Oceanfirst Foundation

OceanFirst Foundation is a bank-affiliated corporate foundation, not an independent perpetuity fund — its board is chaired by OceanFirst Bank President/Chairman Christopher D. Maher, and its giving mirrors the bank's community-reinvestment footprint (historically Atlantic, Cape May, Cumberland, Gloucester, Monmouth, and Ocean counties, NJ). That structure shapes everything about how it should be approached: this is a relationship-first, phone-first funder, not a portal-first one. The Foundation explicitly tells applicants the best starting point is a call to its office to discuss the project before any written material is prepared, and staff will tell you upfront whether your request fits, which program to use, and whether it's worth applying at all.

The Foundation strongly favors organizations it already knows. Among its top 50 tracked grantees, the largest recipients — Georgian Court University ($181,750 across 8 grants), Ocean County College Foundation ($175,250 across 8), Atlantic Cape Community College ($170,500 across 5), Fulfill/the regional food bank ($137,500 across 11), and Monmouth University ($111,000 across 5) — are all multi-year, multi-purpose repeat relationships, not one-off project grants. Habitat for Humanity International and Lunch Break each received 22 separate grants. First-time applicants should expect to enter at a small scale (a golf-outing sponsorship, a Good Neighbor Grant, an Acts of Kindness nomination) and build toward larger general-operating support over successive cycles, rather than requesting a large amount on a first ask.

The application track depends on size: requests of $5,001 or more require a Letter of Interest, with a full application invited only if the concept aligns; requests under $5,000 (Good Neighbor Grants) use a simpler one-step form. Community college and university partners channel most of their support through the dedicated annual OceanFirst Scholarship Program rather than general grantmaking. Grants also explicitly fund general operating and administrative capacity, not just discrete programs — the Foundation has publicly stated a preference for flexible, unrestricted funding that lets grantees respond to changing needs, which is unusual discipline for a foundation this size and worth mirroring in proposal language.

On its most recent complete Form 990 (FY2023), OceanFirst Foundation reported $10,650,020 in total assets, $3,123,858 in total giving, and $2,388,355 in grants paid, funded substantially by $863,891 in net investment income (contributions received were negligible at $940). That marks a declining asset base: total assets fell from $12,762,272 in FY2019 to $10,650,020 in FY2023, a roughly 17% contraction over four years, because grants paid ($1.7M-$2.7M/year across that window) have consistently outpaced net investment income in most years — consistent with a foundation built to spend down toward its mission rather than preserve principal in perpetuity. Executive Director Katherine Durante's compensation grew alongside the program, from $228,989 (2019) to $272,791 (2023).

Across the multi-year grantee dataset available (2,070 individual grants totaling $8,653,636), the average grant is $4,181, closely matching the Foundation's self-reported typical grant size (median $2,500; average $4,846; range $100 to $100,000, n=552). That range reflects a bimodal pattern: a large volume of small grants (event sponsorships, matching gifts, $500-$5,000 Good Neighbor-scale awards) alongside a smaller number of five- and six-figure multi-year general-operating and scholarship commitments to anchor partners.

Geographically, the giving is overwhelmingly New Jersey: 1,960 of 2,070 tracked grants (94.7%) went to NJ organizations, with the remainder scattered across PA (48), NY (32), GA (9), MD (5), VA (4), DC (3), MA (3), FL (2), and AZ (2) — almost certainly national intermediaries (e.g., Habitat for Humanity International, Operation Warm) headquartered outside the state rather than a genuine geographic expansion. By purpose, scholarship programs (2021-2023 cycles), general operating/flexible support grants, board and employee matching gifts, and Wavemaker Project Support are the most frequently recurring award categories, with COVID-relief purposes (PPE, vaccination support, food-bank COVID grants) now fully retired from the active mix. Since 1996 the Foundation has cumulatively awarded more than 10,800 grants totaling over $52 million.

OceanFirst Foundation's IRS-reported asset figure of roughly $6.1 million places it in an asset band with several other small private foundations, though none of them are true programmatic peers — the shared NTEE code "Philanthropy & Grantmaking" is a generic catch-all bucket, not a mission match.

