Rankin Foundation

The Rankin Foundation (EIN 92-0766808) is a young, unstaffed family private foundation formed in April 2023 and run entirely by three family members — Yeming S. Rankin (President), Aaron E. Rankin (Secretary/Treasurer), and Judith Rankin (Director) — none of whom draw compensation. There is no program staff, no published guidelines, no LOI portal, and no application form; the IRS record lists application instructions as "none." This is functionally a closed, founder-directed vehicle, not an open community foundation. Important caveat for applicants: the website on file for this EIN, rankinfoundation.org, actually belongs to an unrelated organization — the Jeannette Rankin Women's Scholarship Fund of Athens, GA — and should not be contacted expecting a response about this foundation's grants; its info@rankinfoundation.org address reaches that scholarship fund, not the Chicago family foundation. In its first three tax years, the Rankin Foundation has funded exactly three organizations across six grants totaling $840,000: Carnegie Mellon University ($600,000, 2024-2025, climate-adaptation engineering), The Pew Charitable Trusts ($200,000, 2023-2024, offshore-wind supply-chain policy work in Louisiana), and March Fourth ($40,000, 2023-2024, mass-shooting-awareness education). That pattern — large research universities and established national policy nonprofits, not grassroots or first-year charities — is the clearest signal of what this board actually funds. First-time applicants should assume there is no realistic cold-LOI pathway; the practical path in is a warm introduction tied to climate/engineering research (the emerging flagship interest) or gun-violence-prevention education (a smaller, apparently closed-out interest), addressed directly to one of the three named family trustees rather than a generic "grants office." Given the zero-staff structure, expect any relationship to move informally — a short concept note and a personal connection will do more than a polished formal proposal.

Total lifetime giving since 2023 formation: $840,000 across 6 grants to just 3 grantees (per aggregated 990-PF data; the platform's own matched-grantee record captures only 2 of the 6 disclosed grants). Grant size ranges from $20,000 (March Fourth, 2023) to $300,000 (Carnegie Mellon, single grants in both 2024 and 2025), with a median/typical grant size of roughly $100,000. By recipient: Carnegie Mellon University has received $600,000 (71% of lifetime giving) across two identical-sized $300,000 gifts to its "Engineering Resilience for Climate Adaptation Fund"; The Pew Charitable Trusts has received $200,000 (24%) across two grants, including a documented $93,000 award for Louisiana offshore-wind supply-chain technical assistance; and March Fourth has received $40,000 (5%) across two $20,000 grants for mass-shooting-awareness education and convenings. By subject area, climate/energy-resilience work (Pew + Carnegie Mellon) accounts for roughly 95% of all dollars granted, with gun-violence-prevention education a minor secondary line. Financials show a foundation still building its asset base: total assets grew from $1,709,039 (FY2022) to $3,046,074 (FY2023) to approximately $4,095,780 (FY2025), funded mainly by contributions from the Rankin family ($1,933,430 in FY2022 and $1,285,143 in FY2023) plus investment income (net investment income of $1,721,520 in FY2022 and $1,399,366 in FY2023). Grants paid have scaled with the corpus: $0 paid in FY2022 (a startup year with total giving of only $12,496, likely excise tax/fees), $240,000 paid in FY2023 against total giving of $348,218, and a $300,000 grant recorded for FY2025. Geographically, grant dollars flow entirely out of state — to Pennsylvania (Carnegie Mellon, Pew) and national organizations — despite the foundation's Chicago, IL domicile, indicating no local/Illinois giving preference.

The platform's peer set groups the Rankin Foundation with four other "Philanthropy & Grantmaking" (NTEE T20) private foundations matched on nearly identical asset size (~$4.1M); none of the five have a public website on file, consistent with the closed, family-run structure typical of this asset tier.

None of the four peer foundations publish a website, mission statement, or grantee list in the platform's data bundle, which itself is the key comparative finding: at this ~$4M asset tier, unstaffed family foundations overwhelmingly forgo any public grant infrastructure, and Rankin's zero-portal, three-trustee, invitation-only model is the norm rather than an outlier. Grant seekers should expect the same closed posture — relationship-based access, not open applications — from any foundation in this peer cohort, and should prioritize identifying a personal connection to a trustee over drafting a cold proposal.

The most recent confirmed activity is a $300,000 grant to Carnegie Mellon University's "Engineering Resilience for Climate Adaptation Fund," recorded on the foundation's FY2025 Form 990-PF (filed April 7, 2026) — the second identical-sized gift to that same CMU fund following an initial $300,000 grant in 2024. This is the foundation's largest and most recent disclosed award, and it confirms Carnegie Mellon has become the board's primary, recurring grant relationship rather than a one-time gift. No press coverage, leadership changes, or new program announcements were found for the Rankin Foundation itself in 2025-2026 searches; the foundation maintains no public communications presence, no news page, and no social media. The FY2025 snapshot (per Cause IQ) shows total assets of $4,095,780, total revenue of $185,780 (down from $1.4M-$1.7M in the two prior fiscal years, as investment income normalized after the initial contribution-heavy startup years), and total expenses of $328,494. Two other identified grants — to The Pew Charitable Trusts (2023-2024, offshore-wind supply-chain work) and March Fourth (2023-2024, gun-violence-awareness education) — have not repeated since 2024, suggesting those relationships may have been one-time or short-term commitments rather than ongoing ones, in contrast to the deepening Carnegie Mellon relationship.

This foundation publishes no application form, no LOI process, no deadline, and no program guidelines — the IRS record explicitly lists application instructions as "none." Do not attempt to apply through rankinfoundation.org; that domain belongs to an unrelated scholarship nonprofit (the Jeannette Rankin Women's Scholarship Fund) and any inquiry sent to its info@rankinfoundation.org address will not reach the Rankin family or their foundation. Given the zero-staff, three-trustee structure, the realistic path to funding is a warm introduction to Yeming S. Rankin, Aaron E. Rankin, or Judith Rankin, not a cold submission. The foundation's actual funding record — two consecutive $300,000 gifts to Carnegie Mellon's climate-adaptation engineering fund, plus earlier grants to Pew (offshore-wind supply-chain policy) and March Fourth (gun-violence-awareness education) — suggests the trustees respond to personal or professional ties to specific institutions and named funds rather than general subject-area appeals; organizations without an existing relationship to a named, dedicated fund at a major research university or an established national policy nonprofit are unlikely to be competitive. Common mistakes to avoid: treating this as an open community foundation and sending a generic unsolicited proposal; contacting the wrong rankinfoundation.org website; assuming a mailing-address inquiry alone will generate a response, since there is no program officer to route it. If pursuing this funder, the most credible approach is (1) confirming a genuine connection — professional, academic, or personal — to one of the three named trustees; (2) framing any request around a named, dedicated fund or initiative (mirroring the CMU "Engineering Resilience for Climate Adaptation Fund" model) rather than general operating support; (3) keeping any initial outreach to a one-to-two-page concept note rather than a full formal proposal, since there is no defined review process to accommodate one; and (4) monitoring the foundation's forthcoming 990-PF filings (via ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer or Cause IQ, EIN 92-0766808) for signs of its grantmaking evolving beyond the current three-grantee pattern before investing significant proposal-writing time.