdown, and other funding sources), and contact information. Because the Foundation explicitly prefers proposals about 'preventing or solving persistent problems, not meeting basic needs,' frame the request around a defined problem and a measurable intervention rather than general operating support — general operating expenses are an explicit exclusion.

Timing matters: the Review Committee meets bi-monthly February through October only. A proposal arriving in November or December will sit until the following February cycle at earliest, so plan submissions for a window that lands ahead of a February, April, June, August, or October committee meeting. Everything moves by regular mail — there is no online portal — so budget for postal transit time on both the initial LOI and, if invited, the formal Chicago Area Common Grant Application (which requires a wet or authorized-officer signature and hard-copy submission).

Common mistakes to avoid: submitting a full grant application unprompted (it will not be considered), reapplying without a fresh proposal letter even if previously funded (there is no auto-renewal), requesting funding for capital projects, building campaigns, or general operations (all explicitly excluded), and applying from outside Cook, Du Page, Kane, Lake, or McHenry counties. If the program serves youth, proactively state child sexual abuse prevention and mandated-reporter training policies — the guidelines page calls this out specifically as something the Foundation checks for.

On alignment language: reference the Foundation's own phrasing — 'unique and innovative solutions,' organizational capacity to 'serve substantial populations,' and (where applicable) how the project 'builds on previously-funded initiatives' or intersects multiple giving categories (e.g., a veteran-serving wellness program touching both the Veterans and Alternative Medicine categories) — since the guidelines explicitly flag cross-category proposals as a plus. Relationship-building matters more than volume here: the grantee data shows repeat, multi-year funding to a relatively small core of trusted partners (BraveHearts, Comer Children's Hospital, Green City Market, Brushwood Center, Friends of the Forest Preserve), so a strong first small grant followed by disciplined quarterly reporting is a more realistic path to meaningful funding than a large first ask.