Pickman Foundation Inc.

Pickman Foundation Inc. is a small, closed-door family foundation (EIN 11-6036666, ruled exempt in 1959) with $3.7-3.9 million in assets, run entirely by unpaid family officers — Teresa Pickman (Secretary/Treasurer, also listed as "Foundation Manager"), James Pickman, and Patricia Spears (both Assistant Secretary/Assistant Treasurer). Multiple third-party trackers (Instrumentl, Candid/Foundation Directory) and the foundation's own Form 990-PF filings describe it as making contributions only to preselected charitable organizations — there is no evidence of an open, competitive application process, and no application_form_url, grants_page_url, or opportunities_url is on file anywhere. Grant seekers should treat this less as an "apply here" opportunity and more as a relationship-cultivation target: visibility with the foundation's known interest areas, plus a warm introduction through an existing grantee or board contact, matters far more than a polished cold LOI. The grantee data shows a small, stable core of 8-10 relationship-based recipients, anchored by a single dominant multi-year commitment to the Museum of Jewish Heritage (four grants totaling $500,000, roughly $125,000/year — 67% of all tracked dollars). Around that anchor sit smaller, likely renewable relationships (Queens Museum, Kingston College Old Boys' Association, Sunnyside Shines) and a handful of single or low-dollar gifts ($1,000-$25,000) that look like the realistic entry point for a new organization — Food Bank For New York City ($5,000), Louis Armstrong House ($1,000), and Queens Defenders ($10,000) all fit this pattern. Geography is 100% New York, with a pronounced Queens/Forest Hills skew: Queens Museum, Queens Library Foundation, Queens Defenders, and Sunnyside Shines (a Sunnyside business-improvement district) together account for roughly 10 of the foundation's 19 tracked grants. Organizations without a Queens/NYC footprint or a fit with Jewish heritage, arts/culture, education, or human services are weak prospects regardless of program quality. Complicating outreach further, the foundation's listed website (pickman.org) does not belong to it at all — the domain currently hosts an unrelated NFT/carbon-credit platform — so there is no functioning web portal or contact form; outreach realistically has to go through the mailing address of record (11821 Queens Blvd, Ste 316, Forest Hills, NY 11375).

Across the grantee-level data on file, Pickman Foundation has made 19 tracked grants totaling $743,500 to 10 recipients, averaging $39,132 per grant. The foundation's own typical-grant-size summary reports a median of $25,000, an average of $41,000, and a range of $5,000-$125,000. Annual charitable disbursements have swung nearly 3x across the filings reviewed — from $132,500 (2022) to $392,750 (FY2025, per ProPublica's most recent filing summary), with other years landing at $153,260 (2011), $220,065 (2013), $378,925 (2014), $237,000 (2019), $179,000 (2020), $205,000 (2021), and $273,500 (2023) — evidence that payout tracks investment performance rather than a fixed annual budget. By recipient, the Museum of Jewish Heritage dominates at 67% of tracked dollars ($500,000 across four $125,000 grants), followed by New York Community Trust at 13% ($100,000, a single gift), Queens Museum at 7% ($50,000 across two $25,000 grants), Anti-Defamation League and Queens Library Foundation each at 3.4% ($25,000 apiece), Kingston College Old Boys' Association at 2.7% ($20,000 across four $5,000 grants), Queens Defenders at 1.3% ($10,000), Sunnyside Shines at 1% ($7,500 across three $2,500 grants), Food Bank For New York City at 0.7% ($5,000), and Louis Armstrong House at 0.1% ($1,000). By cause, roughly 87% of tracked dollars go to arts, culture, and heritage/civic institutions (Museum of Jewish Heritage, Queens Museum, Louis Armstrong House, Queens Library Foundation), versus about 13% to direct human/social services (Food Bank, Queens Defenders, Sunnyside Shines) and about 3% to advocacy (Anti-Defamation League). Geographically, 100% of tracked grants are New York-based, with a hyperlocal concentration in Queens/Forest Hills. Total assets have stayed essentially flat for 14 years — $3.49 million (2019), $3.92 million (2023), $3.7 million (FY2025) — indicating a steady-state legacy foundation distributing roughly what it earns rather than scaling its giving or eroding its corpus.

