Reversible Destiny Foundation Inc.

Reversible Destiny Foundation Inc. is best understood not as a conventional re-granting funder but as a private operating foundation built to perpetuate the legacy of its founders, artist-architects Arakawa and Madeline Gins. Across the ten fiscal years on record (2012–2024), the Foundation reported grants paid to outside organizations of exactly $0 in nine of those years and just $1,500 in the tenth (FY2023) — even though 'total giving' (which captures direct charitable activity, not third-party grants) ran between roughly $370,000 and $1.14 million annually. In other words, the money the Foundation spends each year overwhelmingly funds its own exhibitions, archive/preservation work, publications, and fellowships rather than checks written to unaffiliated nonprofits. First-time applicants — including nonprofits, universities, and individual scholars — should calibrate expectations accordingly: this is not an open request-for-proposals funder, and there is no public application portal, LOI form, or RFP page anywhere on reversibledestiny.org. The IRS/NTEE code (V20, filed under the 'Science & Technology' major category) is a holdover from the organization's 1987 origin as the Architectural Body Research Foundation; the actual focus areas — art, architecture, writing, and design theory — bear no relation to lab science or tech R&D, so prospect lists that surface this foundation for STEM proposals are misfiring. What does align: museums, university art/architecture programs, archives, and individual researchers proposing exhibition partnerships, co-publications, symposium collaboration, or graduate-level research access tied explicitly to Arakawa and Gins's 'Reversible Destiny' philosophy and procedural-architecture body of work. The Foundation's three outside directors — Michael Govan (Director, LACMA), Alexandra Munroe (Senior Curator, Guggenheim), and Ronald Spencer (art law attorney) — signal that its real network operates through curatorial and museum-world relationships, not a competitive grants committee. Executive Director Momoyo Homma and Project Director ST Luk run day-to-day programming and are the practical entry point for any serious inquiry; expect a relationship that starts with a direct, substantive email (rd@reversibledestiny.org) or phone call (212-674-1613) describing a specific collaborative project, not a generic funding request, with in-person meetings by appointment only at the Brooklyn Navy Yard office.

The Foundation's finances show a small, historically self-funded operating entity that received a major capital event in FY2023. Total assets stood at $4,807,733 in FY2024, down from $5,615,534 in FY2023, after ranging as low as $36,881–$124,300 in FY2019–FY2022. The swing is explained by a $6,574,438 contribution received in FY2023 alone — almost certainly a bequest or major single-donor gift — versus contributions of just $604,184–$800,000 in each of the four prior years and $0 recorded in 2012–2015. Reported 'total giving' (direct charitable/program spending, not third-party grants) has run: $478,567 (2012), $451,675 (2013), $370,531 (2014), $566,842 (2015), $620,371 (2019), $650,857 (2020), $769,982 (2021), $773,025 (2022), and $1,135,954 (2023) — a steady climb that roughly tracks rising contributions rather than investment returns (net investment income has mostly been $0–$76,132, aside from $25,473 in 2023). Grants paid to outside organizations, by contrast, were $0 in every year except 2023's token $1,500, meaning essentially 100% of program spending goes to activities the Foundation runs itself: exhibitions (Yoro Park, Hessel Museum, Mitaka City Gallery, Keio University), the quarterly 'Ambiguous Zones' newsletter, AG Conferences, archive maintenance, and graduate fellowship stipends. Officer compensation was $0 in nearly every year on record, with one exception — $180,413 in FY2015 — suggesting a one-time settlement or deferred-compensation payout rather than an ongoing executive salary line. FY2024 revenue fell to $399,708 (no comparable major gift that year), signaling the Foundation is likely now drawing down and reinvesting the FY2023 windfall rather than repeating it. There is no by-program or by-geography breakdown available in the data because the Foundation does not maintain a public grantee list (zero grantee records on file), reinforcing that funding flows internally rather than through a distributed portfolio of external recipients.

