Peery Foundation

The Peery Foundation operates on an inverted grantmaking model: it proactively identifies organizations it wants to fund rather than reviewing inbound applications. This family-run foundation, chaired by San Jose real estate developer Richard T. Peery and administered by family members in uncompensated roles, has stated explicitly that it "cannot respond to inquiries" and does not accept unsolicited proposals of any kind. Understanding this constraint is the essential first step for any organization seeking Peery support.

The foundation's giving philosophy, historically articulated through former Executive Director Jessamyn Shams-Lau, is rooted in treating grantees as clients rather than supplicants. This "grantee-centric philanthropy" prioritizes organizational dignity, unrestricted funding, streamlined due diligence (four hours or less), and trust. The foundation works only with organizations it trusts implicitly and will not ask organizations to reshape their work to fit funder priorities.

Three distinct portfolios define where Peery places its capital: (1) Local — East Palo Alto-based capacity building for at-risk youth, where community stakeholder input drives programming choices and the foundation has historically shifted focus (from education to housing) when community need demanded it; (2) Regional — early- to mid-stage social entrepreneurs scaling across the San Francisco Bay Area, or proven models from other regions entering the Bay; and (3) Global — market-based approaches to poverty alleviation serving vulnerable, rural, and marginalized communities worldwide.

Grant history confirms this framework: Community Legal Services in East Palo Alto ($252,500 across two grants), Counseling and Support Services for Youth ($250,000), Center for Employment Opportunities ($100,000), Eastside College Preparatory School ($100,000), and Amal Academy ($100,000) are characteristic local and regional recipients. Global grantees — Friends of Raising the Village ($100,000) and Street Business School ($100,000) — reflect the market-based, economic-empowerment orientation.

For first-time organizations, the realistic path to Peery consideration is indirect: build relationships with current grantees in the East Palo Alto ecosystem, engage with Philanthropic Ventures Foundation (PVF) — the Bay Area DAF through which ~$2.85M of 2024 giving was routed — and invest in visibility within South Bay/Peninsula nonprofit networks where the Peery family is active. A cold approach will not succeed. Organizations should focus on establishing a track record that makes them discoverable by a foundation that prefers to come to them.

The Peery Foundation's asset base has grown substantially from $43.7M (2012) to $64.1M (2024), a 47% increase over twelve years, indicating that the foundation has been building endowment while maintaining relatively restrained distributions. Total giving in 2024 was approximately $2.97M compared to $4.05M in 2019 — the high-water mark of the recent period — meaning the foundation is currently distributing roughly 4.6% of assets annually, near but not significantly above the 5% private foundation minimum.

Annual giving has been notably volatile across the record: - 2019: $4.05M (recent peak) - 2020: $3.72M - 2021: $805K (apparent pause or strategic review) - 2022: $1.03M (early recovery) - 2023: $2.61M (resumed fuller grantmaking) - 2024: ~$2.97M (continued but intermediary-concentrated)

Grants paid on a cash basis diverged sharply from total giving in 2021, when only $23,500 was disbursed against $805K total giving, suggesting deferred commitments or internal transfers. The 2019 grants-paid figure of $2.1M and 2023 figure of $2.4M reflect more normalized direct disbursement cycles.

At the individual grant level, the average across 61 tracked transactions is $87,775, but this is heavily skewed by $3.63M to Deseret Trust Company (Peery Family Fund — an internal family transfer, not a programmatic grant). Excluding that internal transfer, the programmatic median sits closer to $100,000 for major direct relationships.

Observed grant tiers: - Small/pass-through: $500–$4,000 (Grantmakers for Effective Organizations, Capital Research Center, holiday fund contributions) - Mid-tier: $10,000–$42,000 (Hoover Institution, Muttville, Palo Alto Weekly Holiday Fund, St. John's High School) - Major programmatic: $100,000–$252,500 (Community Legal Services, CSSY, Center for Employment Opportunities, Starvista, Sunnyvale Community Services) - Intermediary/DAF: $200,000–$2.85M (Lapacho Fund, Philanthropic Ventures Foundation)

Geographically, California accounts for 62% of tracked grants (38 of 61), with Utah (10%), New York (8%), and Washington DC (7%) following. Despite its Midway, UT mailing address, Peery is operationally a Bay Area foundation. The 2024 concentration of ~98% of giving through PVF is the most significant pattern shift in the data and may signal a lasting structural change.

The table below compares Peery Foundation to four peer foundations with overlapping focus areas in social entrepreneurship, Bay Area poverty, and capacity building. Asset and giving figures for peer foundations are approximate, drawn from publicly available 990 data and foundation websites.

