Renewal Foundation Inc.

Renewal Foundation Inc. is a small, closely held Baltimore-area private foundation run out of President J. Richard Block's home address in Pikesville (50 Farmhouse Ct) with just four people on the books: Block (President, ~$30K-33K annual compensation), Vice President Peter Lucas (~$20K-22K), and board members Jennifer Korczakowski and Ed Hargadon (~$1,500-3K each). There is no grants staff, no communications function, no public grants portal, and — per both the IRS/990 data and our website research — no functioning application process (application_process, application_form_url, and funding_cycle are all blank in its filings). This is a relationship-driven vehicle, not an open-competition grantmaker.

The single most important fact for any grant seeker: roughly 97% of tracked grant dollars ($1,913,328 of $1,971,808 across the last several filed years, and its entire reported 2024 grant of $601,000) flow to one recipient — Baltimore Community Foundation (appearing under two name variants across filings). Renewal Foundation functions largely as a feeder into BCF's broader regranting infrastructure rather than as a direct funder of program work. The remaining roughly 3% ($58,480 across 7 grants in the tracked window) goes directly to a short, repeat-heavy roster of small Baltimore direct-service nonprofits: Homeless Persons Representation Project (4 separate grants totaling $25,000), Weekend Backpacks For Homeless Kids ($10,000), Baltimore Hunger Project ($10,000), Baltimore Outreach Services ($8,000 plus $480 in a second listing), SARC ($2,500), and Umbrella Inc ($2,500).

For first-time applicants, this means two distinct paths: (1) if you are a Baltimore-area direct-service nonprofit working on homelessness, food insecurity, or health/legal aid for low-income residents, and you can secure a warm introduction to Block or Lucas, the realistic ask size is $2,500-$10,000, matching the median direct grant of $8,000; (2) if your program is larger or you have no personal connection to the officers, your better route is through Baltimore Community Foundation's own grant programs, since that is where the bulk of Renewal's capital is actually deployed. Cold LOIs directly to Renewal Foundation, capital campaigns, and national (non-MD) requests are poor fits for this funder.

Renewal Foundation's balance sheet tells a clear before/after story. From 2011-2015, it was a true micro-funder: assets held steady at $1.00M-$1.18M and it paid out $60,000-$85,000 in grants annually. In FY2019 it received a $6,484,990 contribution — almost certainly a bequest or major gift — that pushed total revenue to $6,566,076 for the year and reset the asset base to $7,262,855, roughly 6.2x the 2015 level. Since then assets have grown steadily: $7.75M (2020) to $7.97M (2021) to $7.90M (2022) to $8.03M (2023) to $8.68M in the most current record (likely FY2024). Annual giving in the post-bequest era has run $631,040 (2020), $719,200 (2021, the peak year), $626,414 (2022), and $638,782 (2023) — roughly 8-10x the pre-2019 pace. Cash grants paid tracked close behind: $471,680 (2020), $557,648 (2021), $471,240 (2022), $485,000 (2023). Net investment income has been volatile and substantial relative to giving — $822,967 in 2021 alone — meaning payout is now driven mostly by portfolio performance rather than fresh contributions (contributions received were $0 in both 2021 and 2022).

Within the grantee data, concentration is extreme: of $1,971,808 in total tracked grants across 15 awards, $1,913,328 (97.0%) went to Baltimore Community Foundation in its two name variants (3 grants totaling $1,469,648, plus 1 grant of $443,680) — pushing the reported average grant size to $131,454, a figure that is not representative for a typical applicant since it is driven entirely by the BCF megagrants. The foundation's own reported typical-grant-size metric is more useful for direct applicants: median $8,000, average $94,336 (again skewed by one outlier), range $2,500-$443,680. Excluding BCF, the direct-grantee pool of $58,480 breaks down by cause as: homelessness/legal aid ~43% ($25,000, all to Homeless Persons Representation Project across 4 grants), food insecurity ~34% ($20,000 split evenly between two hunger-relief nonprofits), homeless shelter ~14% ($8,480 to Baltimore Outreach Services across two listings), and women's health/safety plus general charitable giving ~9% ($5,000 combined to Umbrella Inc and SARC). Geography is 14 of 15 tracked grants in Maryland, with one grant reaching Vermont (St. Johnsbury), likely a personal connection of an officer or board member rather than a programmatic expansion.