Unlike this asset-matched set — none of which have a discernible public website, published priorities, or documented grants pipeline — OceanFirst is a structural outlier: a professionally staffed corporate foundation with a dedicated executive director, published funding priorities, an active news/PR program, and over 2,000 tracked grants. Grant seekers evaluating OceanFirst's true competitive set should instead benchmark it against other New Jersey bank and corporate foundations of similar or larger scale (e.g., Provident Bank Foundation, Valley Bank Foundation, TD Charitable Foundation), which compete for the same regional nonprofit relationships and CRA-aligned giving priorities.

The single most consequential recent development is corporate, not programmatic: on June 1, 2026, OceanFirst Financial Corp. completed its merger with Flushing Financial Corporation alongside a $225 million strategic investment from Warburg Pincus, and as part of that transaction committed to contribute $5 million to OceanFirst Foundation to support nonprofits across the newly combined company's expanded footprint, including New York and Long Island. Against a base of roughly $10-11 million in prior assets, this is close to a doubling of the Foundation's capital and signals both near-term capacity for larger grants and a geographic footprint that may expand beyond the historic six NJ counties — applicants and current grantees in New York/Long Island should watch the Foundation's news page for formal program details.

Programmatically, 2025-2026 activity has followed established seasonal patterns: $97,500 in Summer Camp Grants (June 2026), $25,000 in scholarships to Brookdale Community College students (April 2026), the 18th season launch of the Home Runs for Heroes veteran-support partnership with the Jersey Shore BlueClaws (April 2026, following a 17th season that raised $76,000 by September 2025), and a December 2025 Winter Gathering at Monmouth University convening nonprofit leaders on resilience and sector strategy. Board leadership remains anchored by OceanFirst Bank President/Chairman Christopher D. Maher, with Executive Director Katherine B. Durante continuing to run day-to-day operations; no leadership transition has been publicly reported for the Foundation itself in this window.

Lead with a phone call, not a written proposal. OceanFirst's own guidance is unusually direct: contact the Foundation office at (732) 341-4676 or info@oceanfirstfdn.org before applying, describe your program, and let staff tell you which of its programs fits and whether it's worth submitting. Skipping this step and sending an unsolicited full proposal for a major grant is a common and avoidable mistake, since requests of $5,001 or more require an invited Letter of Interest before a full application is even accepted.

Match your ask size to the right track: use the one-step Good Neighbor Grant application for requests under $5,000 — a faster, lower-friction way for a new organization to establish a first relationship — and reserve the LOI-first Major Grant track for larger, ongoing asks once you have a track record with the Foundation. Frame every request explicitly against one of the four core priorities (Health and Wellness; Housing; Improving Quality of Life; Youth Development and Education) using that exact language, since the Foundation screens for direct alignment rather than adjacency.

Don't undersell unrestricted requests. Executive Director Katherine Durante has publicly emphasized that flexible, general-operating funding lets partners adapt to changing community needs — the grantee data bears this out, with "General Operating/Flexible Support Grant" among the most common recurring purposes across the top 50 grantees. A tightly scoped, narrowly restricted project ask is not obviously preferred over a well-justified operating-support request.

Know the hard exclusions before applying: no funding for individuals, research, non-501(c)(3) organizations, religious congregations, political causes/candidates/campaigns, organizations whose primary purpose is lobbying, or sports leagues/teams. Applicants must also be registered as a NJ charity and be prepared to produce a certified annual audit if their budget requires one under state law — the Foundation independently confirms both.

For event sponsorships specifically, submit at least two months ahead of the event date; late requests are effectively disqualifying given internal review timelines. Higher-education partners should note the scholarship program runs on its own annual cycle (2026 applications closed July 1) coordinated through each partner institution's financial aid office, not through the general grants process. Finally, watch for a wider funding radius following the June 2026 Warburg Pincus/Flushing Financial transaction — the Foundation's $5 million capital infusion is explicitly earmarked to extend into New York/Long Island, so organizations just outside the historic six-county NJ footprint should re-check eligibility rather than assume exclusion.