Performing Arts Foundation Inc.

Performing Arts Foundation Inc. (EIN 13-6149781) is a small, Philadelphia-based private foundation founded in 1964 and run entirely by members of the Rottenberg family — Daniel Rottenberg (President/Chair), Barbara R. Rottenberg (Vice President), Julie L. Rottenberg and Lisa R. Yellin (Directors), and Sharon Trulock (Secretary) — all serving without compensation. With roughly $3.9-4.1 million in assets and no paid staff, this is a classic closed-network family foundation, not an institution built to process unsolicited applications. Public filings list no application form, no published guidelines, and no grants-page URL, and IRS data marks the application-instructions field blank. Grant seekers should not expect an LOI portal or open RFP cycle.

The grantee pattern is the clearest guide to strategy: of roughly 400 tracked grants totaling $904,437, a large share are small, recurring gifts (frequently $1,000-$5,000, repeated across three or four consecutive years) to a stable set of organizations — Broad Street Review (a Philadelphia performing-arts criticism nonprofit, $318,074 across the dataset), Macjannet Foundation, Tiferet Center, International House Philadelphia, Arts Place and Jay County Historical Society (Indiana), and Society Hill Synagogue. This is a foundation that builds long relationships with a fixed circle rather than rotating funding among new applicants each cycle.

For a first-time applicant, the realistic path in is a personal or institutional connection to the Rottenberg/Yellin family network, to Philadelphia's Center City arts and Jewish-community ecosystem, or to genealogical/cultural-preservation organizations (several grantees are Jewish genealogical societies — JewishGen, JRI Poland, Gesher Galicia — a recurring, specific interest of the trustees). Organizations without such a connection should treat this as a long-shot, low-priority target rather than a core prospect: 68% of tracked grants (206 of 400) went to Pennsylvania recipients and another 30% (122) to New York, so geographic and community proximity strongly predicts funding.

Financial filings from 2010-2022 show remarkably stable operations: total assets have held in a narrow $4.1-4.6 million band, total giving has ranged $260,000-$344,000 per year, and grants paid have run $189,000-$250,000 annually. The most recent available filing (FYE August 2025) shows assets down slightly to $3.9 million, with 67 grants totaling approximately $224,321 — consistent with the long-term pattern, if trending modestly lower as the asset base has drawn down. Officer compensation is $0 across every filing year, and net investment income (not new contributions) drives essentially all revenue growth; contributions received are $0 in nearly every year on record, meaning this is a legacy endowed foundation rather than one raising new money.

Grant size varies enormously and skews small: across the tracked 400-grant dataset, the average grant is $2,261, but the typical (median) grant recorded in the foundation's own reported data is just $250, with a maximum single grant of $75,037 and 95 distinct award instances captured. The top grantee, Broad Street Review, alone accounts for over one-third of tracked dollars ($318,074 of $904,437), indicating a heavily concentrated giving pattern rather than broad-based distribution — a small number of anchor relationships absorb most of the money, while dozens of smaller recipients receive token gifts of $1,000-$5,000.

Geographically, Pennsylvania (206 of 400 grants, 51.5%) and New York (122, 30.5%) dominate, with much smaller allocations to Indiana (12), Massachusetts (10), California (7), Alabama (6), Connecticut (6), New Jersey (6), Florida (4), and Missouri (4) — a footprint reflecting family ties (the Indiana grants to Arts Place and Jay County Historical Society suggest a family origin or connection there) more than a deliberate national program. By purpose, nearly every tracked grant in the underlying data is coded simply 'Support and Assistance,' with no finer program-area breakdown available, reinforcing that this is general operating/annual support to known partners rather than project-specific competitive grantmaking.

Performing Arts Foundation Inc. sits squarely in a peer cluster of small, asset-matched ($3.9-4.0M) Arts & Culture foundations, most of which are similarly named after or tied to a single family (Freelander, Silver, Wideman). None of the five peers has a website or published grants program in this dataset, and several — like the Wideman Trust, which names its beneficiary (Notre Dame) directly in its legal name — are effectively single-recipient or narrow-network vehicles rather than competitive grantmakers. This peer set confirms that Performing Arts Foundation Inc.'s closed, relationship-driven pattern is the norm, not the exception, for foundations of this size and category — grant seekers should expect the same dynamic (no portal, no RFP, personal-network access only) across most of this peer group.

No foundation-specific press coverage, leadership changes, or program announcements for Performing Arts Foundation Inc. (EIN 13-6149781, Philadelphia) turned up in web searches for 2025-2026 — consistent with its profile as a small, unstaffed family foundation with no communications function. Search results for similarly named organizations (a Sarasota, FL 'Performing Arts Foundation' tied to the Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall, EIN 23-7240695, and others in Kansas City and Hanover) are unrelated entities and should not be confused with this foundation; notably, the website on file in this foundation's database record (performingartsfoundation.org) actually belongs to the Sarasota organization, an apparent data-matching error worth flagging rather than relying on for outreach.

The most concrete recent data point is the foundation's fiscal-year-2025 Form 990-PF (year ended August 2025), which shows total assets of $3,909,061, total revenue of $219,004 (almost entirely investment income and realized gains, not new contributions), total expenses of $306,560, and 67 grants disbursed totaling roughly $224,321 — in line with the prior decade's giving levels ($260K-$344K/year from 2010-2022). The board of trustees (Daniel Rottenberg, Barbara R. Rottenberg, Julie L. Rottenberg, Lisa R. Yellin, Sharon Trulock) appears stable and unchanged, with no compensation reported in any year of available filings, and no evidence of new hires, a new program area, or a strategic redirection.

There is no published application process for this foundation — no LOI portal, no online form, no listed deadline, and no grants-program staff to contact. The single most important tip is therefore realistic self-assessment: organizations without an existing relationship to the Rottenberg/Yellin family, Philadelphia's Center City nonprofit and Jewish-community network, or the specific cause areas already funded (performing-arts criticism/journalism, Jewish genealogy and cultural preservation, civil-liberties/legal-advocacy nonprofits, and a handful of Indiana community institutions) should treat this as a low-probability, low-priority prospect rather than a core funding target.

For organizations that do have a plausible connection, timing should follow the foundation's fiscal year (filings run September-August, with FY2025 ending August 2025), suggesting grant decisions and disbursements likely cluster in mid-to-late fiscal year; there is no evidence of a competitive cycle to time around. Given that the average tracked grant is $2,261 and the median is just $250, first-time or peripheral contacts should calibrate expectations toward a modest annual gift ($1,000-$5,000) rather than a large capital or program grant — the $75,037 maximum and outlier grants like the $318,074 cumulative support to Broad Street Review reflect long, deep relationships built over years, not first-ask amounts.

The most common mistake would be treating this like a standard institutional funder: sending a generic LOI to a general email address, citing NTEE code 'Arts & Culture' as sole justification for fit, or expecting a formal review committee. Because the board is five unpaid family members reading correspondence personally, any outreach should be addressed by name (Daniel Rottenberg, President, care of Spitz & Greenstein CPAs, 1315 Walnut St. Suite 904, Philadelphia, PA 19107), be concise, and — ideally — come through a warm introduction from an existing grantee or shared community contact (e.g., another Jewish genealogical organization, a Philadelphia performing-arts or cultural institution, or a legal-advocacy nonprofit already in the portfolio) rather than a cold submission. Referencing specific past grantees the organization resembles (e.g., 'like Broad Street Review, we cover local performing arts criticism') will land better than generic mission alignment language.