Overlake Foundation Inc.

Overlake Foundation Inc. is a small, closely held Victoria, Texas family foundation ($7.47M in assets per its foundation record, $7.15M per the FY2024 Form 990-PF) run entirely by unpaid family trustees — President Steven C. Anderson, Secretary/Treasurer Thomas L. Keller, and VP/Assistant Treasurer Michael S. Anderson. Its own IRS filing states plainly that the foundation 'has not adopted' a grant, scholarship, fellowship, or loan program and would only 'develop appropriate forms and procedures' if it ever did — in practice, Overlake operates as a discretionary, trustee-directed giving vehicle, not an open competitive grantmaker. There is no public grants portal, no published RFP, no staff, and — despite the website URL attached to its record — no working foundation website; overlake.org actually belongs to The Overlake School in Redmond, Washington and has no connection to this foundation.

The clearest signal in the data is relationship persistence. Of the 105 grants reflected in the recent multi-year record, 100 went to Texas organizations, almost all clustered in Victoria County and the surrounding Golden Crescent (Refugio, Goliad, Mission Valley, Meyersville). The large majority of recipients — including six local human-service groups (Food Bank of the Golden Crescent, Mid-Coast Family Services, Victoria County Senior Citizens Association, Community Action Committee, Refugio County Elderly Services, Victoria Christian Assistance) and three area volunteer fire departments — appear with grant_count: 4, each receiving an identical dollar amount every cycle, evidence of standing annual commitments rather than one-off competitive awards. First-time, unsolicited applicants, especially from outside the Golden Crescent, are not represented anywhere in the visible grantee history.

For organizations that fit the pattern — locally rooted Victoria-area nonprofits, especially faith-affiliated ministries, health/human-services safety-net providers, and youth or education programs — the realistic path in is a personal introduction to a trustee or a direct written letter to the foundation's PO Box, not a portal submission. A small number of outside groups with a compelling Christian-ministry or medical-research angle (Careity Foundation in Houston, Barrow Neurological Foundation in Phoenix) have broken in, but at a fraction of the cumulative dollars reserved for the core Victoria County circle.

Overlake's giving has grown steadily but modestly: grants paid rose from $259,384 in FY2010 to $531,000 in FY2022, and the most recent available filing (FY2024) shows $508,500 across 28 awards. Total giving has tracked in the $425,000-$593,445 band every year since 2013, funded entirely by investment income — contributions_received is $0 in every filing year on record, confirming this is a static endowed vehicle with no outside fundraising.

Grant size varies sharply by tier. The foundation's own typical_grant_size record shows a median of $7,000, an average of $22,596, and a range of $1,500-$100,000 across 26 grants in a snapshot year. The fuller multi-year grantee list (105 grants, $2,181,613 total, average $20,777) shows the same tiering structure: a top tier of 8-10 organizations receiving $65,000-$425,000 in cumulative multi-year support — Turning Point ($425,000/4 grants), Northside Baptist Church ($260,000/4), Horsemen For Christ ($185,000/4), Cutting Edge Retirement Foundation ($175,000/4), Careity Foundation ($145,000/4), Grace House Ministries ($135,000/4), Heart Of Tx Therapeutic Riding Ctr ($105,000/4), and Rivertree Academy ($105,000/3); a middle tier of local Golden Crescent human-service nonprofits receiving a standing $9,000/year ($36,000 across 4 cycles) — Food Bank of the Golden Crescent, Mid-Coast Family Services, Victoria County Senior Citizens Association, Community Action Committee, Refugio County Elderly Services, Victoria Christian Assistance; and a broad base tier of volunteer fire departments and small local groups receiving $1,500/year ($6,000 across 4 cycles) — Fannin, Quail Creek, and Raisin Volunteer Fire Departments among them.

Geographically, 100 of 105 grants (95%) went to Texas organizations, overwhelmingly within Victoria County and the Golden Crescent; 4 went to California and 1 to Arizona (Barrow Neurological Foundation, $8,334). By IRS purpose code, nearly every grant in the record — including the fire departments and church gifts — is filed under the single category 'CHARITABLE/EDUCATIONAL,' and the foundation's own focus_areas tag is simply 'Community Development,' so the underlying data does not break spending out by program area the way a larger institutional funder would. The pattern instead reads as a portfolio of standing local commitments plus a handful of larger discretionary gifts to causes the trustees favor personally: faith ministries, equine therapy, and medical research.

