Purjes Foundation

The Purjes Foundation is a two-person, family-run operation — Dan Purjes (President) and Edna Purjes (Vice President) both draw $0 compensation and appear to manage every grant decision personally, with no program staff, published LOI form, or online portal (application_process and application_form_url are both blank in IRS filings; the website offers only a general contact form). That structure means proposals function less like a grants-department pipeline and more like a direct pitch to the founders, so alignment with their personal story matters as much as institutional credentials. Dan Purjes reversed his own heart disease through a whole-food, plant-based diet after a 2011 heart attack, and the Foundation's entire mission — 'fund greater public awareness to the benefits of a whole foods, plant-based lifestyle' — flows from that experience. The strongest-funded relationships are academic medical centers and clinical researchers who can generate rigorous, peer-reviewed evidence: NYU Medical Center (cardiovascular inflammation trial), the University of Florida College of Medicine (physician nutrition education), and The Sylvia Center, which alone has received five grants totaling $264,000 for health education — the single largest grantee relationship on record. A second tier includes nutrition-focused nonprofits and media projects: the Plantrician Project (co-publisher of the Foundation's own International Journal of Disease Reversal & Prevention), the Esselstyn Foundation, and the documentary 'Eating You Alive,' which the Foundation acquired and distributed directly rather than simply funding a grantee. First-time applicants should not expect a fast, transactional process — grant records show 125 total gifts averaging just $4,878, with a small number of five-and six-figure commitments sustained over multiple years alongside a long tail of sub-$1,000 personal gifts (Wikipedia, local Vermont and Sarasota-area causes, Jewish and Israeli charities) that reflect the Purjeses' personal networks rather than an open competitive program. Organizations most likely to break in are those that can supply clinical or public-health data on plant-based nutrition, that are willing to start with a modest first gift and build the relationship over several cycles, and that engage directly by phone or the website contact form rather than waiting for a formal RFP that does not exist.

Total assets stood at $10,980,617 in FY2023 (most recent full financial year in the data), essentially flat with $11,000,903 in FY2022, on a foundation with $11.3M in reported total asset value overall. Grantmaking has been volatile and growing off a very low base: FY2023 total giving was $392,081 ($204,705 in grants paid), up from FY2022's $198,042 ($152,466 paid), FY2021's $96,191, FY2020's $28,592, and FY2019's $37,829 — a more than 13x increase in giving from FY2020 to FY2023. A third-party 990 tracker (Instrumentl) reports 19 grants totaling roughly $150,000 in the most recent filed year, with the IRS-reported typical grant size for that year showing a median of just $300, an average of $4,200, and a range of $26 to $50,000 — evidence of a sharply bimodal distribution. Across the fuller multi-year grantee history in this dataset (125 grants, $609,778 total, $4,878 average), funding concentrates heavily in health and nutrition: The Sylvia Center ($264,000 across 5 grants, health education), UF Foundation ($90,000 across 3 grants, health advancement), Montefiore Health System ($50,000, one grant to a nonprofit medical center), Esselstyn Foundation ($30,000 across 4 grants, nutrition/health awareness), and The Plantrician Project ($15,000, nutrition education) — together roughly $449,000, or about 74% of total tracked giving. A secondary tier funds environment and sustainable food systems (Ethos Farm Project, $49,000 across 3 grants; Greenleaf Foundation, $11,000 across 3 grants for recycling), and a long tail of small, personally-connected gifts under $3,000 each supports arts (Sarasota Orchestra, $20,300), Jewish and Israeli causes (Jewish National Fund, AFMDA, IDF-NY, roughly $2,500 each), and hyper-local Vermont and Utah community groups. Geographically, grants cluster in New York (27 grants), Florida (22), Vermont (17), California (14), and Utah (13) — a footprint that tracks the Purjes family's residences (Longboat Key, FL) and personal ties rather than a defined national program.