The Peery Foundation occupies a distinctive middle tier in the Bay Area philanthropic ecosystem: large enough at $64M in assets to sustain meaningful multi-year commitments, but small enough to maintain a highly relationship-driven, family-governed model without professional program staff evaluating competitive proposals. Unlike Draper Richards Kaplan (which accepts open LOIs from social entrepreneurs globally) or Tipping Point Community (which runs a public competitive cycle), Peery provides no formal entry point for unsolicited organizations. For organizations aligned with East Palo Alto community development or Bay Area social entrepreneurship seeking accessible analogues, Tipping Point Community and Sobrato Philanthropies serve overlapping geographies with open application pathways and are the most viable alternatives when pursuing Bay Area family-foundation capital.

No public announcements, press releases, or grant disclosures were identified for 2025 or 2026. The Peery Foundation maintains one of the lowest public profiles among foundations of its asset size, with no active social media presence, no news page on its website, and no external communications identified since at least 2022.

The most significant observable recent development is the 2024 990-PF, which shows approximately $2.85M — about 96% of total charitable disbursements — flowing to Philanthropic Ventures Foundation (PVF), a Bay Area-based donor-advised fund sponsor headquartered in Oakland. The remaining direct grants were modest: $25,000 to Stanford Stroke Center, $10,000 each to Hoover Institution, Bay Area Friendship Circle, and Weira Inc., and $5,000 to Capital Research Center. This marks a substantial departure from 2019-2023, when the foundation made dozens of direct programmatic grants to East Palo Alto organizations, Bay Area social entrepreneurs, and global antipoverty nonprofits.

In 2021, grantmaking dropped to its lowest recorded level — $805,000 in total giving and just $23,500 in grants paid — suggesting a strategic review or leadership transition. The subsequent recovery to $2.6M (2023) and ~$3M (2024) has been channeled through intermediaries rather than direct grantees.

Historically, the most prominent public action from Peery was co-signing a Skoll Foundation-organized open letter in early 2017 calling on President Trump to rescind Executive Order 13769 (the travel ban) — one of very few times the foundation's name appeared in public discourse. The Peery family has no known recent public statements, speaking engagements, or philanthropic commentary identified for 2024-2026. Total staff headcount is reported at four employees, and all six board positions are held by Peery family members at $0 compensation.

Applying to the Peery Foundation in the conventional sense is not possible. The foundation does not accept unsolicited letters of inquiry, proposals, emails, or phone inquiries, and has stated explicitly that it will not respond to them. Any organization that contacts the foundation directly seeking funding will not receive a reply and will not advance its candidacy. This is the operative reality, not a formality to work around.

The Philanthropic Ventures Foundation pathway. Given that approximately $2.85M of 2024 Peery giving was routed through Philanthropic Ventures Foundation (PVF), engaging PVF as an intermediary is currently the most structurally aligned route. PVF is a Bay Area-based DAF sponsor that works with a wide range of nonprofits. Organizations that already have a relationship with PVF — or can cultivate one — gain indirect proximity to the capital Peery is routing through it.

Peer referral strategy. The foundation explicitly values trust and peer credibility over credentials. A referral from an existing Peery grantee carries significant weight. Priority referral targets include organizations in the foundation's recent grantee history: Community Legal Services in East Palo Alto, Counseling and Support Services for Youth, Sunnyvale Community Services, Eastside College Preparatory School, Starvista (Menlo Atherton program), Street Business School, Amal Academy, and Friends of Raising the Village. Warm introductions through any of these organizations are the most viable informal pathway.

Community ecosystem presence. The foundation's local portfolio is explicitly community-driven and stakeholder-responsive. Organizations operating in East Palo Alto, Palo Alto, Menlo Park, or Redwood City — particularly in youth education, family services, or economic mobility — should invest in visibility at local convenings, coalition tables, and shared funder events where the Peery family or their advisors are likely to engage.

Language alignment. When the opportunity for any conversation arises, lead with: community co-design, stakeholder-driven programming, organizational self-determination, long-term sustainability, and unrestricted-use flexibility. Avoid metrics-heavy impact reports and deliverables-focused grant language, which runs counter to the foundation's stated grantee-centric values. Peery has been explicit that it does not ask organizations to adjust their work to fit funder priorities.

Portfolio specificity. Be precise about which portfolio your work fits — East Palo Alto local, Bay Area regional scaling, or global market-based poverty. Misalignment on geography or organizational stage will disqualify even strong organizations that reach the right contact.