All five peers share Reversible Destiny's IRS 'Science & Technology' NTEE classification and sit within a tight $4.4M–$5.8M asset band, making this a genuine size cohort — but the classification masks real diversity of mission (a financial-markets institute and a behavioral-health foundation are not peers of an art-and-architecture legacy foundation in practice). None of the peer foundations have public websites in this dataset, and none publish grantee lists either, which is typical for foundations at this asset size: they are overwhelmingly single-donor or family-directed vehicles with no formal open application process. Reversible Destiny stands out only in that it does maintain a public-facing website and active programming calendar, giving prospective partners more visibility into its work than is available for any of its listed peers.

The Foundation's most visible recent activity is a wave of 2025 exhibitions marking milestones in Arakawa and Gins's legacy: the 30th anniversary of the Site of Reversible Destiny – Yoro Park in Gifu, Japan (programming around October 25–November 17, 2025), the exhibition 'Madeline Gins: Infinite Systems' at the Hessel Museum of Art, CCS Bard (April–May 2025) — described as the first solo presentation of Gins' writing and visual works spanning the 1960s to 2000s — and two parallel Japan exhibitions, 'Reversible Destiny NOW: Arakawa and Madeline Gins' Exercises for Not Dying' at Mitaka City Gallery of Art (March 22–May 18, 2025) and a companion show at Keio University Art Center (March 17–May 30, 2025). The Foundation also supported a screening of Arakawa and Gins' 1971 film 'For Example (A Critique of Never)' at BAM Rose Cinemas in Brooklyn. Programs listings for 2026 continue to reference 'Infinite Systems' as an active presentation, suggesting the Gins retrospective is touring or extending rather than being a one-off show. No leadership changes were found — Momoyo Homma remains Executive Director and the same three outside directors (Govan, Munroe, Spencer) continue to serve. Financially, the standout recent event is the FY2023 jump in contributions received to $6.57 million, which more than tripled the Foundation's typical annual inflow and rebuilt its asset base from a low of roughly $81,000 (FY2022) to $5.6 million; FY2024 shows assets settling to $4.8 million with no repeat windfall, consistent with the Foundation now operating off that larger base. The Foundation's own website 'News' page returns no content (a technical gap, not evidence of inactivity), so the exhibitions/programs calendar is the most current authoritative source on its activity.

Do not look for an RFP, LOI template, or online grant portal — none exists on reversibledestiny.org, and the site's Contact page explicitly offers only a general inquiry form with no funding-specific guidance. The single most important alignment move is to drop any 'Science & Technology' framing: despite the IRS NTEE code, proposals should speak the Foundation's actual language — 'architectural body,' 'procedural architecture,' 'reversible destiny,' 'exercises for not dying,' and direct reference to Arakawa and Madeline Gins's specific body of work (their Yoro Park site, the Bioscleave House, the Mitaka Lofts, Gins's poetry and 'Word Rain'). Given a decade-long record of $0 in outside grants (aside from a single $1,500 payment in FY2023), treat this Foundation as a potential institutional collaborator for a specific, named project — an exhibition, a co-published essay in the quarterly 'Ambiguous Zones' newsletter, a symposium presentation at an AG Conference, or supervised access to the archive for a graduate thesis — rather than as a source of general operating or program grants. The most credible entry points are academic (art history, architecture, or design theory departments) or museum-affiliated (curatorial partnerships in the mold of board members Michael Govan at LACMA and Alexandra Munroe at the Guggenheim). Reach out directly by email (rd@reversibledestiny.org) or phone (212-674-1613) with a concrete proposal rather than a generic request for funding; the Brooklyn Navy Yard office takes visitors by appointment only, and there is a parallel Tokyo office (info@architectural-body.com) for Japan-based collaborations, which matters given the Yoro Park site and Japanese museum partnerships (Mitaka City Gallery, Keio University). A common mistake to avoid: generic STEM or biomedical research proposals citing the Foundation's stated interest in 'experimental biology, neuroscience, quantum physics, experimental phenomenology, and medicine' — that language describes cross-disciplinary collaborators the Foundation itself convenes around Arakawa/Gins's ideas, not an invitation for unrelated scientific research funding. Timing-wise, align outreach with the Foundation's own program calendar (exhibition openings, AG Conferences, and the quarterly newsletter cycle) so a pitch can be framed as complementary to something already in motion, and expect that any resulting support is far more likely to take the form of in-kind collaboration, archival access, or a small fellowship stipend than a traditional program grant.