Penney Family Fund

Penney Family Fund runs on trust-based philanthropy: it does not accept unsolicited proposals, and every dollar flows through relationships the board and its outside grantmaking advisor cultivate directly. As of 2026 the program contact is Amanda Plasencia at Third Plateau Social Impact Strategies (amanda@thirdplateau.com); IRS filings list Berkeley-based Common Counsel Foundation as the fund's administrative address, suggesting the fund leans on fiscal-sponsor/advisory infrastructure rather than in-house program staff. Governance sits with a small, all-family, uncompensated board: co-presidents Luisa Adrianzen-Guyer and Maraya Keny-Guyer, treasurer Jordan Keny-Guyer, secretary Alissa Huntington, and trustees Marion Guyer, Jeff Malachowsky, Nate Huntington, Sarah Malachowsky, Tom Huntington, Diana Trump, and Alissa Keny-Guyer.

The fund uses four grant types, and where an organization enters matters more than the pitch itself. 'Learning & Relationship Building' grants are the on-ramp for new partners: the grantee history shows these landing at $25,000-$55,000 (Nm Caf $55,000; We Are Down Home $50,000; Earth Care $50,000; Partnership for Southern Equity $50,000), typically as a single-year check while the board evaluates fit. Organizations that clear that bar graduate into multi-year 'Partnership Grants' — the largest cumulative relationships in the data (Georgia Shift, $140,000 across 5 grants; Chinese Progressive Association's Black Futures Lab, $135,000 across 5; Momentum Community, $135,000 across 5) show the fund re-upping general support year over year rather than issuing one-off awards. 'Rapid Response' grants (COVID relief, bail funds, abortion access, typically $10,000-$15,000, minimal reporting) and small 'Discretionary' allocations tied to individual board members' personal giving round out the model.

Because there is no proposal template, applicants who do get invited should reuse materials already built for another funder — the fund explicitly asks for that rather than a Penney-specific narrative. First-time applicants should expect the fund to favor fiscally sponsored, grassroots-led organizing groups (several route through Tides Foundation) over large institutional 501(c)(3)s, and to weight lived proximity to the issue as heavily as track record or budget size.

Annual giving has swung with investment performance rather than following a smooth growth curve. Grants paid: $270,000 (FY2019) → $351,000 (FY2020) → $641,200 (FY2021, the peak year) → $295,500 (FY2022, a steep pullback) → $545,000 (FY2023). Total giving (grants plus grant-related expense) tracked the same arc: $441,686 → $495,236 → $832,121 → $455,311 → $712,283. The FY2021 spike coincides with a banner investment year ($749,955 in net investment income against $9.08M in assets); FY2022's drop to $295,500 came as net investment income fell to just $34,250. FY2024 total revenue was $425,206, but grants-paid and total-giving figures were not yet broken out in available filing data — the most recent Form 990 was filed November 5, 2025. Assets have held in a narrow $6.8M-$9.1M band for a decade, standing at $7,046,650 as of FY2024.

At the grant level, the fund's own typical-grant-size calculation (30 sampled grants) puts the median at $25,000, average $21,373, and range $200-$45,000. The broader tracked dataset of 132 grants totaling $2,535,200 shows an average of $19,206 per grant — consistent with a shop that writes many modest checks rather than a few large ones.

Geographically, California dominates at 39 of 131 tracked grants (30%), followed by Georgia (18, 13.7%), Oregon (17, 13%), New Mexico (15, 11.5%), Arizona (14, 10.7%), North Carolina (12, 9.2%), New York (6, 4.6%), DC and Massachusetts (4 each, 3.1%), and Texas (2, 1.5%) — a footprint matching the fund's stated preference for 'high-impact states with...less philanthropic funding' rather than coastal-metro concentration. By program, Racial Justice work anchors the largest relationships (Georgia Shift, Black Futures Lab/Chinese Progressive Association, One Arizona, Black Voters Matter, Nava Education Project), while Economic & Environmental Justice grants cluster around water, climate, and land-based organizing (Community Water Center, NC Climate Justice Collective, Oregon Rural Action, Tó Nizhóni Ání).

