Ogden Family Foundation

The Ogden Family Foundation is a closely held, family-operated private foundation, not a program-staffed grantmaking institution seeking a broad applicant pool. All four listed officers -- Roger H. Ogden (President), Kenneth W. Barnes (Vice President), Roger Hadfield Ogden II (Treasurer), and Michelle Kehoe Ogden (Secretary) -- draw zero compensation, a strong signal this is an unpaid family vehicle run out of the family's own network rather than a professionally administered foundation with open review cycles.

Grantee data spanning 2019-2024 shows a heavy concentration around organizations with a pre-existing personal relationship to the Ogden family. Ogden Museum of Southern Art Inc. -- the institution Roger H. Ogden personally founded with his own art collection in 2003 -- received $1,100,500 across four grants, roughly 62% of all tracked giving ($1,782,353 across 24 grants). LSU Foundation received $331,453 across four grants earmarked for specific initiatives (equine health studies, a studio arts building, general giving), again consistent with donor-directed relationship giving rather than a competitive RFP process.

For applicants without an existing tie to the family, board, or these flagship grantees, this is a difficult foundation to break into cold. The IRS Form 990 lists the application-instructions field as blank ("__none__"), with no published funding cycle, deadline, or application form. Its nominal website domain (ogdenfamilyfoundation.org) currently resolves to an unrelated Las Vegas, NV nonprofit of the same name -- meaning there is effectively no public-facing application portal for the actual New Orleans foundation, reinforcing that this is a relationship-driven funder.

That said, the grant list shows the foundation does support a range of causes beyond its two anchor grantees -- Children's Hospital New Orleans ($200,000, single gift), Arts Council of New Orleans ($100,000), and a dozen smaller grants ($1,000-$10,000) to New Orleans-area schools, arts nonprofits, and community organizations (Isidore Newman School, Trinity Episcopal School, NOCCA Foundation, Prospect New Orleans, Bayou Community Foundation for post-Hurricane Ida relief). The realistic path in is a warm introduction through the New Orleans arts, education, or civic-philanthropy community -- likely via the Greater New Orleans Foundation, LSU, or the Ogden Museum's own network -- rather than a direct unsolicited proposal.

Annual giving has been remarkably stable and modest relative to the foundation's $9.89 million asset base (FY2024): $480,000 (2024), $439,500-$466,141 (2023), $476,000-$538,734 (2022), $493,274-$538,223 (2021), $416,953-$465,641 (2020), and $432,626-$488,489 (2019) -- figures vary slightly between grants-paid and total-giving line items across sources but cluster tightly in the $420K-$540K/year range for six consecutive years, a payout ratio of roughly 4.5%-5.5% of assets, near the IRS 5% private-foundation minimum.

Grant size is bimodal. The IRS-derived typical grant size shows a median of just $3,500 against an average of $49,327 (min $1,000, max $267,874) -- meaning most individual checks are small, sub-$10,000 gifts to New Orleans schools and community nonprofits, while a handful of large, multi-year commitments to two anchor grantees account for the bulk of total dollars. Across the tracked 24-grant, six-year sample, the top two grantees alone -- Ogden Museum of Southern Art ($1,100,500 / 4 grants) and LSU Foundation ($331,453 / 4 grants) -- account for $1,431,953, or 80% of the $1,782,353 total tracked giving.

Geographically, giving is almost entirely Louisiana-based: 22 of 24 tracked grants went to LA organizations, with single outliers to Maryland (1 grant) and Montana (1 grant, to the Big Hole River Foundation, a fly-fishing/river-conservation nonprofit -- likely a family member's personal interest rather than a programmatic geographic expansion). By program area, arts and culture (Ogden Museum, Arts Council of New Orleans, NOCCA Foundation, Prospect New Orleans) and higher-education/institutional support (LSU Foundation) dominate, with smaller allocations to K-12 education (Isidore Newman School, Trinity Episcopal School, Academy of Sacred Heart), health (Children's Hospital New Orleans, $200,000), and disaster relief (Bayou Community Foundation Ida relief, $1,000). There is no visible year-over-year growth trend or new program area emerging in the public record.

The Ogden Family Foundation sits in a tight cluster of roughly $9.8M-$10M-asset private foundations classified under Education, but its actual behavior -- concentrated arts/culture and institutional giving driven by one family's personal ties -- looks more like a family legacy vehicle than a typical education funder.

All six foundations sit within a roughly $110K asset band ($9.84M-$9.95M) and share the Education NTEE classification, but only two of five peers maintain any public web presence, and none show a published application form in the available dataset. This pattern -- small, closely held, sub-$10M family foundations with little or no public application infrastructure -- appears to be the norm for this peer set, not an outlier specific to Ogden; grant seekers should expect the same warm-introduction dynamic across most of these funders rather than treating Ogden's closed process as unusual.

Because this foundation publishes no application form, deadline, or funding cycle (its Form 990 application-instructions field is blank), the standard cold-proposal playbook will not work here. Practical, funder-specific guidance based on the observable giving pattern:

• Lead with a warm introduction, not a cold LOI. Every large grant in the tracked history went to an organization with a documented pre-existing relationship to the Ogden family (the museum Roger Ogden personally founded; LSU, a major Louisiana institutional relationship; New Orleans schools in the family's social network). Without a board-level or personal connection to the Ogden family, prioritize building one through shared boards (Greater New Orleans Foundation, LSU Foundation, New Orleans arts institutions) before applying.
• Anchor any proposal in New Orleans or Louisiana. 22 of 24 tracked grants (92%) stayed in-state; a proposal from an out-of-state organization without a specific, compelling personal tie (as with the Montana river-conservation gift) is a long shot.
• Right-size the ask. The realistic range for a first gift from this funder, absent an existing flagship relationship, is $1,000-$10,000 -- the range that covers most of its smaller, broader-based grants (Trinity Episcopal School, NOCCA Foundation, Bio District New Orleans, etc.). Six-figure asks appear reserved for the two anchor institutional relationships (Ogden Museum, LSU Foundation).
• Align with arts/culture, education, or civic/community causes -- the program areas that account for essentially all tracked giving. Health and disaster relief appear only opportunistically (Children's Hospital New Orleans single $200,000 gift; Bayou Community Foundation Ida relief, $1,000).
• Do not rely on the ogdenfamilyfoundation.org domain -- it currently belongs to an unrelated Las Vegas nonprofit of the same name. Verify any contact information independently via the Form 990's listed address (460 Broadway St, New Orleans, LA 70118) or phone (504-866-9757) before sending materials, and expect that mail to a generic address without a personal contact may go unanswered.
• Common mistake to avoid: treating this like an open, competitive grants program. The data strongly suggests a closed, relationship-driven model -- spend effort on relationship-building, not on polishing an unsolicited proposal package.