Otter Cove Foundation

Otter Cove Foundation is a small, family-run private foundation ($9.39M in assets) headquartered in Carmel, CA, and controlled by the Read family: James P. Read Jr. (President, unpaid), Gilan M. Read (Director/CFO, $55,000/year — the foundation's only compensated position), plus Secretary Mark Plumley and Director Megan G. Lindberg. Critically, the foundation's own IRS-linked record flags `preselected_only: true` and lists application instructions as none — it gives only to organizations it has already identified, and there is no public LOI process, portal, or deadline to target. This is not a competitive RFP funder; it is a relationship-driven checkbook for a small circle of causes the Read family already knows.

The grantee history confirms this: across the top 50 grants on record (36 grants, $1,905,000 total), just 13 organizations appear, and the top four alone — Think Wild (5 grants/$500,000), The Marine Mammal Center (4 grants/$350,000), All Saints Episcopal Day School (4 grants/$350,000), and SPCA of Monterey County (3 grants/$270,000) — account for 77% of all dollars given. Average grants-per-organization is 2.8, meaning once Otter Cove funds a group, it tends to fund it repeatedly over years rather than making one-off gifts.

For a first-time, unsolicited applicant, there is effectively no direct path in. The realistic strategy is proximity and introduction: align with the foundation's established niches (wildlife/marine mammal rescue, independent K-12 and college education, equine therapy, rangeland conservation) in its established geographies (Monterey Peninsula/Central Coast CA and Bend, Central Oregon), and pursue a warm board introduction — through Cal Poly, Sweet Briar College, Robert Louis Stevenson School, or the Community Foundation for Monterey County, which received a new $25,000 grant in 2024 and may function as an intermediary/donor-advised entry point. Cold mail or emailed proposals to a foundation with no listed contact email and a lapsed public website are very unlikely to be reviewed.

Otter Cove's giving is investment-income funded, not donor-replenished: contributions received have been $0 in every year from 2019 through 2023, and the foundation's revenue closely tracks net investment income ($605,599 of $627,101 total revenue in FY2023). Assets have grown slowly and steadily from $6.46M (2011) to $9.39M (2024) on compounding returns rather than new gifts.

Grants paid have ranged from $220,000 (FY2021, a COVID-era trough) to $966,000 (FY2013), with recent years at $265,000 (2019), $300,000 (2020), $220,000 (2021), $460,000 (2022), and $465,000 (2023). In FY2024, per third-party 990 aggregators, the foundation paid just $325,000 across only 4 grants — Stevenson School, Think Wild, and The Marine Mammal Center at $100,000 each, plus $25,000 to Community Foundation for Monterey County — for an average grant size of $81,250, well above the foundation's stated typical range (min $5,000, median $37,500, average $50,000, max $100,000 across a 6-grant recent cohort).

By cause, of the $1,905,000 tracked across the historical top-50 grantee list: roughly 65% ($1,230,000) has gone to animal welfare and wildlife rescue (Think Wild, The Marine Mammal Center, SPCA of Monterey County, Xenophon Therapeutic Riding Center, Animal Assisted Happiness, Peace of Mind Dog Rescue), 29% ($550,000) to education (All Saints Episcopal Day School, Robert Louis Stevenson School, Cal Poly athletic scholarships, Sweet Briar College), 5% ($100,000) to environmental conservation (California Rangeland Trust, California Ocean Science Trust), and roughly 1% ($25,000) to human services (Meals on Wheels of the Monterey Peninsula).

Geographically, the historical grantee sample skews 81% California (29 of 36 grants), 14% Oregon (5 grants, concentrated in Think Wild/Bend), and 5% Virginia (2 grants to Sweet Briar College, likely a personal/alumni tie for a board member). Officer compensation has been flat at $55,000/year since at least 2011, underscoring a lean, no-program-staff operating model with all grantmaking decisions made directly by the family board.

This peer set was matched almost exclusively on asset size — all five peers sit within $10,000 of Otter Cove's $9.39M in assets, and all are classified under the same Philanthropy & Grantmaking NTEE category, which typically indicates small, closely held family or trust vehicles rather than institutions with public program staff or published guidelines. None of the five peers have annual giving, focus-area, or application-process data available in public aggregator records, and only Winmar Foundation maintains a discoverable live website — reinforcing that Otter Cove's closed, relationship-based model is the norm, not the exception, at this asset tier.

The most recent verifiable grantmaking is FY2024: four grants totaling $325,000, split evenly at $100,000 each to Stevenson School (Pebble Beach, CA), Think Wild (Bend, OR), and The Marine Mammal Center (Sausalito, CA), plus a new $25,000 grant to Community Foundation for Monterey County. This is a sharp contraction from 9 grants in 2023 and 8 in 2022, but a rise in average grant size (from roughly $50,000-$60,000 per grant historically to $81,250 in 2024) — consistent with a foundation narrowing to fewer, deeper relationships rather than reducing generosity to existing partners.

No leadership changes, new program announcements, or press coverage were found for 2025-2026; the foundation does not appear to issue press releases or maintain active social media (social_media field is null in its own record). Notably, the domain associated with the foundation, ottercove.org, currently resolves to an unrelated business (a public aquatic park in Illinois), suggesting the foundation either never had a substantive public website or has since let its domain lapse/get reassigned — a further sign that Otter Cove operates as a quiet, closely held family vehicle rather than a publicly engaged grantmaker. Last IRS/990 data refresh in the underlying record is dated July 23, 2026, with foundation profile enrichment last touched February 22, 2026.

Because Otter Cove Foundation self-identifies as preselected-only with no published application process, form, deadline, or contact email, the single most important tip is: do not spend resources on a cold LOI or emailed proposal — there is no evidence any get reviewed. Instead:

• Build proximity, not paperwork. The foundation's giving is entirely relationship-driven around the Read family's known interests: wildlife/marine mammal rescue (Think Wild, The Marine Mammal Center), independent K-12 and college education (All Saints Episcopal Day School, Robert Louis Stevenson School, Cal Poly, Sweet Briar College), equine therapy (Xenophon Therapeutic Riding Center), and Central Coast CA conservation (California Rangeland Trust). Organizations outside these categories have essentially no track record of funding here.
• Use the Community Foundation for Monterey County as a possible side door. Its appearance as a new $25,000 recipient in 2024 suggests Otter Cove may be willing to fund smaller or newer causes through a trusted community-foundation intermediary rather than granting directly — worth a direct conversation with that community foundation's donor-advised fund team if you're Monterey County-based.
• Geographic fit is non-negotiable for a first look: 81% of tracked grants go to California (concentrated on the Monterey Peninsula/Central Coast), 14% to Oregon (specifically Bend/Central Oregon), and a small remainder to Virginia via an apparent personal board connection to Sweet Briar College. An organization outside these regions faces a materially higher bar.
• Expect multi-year relationships, not one-time gifts. The top four grantees average nearly 3 grants each over time; if a relationship does form, plan for it to be a recurring, multi-year partnership rather than a single grant to budget around.
• A common mistake would be treating this like a typical foundation with a portal — spending time building a full grant application package for a funder that has never published one is wasted effort. The better use of time is identifying and cultivating a personal introduction to James P. Read Jr., Gilan M. Read, Mark Plumley, or Megan G. Lindberg, or to one of the existing grantee organizations (Think Wild, The Marine Mammal Center, Robert Louis Stevenson School) who may be able to make a warm referral.
• Confirm current status by phone before assuming anything has changed — (831) 233-4962 is the number associated with this EIN in public directories — since the foundation's own web presence is stale or absent.