All five peers sit within about $150,000 of Penney's $7.05M asset base, making them the closest size cohort in the dataset, but IRS records classify each under the generic 'Education' NTEE code — a filing-level default that doesn't capture Penney's actual racial- and environmental-justice mission, and none of the peer records surfaced a public grants program page, application portal, or focus statement comparable to Penney's. That contrast is itself informative: Penney is unusually transparent for a foundation this size, publishing named program pillars, a grantmaking-philosophy page, and a public grantee list, while peers of similar asset size appear to operate with little to no public-facing grants infrastructure — reinforcing that small single-family foundations near the $7M tier are almost universally closed, relationship-driven funders rather than open RFP shops.

No 2025-2026 press coverage, leadership announcements, or new program launches turned up in web searches — this is a low-profile, seven-figure family foundation that doesn't issue press releases. The most concrete recent-activity signal is administrative: the fund's most recent Form 990 was filed November 5, 2025, and the public grantee-facing contact has shifted to Amanda Plasencia at Third Plateau Social Impact Strategies (amanda@thirdplateau.com), while IRS records still list Berkeley's Common Counsel Foundation as the fund's mailing address — indicating some transition in outside philanthropic-advisory support in recent years, though an exact date isn't published.

The larger known inflection point remains 2021, when the fund consolidated what had been several narrower giving categories — Green Pathways Out of Poverty, Movement Building, and Youth Organizing & Leadership Development — into the two current pillars, Racial Justice and Economic & Environmental Justice, per the fund's own grantee-partners history page. Grants tagged '2022-Present' and '2023-Present' (Black Futures Lab, Rural Arizona Engagement/RAZE, Tó Nizhóni Ání, NC Climate Justice Collective) confirm those two pillars remain the fund's live giving categories as of this report. Absent a published multi-year strategic plan or active news cycle, applicants should treat the 2021 pivot and the FY2021 giving peak ($641,200, since settling back toward $500,000-$550,000 in FY2023) as the most reliable read on where the fund's current appetite sits.

1. Don't cold-apply. The fund is explicit that it 'does not accept unsolicited proposals.' The only documented channel is Amanda Plasencia at Third Plateau Social Impact Strategies (amanda@thirdplateau.com); the realistic path in is a warm introduction from an existing grantee, a shared fiscal sponsor (Tides Foundation appears repeatedly), or visibility within the fund's priority-state networks (AZ, GA, NC, NM, OR).

2. If invited, don't build a custom packet — reuse whatever proposal and budget materials were prepared for a different funder. The fund states it wants exactly that, not a bespoke Penney-specific narrative.

3. Lead with grassroots proximity and multi-racial coalition framing, not institutional scale. Reviewers respond to 'people closest to the problem,' place-based organizing, and voter/civic-engagement work in under-resourced states — not national brand recognition. For the Economic & Environmental Justice pillar, use the fund's own vocabulary: 'just transition,' 'regenerative economy,' 'worker protections in the green economy,' and 'equity mapping' for advocacy-based work.

4. Right-size the ask. With a $25,000 median grant and a $200-$45,000 range on sampled grants, requests above roughly $50,000-$60,000 sit outside the fund's typical single-year pattern — larger cumulative totals ($100,000+) only accrue across multiple years of renewal.

5. Expect general operating support, not restricted project funding — 'General Support' and 'General Operating Support' purposes dominate the grantee list — and expect light reporting once funded; the fund's trust-based model avoids mandated templates or heavy logic-model reporting.

6. Fiscal sponsorship is fine. A meaningful share of listed grantees route through Tides Foundation or similar fiscal sponsors rather than holding independent 501(c)(3) status, so newer or smaller organizing groups shouldn't self-select out for lacking their own determination letter.

7. Play the long game. The largest relationships in the data (Georgia Shift, Black Futures Lab, Momentum Community) built to $135,000-$140,000 only after 4-5 separate grants over several years — treat any first grant as a Learning-Grant-stage test, not a ceiling.