Prim Family Foundation

Prim Family Foundation is a small, closely held Winston-Salem, NC family foundation (EIN 81-4289471, tax-exempt since June 2017) run entirely by unpaid family/associate directors: President Billy D. Prim, Secretary Sarcanda Bellisimo, and Treasurer Richard Brenner. With total assets of roughly $910,024 and typical annual giving in the $100,000-$320,000 range, this is not a foundation with a formal, public-facing grants program — its own listed website (prim.org) currently resolves to a parked domain with no accessible grants portal, and no aggregator (Instrumentl, Grantable, Cause IQ, Grantmakers.io) has ever surfaced a published application form or LOI process for it. The foundation's own data marks it as accepting funding requests only from preselected charitable organizations, and third-party databases explicitly note it does not solicit or accept unsolicited proposals.

What this means practically: cold applications through a portal are not the path in. The realistic route is relationship-based — the grantee list is dominated (30 of 36 tracked grants, 83%) by Winston-Salem/Forsyth County, NC organizations, several tied directly to the Prim family's personal and professional network (Wake Forest University, the Dean Prim Scholarship Fund via the Winston-Salem Foundation, Brenner Children's Hospital — a namesake echo of Treasurer Richard Brenner). First-time applicants should not expect a cold LOI to succeed; instead, build visibility through Winston-Salem civic, faith, education, and health-nonprofit circles, since that is demonstrably where the foundation's attention already sits. Organizations outside NC have been funded (Ohio, California, Florida each appear in the grantee mix), so a national or out-of-state fit is possible but rare, and likely traces back to a personal connection rather than a geographic program.

The realistic relationship progression for an organization that isn't already in the Prim network is: (1) get introduced through a shared board member, the Winston-Salem Foundation, or a mutual grantee (e.g., Second Harvest Food Bank, Greater Winston-Salem Foundation Minority Business Enterprise); (2) demonstrate local NC impact with measurable outcomes, since general-operating gifts dominate ('FOR GENERAL USE' is the stated purpose on essentially every tracked grant); (3) expect a single named contact relationship rather than a program-officer review process, given the three-person all-volunteer board.

Total giving has grown unevenly: $92,586 (2019) → $113,192 (2020) → $64,602 (2021) → $107,457 (2022) → $123,559 (2023), then jumped sharply to an estimated $279,000 (2024) and $316,500-$320,900 (2025) per third-party 990 aggregation not yet reflected in the core database. Grants paid (distinct from total giving, which includes admin costs) tracked similarly: $91,100 (2019), $109,200 (2020), $62,000 (2021), $105,650 (2022), $106,000 (2023).

Grant size has bifurcated over time. Across the 36 grants in the platform's tracked grantee history, the average award is just $8,903 (total $320,500), with most individual gifts clustering under $5,000 — many as small as $200-$2,500 (Ethan Crews-Campus Crusades for Christ, $200; North Oak Ridge Baptist Church, $2,000; Old Hickory Council BSA, $2,500). The foundation's own stated typical_grant_size data shows a median of $7,500 and a range of $200-$50,000. But the two most recent filing years (2024-2025) show a materially different pattern: fewer, larger checks — 11 grants per year averaging roughly $24,000-$25,000, with the single largest identified gift ($135,705 to APSEED Early Childhood Education in 2024) exceeding the foundation's own historical maximum by nearly 3x.

Geographically, North Carolina dominates with 30 of 36 tracked grants (83%), followed by Ohio (3, 8%), California (2, 6%), and Florida (1, 3%) — consistent with the foundation's stated geographic_focus of NC, OH, and FL. By purpose, every tracked grant in the database carries the identical label 'FOR GENERAL USE,' indicating the foundation does not restrict funding to specific programs and prefers unrestricted operating support. Notable repeat relationships include Second Harvest Food Bank ($50,000 across 2 grants), the Greater Winston-Salem Foundation Minority Business Enterprise ($50,000 across 2 grants), the Monterey Peninsula Foundation ($40,000 across 2 grants, California), and the Dean Prim Scholarship Fund ($25,000 across 2 grants, a direct family-name vehicle housed at the Winston-Salem Foundation).