Overlake sits at the small end of the Victoria, Texas funder cluster — nearly identical in asset size to the Kathryn O'Connor Foundation but giving roughly 15-20% less annually and concentrating its dollars in a narrower circle of standing local relationships rather than the broader Golden Crescent grantmaking O'Connor is associated with. It is two orders of magnitude smaller than the region's dominant funder, the M.G. & Lillie A. Johnson Foundation, which runs a formal request/LOI process; Overlake, like the Welder foundation, has no such process, no deadlines, and no online forms, which makes relationship access far more decisive than proposal polish for prospective applicants.

No independent news coverage, press releases, or leadership-change reporting on Overlake Foundation Inc. was found in this research — searches returned only third-party grant-database profiles (Instrumentl, Cause IQ, GuideStar, Grantable, ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer) rather than news articles. That absence is itself informative: Overlake operates with essentially zero public visibility, consistent with a closely held family vehicle that does not seek attention.

The most current verifiable activity is the FY2024 Form 990-PF, which shows total assets of $7,153,285 and $508,500 distributed across 28 grants — in line with the $531,000 paid in FY2022 and the decade-long upward trend from $259,384 in FY2010. Leadership has been stable throughout the period on record: Steven C. Anderson (President), Thomas L. Keller (Secretary/Treasurer), and Michael S. Anderson (VP/Assistant Treasurer), all unpaid, with $0 officer compensation reported in every filing year. No new program announcements, staff hires, or strategic pivots surfaced in this research.

Given the total absence of outward communication, grant seekers should not expect a responsive digital presence — no active social media, no annual report, and, despite the website URL attached to the foundation's record, no actual working foundation website (overlake.org is registered to an unrelated Washington State private school). Any outreach should be planned around the PO Box 2549, Victoria, TX 77902 mailing address and the (361) 573-7361 phone number on file, treating this as a traditional paper- and phone-based small family foundation rather than a digitally accessible one.

Overlake's own Form 990-PF states outright that it 'has not adopted' a grant, scholarship, fellowship, or loan program and would only create forms and procedures if it ever did — take this literally. There is no LOI portal, no downloadable application, and no published RFP cycle; the 'application_deadline' field in its IRS record simply reads 'AS STATED ABOVE,' pointing back to that same boilerplate. Do not spend time hunting for an online form that does not exist.

1. Lead with locality. Every large or recurring grantee in the visible record is based in or directly serves Victoria County or the immediate Golden Crescent region (Refugio, Goliad, Mission Valley, Meyersville, Schroeder). Organizations without a genuine Victoria-area presence or service population have essentially no funding track record here, aside from a small number of larger, mission-specific outliers (Careity Foundation in Houston, Barrow Neurological Foundation in Phoenix).

2. Build a personal relationship before writing anything. With three unpaid family trustees and no staff, funding decisions almost certainly run through personal familiarity rather than a competitive review committee. A warm introduction to Steven C. Anderson, Thomas L. Keller, or Michael S. Anderson — through a shared board member, church, or community organization — will matter more than proposal polish.

3. If faith-affiliated, say so plainly. Churches and Christian ministries (Northside Baptist Church, Horsemen For Christ, Grace House Ministries) account for a substantial share of top-tier dollars. Secular human-service and youth organizations are also funded, but explicit Christian mission language appears to resonate with this donor family.

4. Expect a multi-year relationship, not a single grant. The recurring $9,000/year and $1,500/year 'sustaining' tiers suggest that once an organization is in the circle, support repeats annually with little friction — the harder step is the first ask, not the renewal.

5. Reach out by mail or phone, not email. No contact_email is on file; use PO Box 2549, Victoria, TX 77902 or (361) 573-7361. Keep any letter concise — the FY2024 filing (28 grants, $508,500) shows the foundation is still active and issuing checks, just informal in process.

6. Do not rely on overlake.org. That domain belongs to an unrelated Washington State private school; nothing on it pertains to this foundation, and citing it in outreach could undermine credibility.