Peaceful Mind Peaceful Life Inc.

Peaceful Mind Peaceful Life Inc. (PMPL) is not, in practice, an outside-facing grantmaking foundation, and any strategy for engaging it has to start there. Although it is organized and files as a private foundation (990-PF, foundation code 03) with $3.26M in assets as of FY2023, its own filings and public identity point the same direction: this is a Delray Beach, FL operating nonprofit that runs its own mindfulness and emotional-wellbeing programming — workshops for hospitals, universities, and corporations, a "Life Happens" podcast, guided meditations, and (launching 2026) a jointly-branded "Emotional Well-being Toolkit" with The Dandelion Foundation — rather than a vehicle that reviews unsolicited proposals from other nonprofits. Across nine years of available financial data (2012-2023), PMPL reported an actual cash grant to an outside recipient in only three years: $125,000 in 2014, $68,501 in 2018, and $66,750 in 2019 (to Florida Atlantic University Foundation, "to further the charitable purpose"). In the four most recent filed years (2020-2023), grants_paid was $0 every year even as total giving/program expense ran $228,338-$478,559 annually — that spending funds PMPL's own programming, not grantees. The single tracked grantee, FAU Foundation, reads as a program partnership (likely tied to a university workshop series referenced in PMPL's mission language) rather than the output of a competitive grant cycle.

For a grant seeker, the actionable read is: do not treat PMPL as a prospect for a cold letter of inquiry. There is no visible LOI process, RFP, board grant calendar, or funding-priorities statement anywhere on its website or in the directory profiles reviewed (CauseIQ, Grantmakers.io, Foundation Directory Online). The realistic path in is relationship- and program-based, not application-based: institutions that want PMPL's mindfulness programming request it directly through the Contact/Speaking channel, and any money that moves is more likely event sponsorship, in-kind program delivery, or a bespoke partnership than a competitive award. Co-founders Barbara Schmidt (President/Treasurer) and Michelle Maros (Vice President, press contact) are the two working points of contact; Maros handles press and partnerships and is the right first stop for a pitch framed around bringing PMPL's programming to your institution — not one requesting funds from it.

PMPL's grant history is thin by design: only one recipient (FAU Foundation, $66,750 in FY2019) appears in the tracked grantee data, so there is no meaningful median/range across grantees — the meaningful range is across years, where grants_paid swung from $0 (most years) to a high of $125,000 (2014). Total giving/program expense, by contrast, has been consistent and substantial: $195,273 (2012) → $282,335 (2013) → $563,983 (2014) → $448,212 (2018) → $458,389 (2019) → $228,338 (2020) → $444,662 (2021) → $410,388 (2022) → $478,559 (2023). Total assets grew roughly 80x over the period, from $42,961 (2012) to $3,473,195 currently — but that growth is dominated by a single outlier: 2020 contributions_received of $3,223,262, versus a $42,005-$655,049 range in every other year, alongside 2020 revenue of $3,294,784 versus $227,891-$803,960 elsewhere. That pattern reads as one major gift or bequest, not organic fundraising growth, and it is what built the current $3M+ asset base.

Officer compensation has ranged from $0 (unpaid board seats — Schmidt, Kurstin, Loglisci in the most recent filing) up to $251,933 (2019) and $229,992 (2021) in peak years; the current paid-staff structure shows Lauren Shawcross (Secretary, $120,000) and Michelle Maros (Vice President, $109,992 in one filing year, $45,830 in another). Net investment income has run $53,246-$102,963 annually in recent years against a $3M+ asset base — contributions still outweigh investment returns roughly 6:1 to 9:1, indicating an actively fundraising organization rather than one coasting on endowment income. Geographically, the one recorded grantee sits in Florida (FAU, Boca Raton), matching PMPL's own Delray Beach base and its stated "hospitals, universities, and communities at large" footprint. There is no program-area breakdown because there is effectively one historical grantee: the more accurate "funding pattern" is that 100% of FY2023's $478,559 in program spending funded PMPL's own workshops, podcast, and digital content, and 0% went to outside grantees in FY2020-2023.

