Redirect

reDirect is a small Ann Arbor, Michigan private foundation ($3.58M in total assets as of FY2024) organized around a single proprietary methodology rather than a broad cause area: the SEE (Supportive Environments for Effectiveness) framework, an evidence-based approach rooted in environmental psychology. SEE rests on three pillars — Bandwidth (helping staff feel competent and clear-headed), Meaningful Engagement (connecting daily effort to mission), and Understanding (supporting exploration of organizational context) — and every grant is explicitly paired with coaching, not handed out as a bare check. This is philosophy-first funding: applicants who cannot speak the SEE vocabulary will struggle to get traction.

The foundation runs two channels. SEE Learning Cohorts (contact: Ambassadors@redirect.org) combine modest grant funds with in-kind professional-development coaching for 501(c)(3)s committed to capacity-building; cohorts currently run nationally (virtual) and regionally in East-Central Iowa, Greater St. Louis, Wisconsin, and Colorado, split into a general-nonprofit-staff track and a volunteer-engagement-specialist track. SEE Action Grants fund small, independent experiments testing new applications of the framework, but the foundation states on its own site that these are 'typically offered by invitation only' to current or past collaborators — there is no open RFP.

Governance is tight and largely unpaid: Chair Abram Kaplan, Secretary/Director Rachel Kaplan, Treasurer Avik Basu (compensated $18,000 in at least one filed year, $0 in others), and Directors Jason Duvall, William Sullivan, and Nancy Wells. A 2023 honorarium of $8,000 to Raymond K. De Young — a University of Michigan environmental-psychology scholar — among the tracked grantee list signals the foundation's practice is embedded in UM's environmental psychology research community, the same intellectual lineage (bandwidth, meaningful action, sense-making) behind the Kaplans' well-known 'Reasonable Person Model.'

Of 58 tracked grants totaling $374,545, many go to repeat recipients built over multiple award cycles: Spark The Change received four separate grants totaling $25,000; UMass received three totaling $23,090. A meaningful share of dollars flow not to organizations but to named individuals under a 'FELLOWSHIP' purpose code ($1,000-$8,800 each) — this is as much a practitioner-fellowship and research-support vehicle as a conventional grantmaking foundation. First-time applicants should expect no open portal: the realistic path in is a warm introduction through an existing SEE cohort partner or intermediary network, followed by sustained multi-year engagement before a Action Grant invitation becomes plausible.

reDirect's total giving has been volatile but trending upward: $147,936 (FY2019), $127,100 (FY2020, likely a COVID-era dip), $203,663 (FY2021), $184,028 (FY2022), and $357,614 (FY2023) — a near-doubling in the most recent filed year. Actual cash grants paid, however, ran well below total giving in the same years ($59,814 in 2019; $24,500 in 2020; $120,200 in 2021; $73,695 in 2022; $106,955 in 2023), a gap of roughly $250,000 in FY2023 alone that reflects the coaching/programmatic services bundled into the SEE model rather than pure cash awards.

Total assets grew from $1.84M (FY2019) to $3.58M (FY2024) — essentially doubling in five years — funded by consistent annual contributions of $230,000 to $705,200 plus net investment income of $34,000-$76,000 per year. FY2024 total revenue was $807,413 against total assets of $3.58M, indicating the foundation continues to receive fresh donor contributions rather than spending down a fixed corpus.

Across the tracked universe of 58 individual grants totaling $374,545, the average award is just $6,458, though the 'typical' formally reported grant size (n=10, presumably the Action Grant class) shows a median of $15,000, an average of $12,020, and a range of $2,500 to $15,000. The purpose codes split into three distinct buckets: 'UNRESTRICTED, GENERAL OPERATING' support to organizations (the majority of dollars — recipients include Spark The Change at $25,000 across 4 grants, Hands On Nwnc at $17,000, United Way of Washtenaw County and United Way of Central Illinois at $15,000 each, and Jersey Cares, A Precious Child, and Habitat for Humanity among others); 'FELLOWSHIP' payments to roughly ten named individuals ranging from $1,000 (Missy Stults) to $8,800 (Tara Sky Woodward, 2 payments); and a single 'HONORARIUM' line to Raymond K. De Young ($8,000 across 2 payments).