These five peers were matched to Prim Family Foundation almost entirely on asset size — each sits within roughly $400 of Prim's $910,024 in total assets, and all share the generic 'Philanthropy & Grantmaking' NTEE classification that private family foundations default to on IRS filings, rather than any programmatic similarity. None of the five peers has a public website on record, so none discloses an application process, grantee list, or funding focus that can be independently verified. The practical takeaway is that Prim Family Foundation is best understood not against these asset-matched peers but as one of thousands of sub-$1M, all-volunteer family foundations nationally — small, closely held, unstaffed, and giving almost entirely to organizations already known personally to its three directors.

The most concrete recent signal is financial rather than programmatic: net assets swelled to an estimated $1.4 million in 2024 before falling back to $910,024 by the 2025 filing, as the foundation distributed roughly 98.6% of that year's expenses as charitable grants (per ProPublica's read of the most recent Form 990-PF). That pattern — a contribution-driven asset spike followed by a large payout — is typical of a founder (Billy D. Prim) making an irregular personal contribution to the corpus and directing a larger-than-usual distribution the following cycle, rather than the foundation adopting a new program.

No leadership changes were found: Billy D. Prim (President), Sarcanda Bellisimo (Secretary), and Richard Brenner (Treasurer) have held the same roles, uncompensated, across every filing year reviewed. No new program announcements, press releases, or media coverage of the foundation were identified in web search — searches for 'Prim Family Foundation' news repeatedly surfaced results for the unrelated, much larger Priem Family Foundation (Curtis Priem's NVIDIA-founder foundation in Burlingame, CA), underscoring that Prim Family Foundation itself generates essentially no press or public communications. Its listed website, prim.org, is currently a parked domain with no accessible content — consistent with the platform's own 'website_status: parked' flag.

The closest thing to a 2024-2025 program signal is the grantee mix itself: APSEED Early Childhood Education ($135,705), City Lights Ministry ($50,000), and Love Out Loud ($28,500) were the three largest identified 2024 recipients, suggesting continued interest in early-childhood education and Winston-Salem-area faith/community organizations consistent with the foundation's historical pattern.

There is no public LOI form, online portal, deadline, or published guidelines for Prim Family Foundation — this is a closed, relationship-driven family foundation, and grant seekers should calibrate expectations accordingly rather than treating it like a program-officer-staffed institutional funder.

• Do not lead with a cold, generic proposal mailed or emailed to a general inbox; with an all-volunteer, three-person board and a parked website, there is no infrastructure to process unsolicited submissions, and third-party databases confirm the foundation limits funding to preselected organizations.
• Prioritize Winston-Salem/Forsyth County, NC positioning. 83% of tracked grants (30 of 36) go to NC organizations, and the foundation's own geographic_focus data confirms NC, OH, and FL as the operative footprint — an out-of-state applicant with no NC tie is a long shot.
• Look for an indirect path in through the Winston-Salem Foundation, which already hosts at least two Prim-affiliated vehicles (the Dean Prim Scholarship Fund and the Wierman Community Vision Fund) that received Prim Family Foundation grants — a warm introduction through that community foundation's network is more promising than a direct approach.
• Frame any ask as general operating support, not a restricted program grant — every tracked grant purpose in the platform's data reads 'FOR GENERAL USE,' indicating the foundation trusts grantees to allocate funds rather than requiring detailed program budgets.
• Target the mid-size range the foundation has shifted toward: 2024-2025 filings show an $24,000-$25,000 average award (versus a $7,500 historical median), so a request in the $10,000-$50,000 band is more realistic than either a token ask or a six-figure proposal (though the $135,705 APSEED gift shows outsized asks are possible for a deeply trusted relationship).
• The most common mistake would be investing in a polished formal application package aimed at a portal that doesn't exist — resources are better spent on board-level introductions, since a name like the Dean Prim Scholarship Fund signals this foundation operates on personal ties, not competitive review.
• Since the foundation shows repeat, multi-year giving to organizations it already trusts (Second Harvest Food Bank, Abc of NC Foundation, Susan G Komen Foundation all received 2-3 grants each), a first small connection — even indirect, through a shared community event or board member — is more likely to compound into future support than a one-time large ask.