Among comparable Baltimore-area family foundations, Renewal sits in the middle by assets but gives at a rate well above its raw size because nearly all of its payout routes through a single intermediary rather than being spread across many direct grantees. Jane Krieger Schapiro, a similarly-scaled family foundation (about 40% of Renewal's asset base), gives at less than a third of Renewal's rate and, like Renewal, publishes no formal application process — a pattern common among small Baltimore family foundations. Blaustein Rosenberg, more than 3x Renewal's size, can sustain a multi-state footprint; Renewal's Maryland-only geographic focus is typical of foundations under $10M in assets.

No independent news coverage, press releases, or leadership announcements for Renewal Foundation Inc. turned up in this research — consistent with a foundation that has no communications function and files only the IRS Form 990-PF required of private foundations. The most recent verified data point comes from third-party 990 aggregators (Grantable, Charity Navigator, Cause IQ): for the 2024 filing year, assets stood at $8.3M (up 3.0% year-over-year) and the foundation reported exactly one grant, $601,000, to Baltimore Community Foundation Inc — continuing the pass-through pattern seen in 2020-2023, when BCF received the largest awards each multi-year cycle. Its required minimum distribution for 2024 was calculated at $641,000, meaning the $601,000 BCF grant likely satisfied most of that year's payout obligation on its own, leaving little room for the small direct grants ($2,500-$10,000) that characterized 2020-2023. Leadership has been stable and unchanged across every year of officer data reviewed: J. Richard Block (President) and Peter Lucas (Vice President) have held their roles throughout, alongside board members Jennifer Korczakowski and Ed Hargadon.

One important caution for anyone researching this funder further: the website on file, renewalfoundation.org, does not belong to this organization — it is the site of an unrelated Taiwan/China-focused education charity (founded 1996, builds schools, runs a "Pearl Retrieval Program" for at-risk students). Grant seekers should disregard that domain and rely on IRS/990 data and Baltimore Community Foundation contacts instead.

There is no LOI form, online portal, published deadline, or funding cycle for Renewal Foundation Inc. — application_process, application_form_url, and funding_cycle all return blank across both this data bundle and independent 990 aggregators. Treat it as a closed, invitation/relationship-based funder, not an open RFP process. Concretely:

• Don't cold-submit. There is no address or portal designed to receive unsolicited proposals. The listed contact (50 Farmhouse Ct, Pikesville, MD 21208, (410) 303-4141, c/o J. Richard Block) is a personal/residential address, not an office with intake staff.
• Size your ask to precedent. Direct grants to operating nonprofits have run $2,500-$25,000 (cumulative across multiple awards), with a median single grant of $8,000. Asking for $50,000+ directly from Renewal is out of step with its filing history; requests at that scale have only gone to Baltimore Community Foundation.
• Lead with mission overlap, not a general appeal. Every direct grantee in the data is a Baltimore-area organization serving homelessness (Homeless Persons Representation Project, Baltimore Outreach Services), food insecurity (Weekend Backpacks For Homeless Kids, Baltimore Hunger Project), or health/safety for vulnerable populations (Umbrella Inc, SARC). Organizations outside these lanes, or outside Maryland, have no precedent of being funded.
• Repeat funding is the norm, not the exception. Homeless Persons Representation Project received 4 separate grants — cultivate a multi-year relationship rather than treating this as a one-time ask.
• If your ask is larger than $25,000, your realistic path is through Baltimore Community Foundation's own grant programs (general cycle opens June 1 and closes September 30 in 2026, per BCF's public site) rather than through Renewal directly — Renewal's own capital increasingly flows there rather than to new direct grantees.
• Timing: the required distributable amount is calculated annually (~$641,000 for the 2024 filing year); the pattern of one large BCF grant plus a handful of smaller direct grants suggests decisions cluster around fiscal year-end rather than a rolling calendar.
• Common mistake: confusing this funder with the identically-named renewalfoundation.org (a Taiwan/China school-building charity) when researching online — verify you are looking at EIN 52-1652375, not that unrelated organization.