Geographically, grant counts cluster in Colorado (12) and Michigan (12), followed by Iowa (10), Missouri (5), Illinois (4), Massachusetts (4), Florida (3), North Carolina (3), South Dakota (2), and Ohio (1) — a footprint that maps almost exactly onto the foundation's active cohort geographies (Colorado, East-Central Iowa, Greater St. Louis/Missouri) plus its Michigan home base and University of Michigan (UMass appears to be a data-entry variant/typo for UM-affiliated recipients) ties.

All five IRS-matched peers sit within a tight $3.42M-$3.71M asset band alongside reDirect's $3.58M, and all share the same broad 'Public Benefit' NTEE classification — but none has a public website on file, meaning none publishes a mission statement, program description, or application process the way reDirect does. That makes reDirect a genuine outlier in this peer set: a similarly small private foundation that nonetheless operates a structured, branded methodology (SEE), a defined cohort calendar, and a public grant-opportunities page, while its size-matched peers appear to be closely-held family foundations with no visible public-facing grantmaking program at all.

No news coverage, press releases, or public announcements about reDirect surfaced in web search as of September 2026 — this is a low-visibility, relationship-driven funder rather than one that runs a public communications program, and grant seekers should not expect to track it through press mentions. The most recent verifiable activity is financial: FY2023 total giving of $357,614 nearly doubled FY2022's $184,028, and total assets reached $3.58M in the FY2024 filing, the highest in the foundation's history (up from $1.84M in FY2019). The foundation's own site currently lists four active regional cohort geographies — East-Central Iowa, Greater St. Louis, Wisconsin, and Colorado — alongside a national virtual cohort option, plus the two-track structure (general nonprofit staff vs. volunteer-engagement specialists) for SEE Learning Cohorts. Leadership has been stable: Rachel Kaplan (Secretary/Director) and Abram Kaplan (Chair) appear consistently across the multiple years of governance data provided, alongside Treasurer Avik Basu and Directors Jason Duvall, William Sullivan, and Nancy Wells, with no indication of recent board turnover. Given the absence of any dated news, grant seekers should treat the cohort structure and invitation-only Action Grant policy described on the current website as the operative model rather than expecting a near-term public RFP or program change.

Do not submit an unsolicited proposal to the SEE Action Grants track — the foundation states plainly on its own site that these are 'typically offered by invitation only' to current or past collaborators, and there is no visible portal or form for cold applications. The realistic entry point is the SEE Learning Cohort track: email Ambassadors@redirect.org, identify your organization as a 501(c)(3) committed to capacity-building, and specify which cohort track fits (general nonprofit staff vs. volunteer-engagement specialists) and whether you want the national virtual cohort or a regional one (East-Central Iowa, Greater St. Louis, Wisconsin, Colorado).

Mirror the SEE framework's own vocabulary rather than generic capacity-building language: talk about staff Bandwidth (reducing overwhelm and cognitive load), Meaningful Engagement (connecting day-to-day tasks to mission), and Understanding (helping staff and volunteers make sense of organizational context) — these three terms are the foundation's actual evaluative lens, not marketing copy.

The grantee data shows a strong pattern of funding organizations already embedded in volunteer-engagement or capacity-building networks — Hands On Network affiliates (Hands On Nwnc, Hands On Suburban Chicago) and United Way chapters (Washtenaw County, Central Illinois) appear repeatedly. A warm introduction through one of these networks, or through a past SEE cohort alum, is likely to carry more weight than a cold approach with no shared connection.

Size expectations appropriately: typical grants run $2,500-$15,000, occasionally stacking to $20,000-$25,000 in cumulative funding to the same organization over several award cycles (Spark The Change: 4 grants/$25,000; UMass: 3 grants/$23,090). Pitch a bounded, discrete pilot or experiment rather than a large multi-year capital ask — the Action Grant description explicitly calls for 'small, independent projects.'

A separate individual Fellowship/Honorarium track exists (payments of $1,000-$8,800 to named practitioners or researchers) — if your interest is personal fellowship or research support tied to the SEE framework rather than organizational funding, frame the outreach that way explicitly, since it is evaluated differently from the organizational grant track. Given the small, largely unpaid six-person board, expect an informal, relationship-driven review rather than a formal committee cycle with published deadlines — confirm current timing directly by email rather than assuming a fixed annual calendar.