The Purjes Foundation sits in a cluster of similarly-sized, roughly $11.3M-asset Philanthropy & Grantmaking-classified foundations, but stands out for having an unusually specific, evidence-driven health mission rather than a generalist or undefined one.

All five peers are asset-matched almost to the dollar ($11.30M-$11.31M) but are generically classified as 'Philanthropy & Grantmaking' with no public mission statement, website content, or program detail in the available data — a common signature of small, closely-held family foundations that give quietly through personal networks. The Purjes Foundation is the outlier in this peer set: it is the only one with a published mission, a public website with program pages, named leadership (Dan and Edna Purjes) engaged in public-facing advocacy, and a specific, documented funding thesis around plant-based nutrition and disease reversal. Grant seekers should treat all peers as effectively closed to cold outreach absent a personal connection, while the Purjes Foundation, despite also being founder-managed, is comparatively more approachable because of its public website and stated mission.

Available records do not show fresh 2025-2026 press coverage or a news page on the Foundation's own website, so recent activity is best read through its FY2023 filing (the latest complete financial year in this dataset) and its ongoing signature programs. Total giving jumped to $392,081 in FY2023 from $198,042 in FY2022, and third-party 990 trackers (Instrumentl, Grantable) report roughly 19 grants totaling about $150,000 in the most recently filed year, continuing a multi-year climb from a FY2020 low of $28,592. The Foundation's most durable recent initiative is the International Journal of Disease Reversal & Prevention, launched with the Plantrician Project as a peer-reviewed, open-access outlet for plant-based nutrition research; the Purjes Foundation committed to covering 50% of its initial costs and continues to solicit co-funding from physicians and healthcare professionals through the Plantrician Project's network of roughly 30,000 clinicians. The Foundation also continues to support the NYU Medical Center cardiovascular inflammation trial and a University of Florida College of Medicine partnership on physician nutrition education, and it distributes the documentary film 'Eating You Alive.' Leadership remains unchanged and concentrated: Dan Purjes (President) and Edna Purjes (Vice President) are the only listed officers, both uncompensated, indicating no staff turnover or governance changes to track. Grant seekers should not expect a public announcements page or press cadence from this funder — engagement is personal and low-visibility rather than press-driven.

There is no published RFP, LOI form, deadline, or online application portal — IRS filings list the application process and application form URL as blank, and the website's only contact mechanism is a general name/email/phone/message form. Treat any outreach as a direct pitch to Dan and Edna Purjes rather than a submission into a review pipeline. Given that both founders are unpaid and hands-on, keep initial contact short, personal, and grounded in evidence: cite peer-reviewed or clinical data on plant-based nutrition's impact on disease prevention or reversal wherever possible, since the Foundation's two largest funded projects (the NYU inflammation trial and the disease-reversal journal) are both built around generating and publishing exactly that kind of evidence. Lead with alignment language drawn directly from their mission — 'whole foods, plant-based lifestyle,' 'disease reversal and prevention,' 'environmental improvement,' and 'animal welfare' — since these are the four named program areas on their own site. A common mistake would be pitching general nutrition or wellness programming without a disease-reversal or clinical-evidence angle; the data shows a strong preference for organizations working in cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and chronic disease research over generalist health education. Because 125 tracked grants average only $4,878, and the IRS-reported median grant size is just $300, first-time applicants — especially those without an existing relationship — should expect to start with a modest ask rather than requesting a flagship-size gift; the largest relationships (Sylvia Center, UF Foundation) were built through repeat, multi-year gifts rather than a single large award. Given the geographic concentration of smaller gifts in New York, Florida, Vermont, Utah, and California, organizations based in or serving those states, or with a personal introduction through the Purjeses' existing network (Plantrician Project, plant-based medicine physicians, Sarasota-area arts and community groups), likely have an easier path to a first conversation. There is no evidence of site visits, formal board review cycles, or multi-stage LOI-to-proposal progression — relationship-building appears to happen informally and directly with the founders, so a warm introduction or a well-targeted email referencing their published mission and prior grantees is more likely to get a response than a cold, generic proposal.