All six foundations sit within a tight $3.46M-$3.49M asset band and share the Human Services NTEE classification, but PMPL is the outlier in transparency — it is the only one with a public website, named staff, and visible programming, while the five peers have no website on file, a strong signal that they are closed, family-run vehicles that give by trustee discretion rather than through any open process. Even so, PMPL's own grant behavior is closer to these closed peers than to an active open grantmaker: it made $0 in outside grants across FY2020-2023 while $410,000-$479,000/year went to its own programs. For grant seekers, none of these six should be treated as an open-application prospect; PMPL is the only one worth a direct outreach attempt, and that outreach should propose a program partnership, not request funding.

The most concrete recent-activity signal is PMPL's own announcement of an "Emotional Well-being Toolkit," an interactive online platform co-developed with The Dandelion Foundation, described as launching in 2026 to help users "strengthen resilience, care for yourself with compassion, and navigate life's ups and downs." No launch date, press release, or third-party news coverage of the toolkit was found beyond the organization's own site and a Boca Raton-area business directory listing — treat this as a soft community announcement rather than a major media event. Searches for "Peaceful Mind Peaceful Life" news in 2025-2026 turned up no independent journalism, award announcements, or grant-cycle news; nearly every top result outside PMPL's own domains was a same-sounding but unrelated organization (Mind & Life Institute's "PEACE Grants," the separate "Peace of Mind Foundation," and "Peaceful Minds Center" in the same Delray Beach/Boca Raton market) — a naming collision grant seekers should watch for when researching this funder online.

On leadership, PMPL's most recent filed 990 (FY2023) shows Lauren Shawcross as a compensated Secretary ($120,000) alongside Barbara Schmidt continuing as President/Treasurer (unpaid in that filing, though she drew compensation in earlier years). Co-founder Michelle Maros remains the organization's public-facing press and partnerships contact per its current website. No board turnover, merger, or wind-down signal was found. Given zero external grants paid in FY2020-2023, the clearest "recent activity" story is programmatic, not philanthropic: PMPL is investing its post-2020 asset growth into its own content and platform build-out rather than into a resumed outbound grants program.

The single most important tip for PMPL is recognizing there is no formal application to submit. No LOI form, RFP, grants portal, stated funding priorities, deadline, or typical grant range appears anywhere on PMPL's website (About, Contact, or program pages) or in the third-party foundation directories reviewed for this report (CauseIQ, Grantmakers.io, Foundation Directory Online). An "accepting applications" flag in aggregator databases should not be read as evidence of an open cycle — nothing on PMPL's own site supports it, and its 990 grant history (three grant-years in twelve years of filings, none since 2019) confirms this is not an active outbound grants program.

What does work, based on PMPL's own positioning: approach as a program partner, not a funding applicant. PMPL exists to deliver mindfulness/emotional-wellbeing programming to "hospitals, universities, and the communities at large" (its own mission language) — a hospital, school, university wellness office, or employer that wants PMPL to bring a workshop, keynote, or its forthcoming Emotional Well-being Toolkit to their community has a real, documented channel: the Contact page and the Speaking & Events line (operations@peacefulmindpeacefullife.org). That is a request for PMPL's services, not PMPL's money, and it is the only interaction model with evidence behind it.

If a grant seeker's actual goal is funding, the closest documented precedent is the FAU Foundation relationship ($66,750, 2019) — most plausibly a university partnership tied to PMPL's stated campus programming rather than a competitive award. That implies the realistic path to funding is proposing a joint program (a co-branded wellness initiative, a campus or hospital workshop series) that PMPL would fund as an extension of its own mission delivery, not evaluate as a standalone grant application. Lead with Michelle Maros (press/partnerships) rather than Barbara Schmidt (finance-facing President/Treasurer). The common mistake to avoid is sending a generic LOI or grant proposal cold — there is no reviewer or cycle on the other end to receive it, and it will likely go unanswered given the absence of any public intake process.