Pickman sits well above these three peers by asset size — roughly 2.6x The Yu Family Foundation, 4x The Feil Family Foundation, and 9x The Parsons Family Foundation — yet its giving is more concentrated than typical for the tier: a single recipient (Museum of Jewish Heritage) consumes two-thirds of disbursed dollars, whereas small family foundations at similar or smaller asset levels more often spread grants across a broader, less lopsided portfolio. None of the four foundations, Pickman included, publish a public grant portal or list an application process; all are governed by unpaid family members rather than professional program staff, which is the norm rather than the exception among sub-$5M NY family foundations in this NTEE cluster (Education, Philanthropy, Voluntarism & Grantmaking, Human Services). For grantseekers, the practical takeaway is that relationship access — a warm introduction to a Pickman family member, or connection through an existing grantee like Queens Museum or Sunnyside Shines — is likely to outperform any cold-outreach strategy across this entire peer set.

The most recent verifiable activity is Pickman Foundation's FY2025 Form 990-PF, filed 2025-09-29 per ProPublica's Nonprofit Explorer summary: charitable disbursements rose to $392,750, up 44% from $273,500 in FY2023, even as total assets slipped to $3.7 million (from $3.92 million) and the foundation posted a net investment loss of -$210,201 for the year — meaning it distributed more than it earned rather than cutting back. No leadership changes were identified: Teresa Pickman continues as Secretary/Treasurer (now also listed as "Foundation Manager" in more recent filings), with James Pickman and Patricia Spears continuing as Assistant Secretary/Assistant Treasurer; all three remain uncompensated across every filing year reviewed (2011-2025). No press releases, news coverage, award announcements, grant-recipient press, or social media activity attributable to the foundation were found in web searches — consistent with a closed, family-run structure with no public-facing communications function. Notably, the foundation's listed website, pickman.org, is not actually controlled by the foundation: the domain currently hosts an unrelated commercial NFT platform ("PICKMAN," a carbon-credit/sloth-conservation NFT project) with no mention of the foundation, suggesting a lapsed domain registration since repurposed by a third party, or a stale web-enrichment record that should be corrected. Grantseekers should not expect any digital footprint to monitor for new-priority signals; the most authoritative and current source of information remains the foundation's IRS Form 990-PF filings (EIN 11-6036666), with the next itemized filing for FY2025/2026 activity expected to become searchable via ProPublica and Candid in mid-to-late 2026.

There is no confirmed open application process for this foundation — Instrumentl, Candid/Foundation Directory, and the foundation's own filing pattern all point to a preselected-recipients-only model, and any "accepting applications" flag seen elsewhere should be treated with skepticism given the absence of a listed application_form_url, grants_page_url, or opportunities_url. Do not submit a cold, unsolicited full proposal — there is nowhere confirmed to send one, and the foundation's nominal website (pickman.org) is not actually its site (it currently belongs to an unrelated NFT venture), so there is no working web contact form. Because roughly 87% of disbursed dollars track back to a tiny group of long-standing recipients (Museum of Jewish Heritage, New York Community Trust, Queens Museum), the realistic opening for a new organization sits at the $1,000-$10,000 tier occupied by Food Bank For New York City, Louis Armstrong House, and Queens Defenders — not the $25,000-$125,000 tier reserved for anchor relationships. Best-fit prospects are Queens-based civic and cultural nonprofits, NYC Jewish heritage/history/education institutions, and hyperlocal Forest Hills/Sunnyside human-services or business-improvement-district-style organizations (mirroring Sunnyside Shines' three recurring $2,500 grants). With only three unpaid family officers and no professional program staff, relationship-building is the only realistic channel: seek introductions through shared board members or donors, attend events hosted by existing grantees like the Museum of Jewish Heritage or Queens Museum, or route an inquiry through the Queens nonprofit network (e.g., via contacts at Sunnyside Shines or Queens Library Foundation) rather than a direct cold letter. If reaching out directly regardless, use the filed mailing address — 11821 Queens Blvd, Ste 316, Forest Hills, NY 11375 — since no working phone (the filed number, "7 3770 3.4," is malformed in IRS records) or email is confirmed. Keep any pitch hyperlocal or Jewish-heritage-specific rather than framed around national programs; the Anti-Defamation League grant ($25,000) is the foundation's only explicitly advocacy-oriented, non-hyperlocal gift. A common mistake to avoid: assuming this behaves like a mid-size institutional funder with a fixed review cycle — giving has swung nearly 3x year to year ($132,500 to $392,750) based on investment performance, so funding availability itself is unpredictable, and repeat gifts likely reflect informal renewal rather than a formal multi-year grant agreement.