Roberson Family Foundation

Roberson Family Foundation is a small, all-volunteer family operation run entirely by two directors, Dennis A. Roberson and Debra Lin Roberson, with zero paid staff and zero officer compensation reported on any filing since inception in 2016. Although its IRS NTEE code (T22, 'Philanthropy & Grantmaking') and platform focus tag ('Community Development') read as generic, the actual 49-grant giving history tells a very different story: every dollar tracked has gone to evangelical Christian ministries — a seminary (Dallas Theological Seminary), Christian K-12 schools (Boca Raton Christian), missions and radio organizations (SonSet Solutions, English Language Institute of China, ReachGlobal EFCA, K-LOVE), parachurch youth ministries (Young Life, Awana Clubs International, International Students Inc), and individual churches (Riverland Hills Baptist, Boca Raton Community Church, Moody Church, Chapin Presbyterian, Lexington Baptist Church). Secular, non-faith-based applicants are not a realistic fit.

The foundation's own record shows no application form URL, no published deadline, and no application instructions (the platform's application_instructions field is explicitly blank, and the record is flagged preselected_only). A third-party grants database independently describes the funder as operating 'exclusively through invitation-only engagements' and stating it does not accept unsolicited proposals. Taken together, this is a closed, relationship-driven funder rather than a competitive RFP grantmaker.

The strongest signal for prospective applicants is renewal behavior: of the top 8 recipients by dollar volume, all 8 received funding in every one of the last 4 tracked fiscal years (grant_count = 4 for each). Once an organization is inside the circle, support is durable and recurring rather than one-time. For a first-time prospect, the realistic path is not a cold application but a warm introduction — through shared missions-conference networks, denominational ties (Presbyterian/Baptist/nondenominational evangelical), or direct contact with an existing grantee — followed by a modest opening ask sized to the observed $2,000-$65,000 range, with the expectation that a relationship, not a single gift, is being built.

The foundation's self-reported typical grant size is a median of $7,500 with a range of $2,000 to $65,000 and an average of $14,604 (based on 12 grants in its most recent tracked cycle). The broader 4-year grantee history in this dataset spans 49 grants totaling $693,020, averaging $14,143 per grant — consistent with the foundation's own figures.

Giving is heavily concentrated at the top: SonSet Solutions (Elkhart, IN, a Christian technology/missions-radio organization) has received $250,020 across 4 consecutive years; Dallas Theological Seminary $225,020 across 4 years; Boca Raton Christian School $76,000 across 4 years; and English Language Institute of China $35,000 across 4 years. Together these four recipients account for roughly 84% of all tracked grant dollars, while the remaining ten organizations split the balance in gifts ranging from $2,000 to $15,000.

Geographically, grants cluster by grant count in Colorado (12 grants), Florida (8), Illinois (7), South Carolina (6), with California, Indiana, Minnesota, and Texas at 4 each — broadly matching the foundation's self-declared geographic focus of CO/FL/IL. Every recorded grant purpose is coded 'Operating Funds' or 'Operating Income' — there is no program-restricted, capital-campaign, or capacity-building giving on record.

On the balance-sheet side, total assets grew from $2.38M (FY2019) to $2.80M (FY2021) to $3.70M (FY2022, after absorbing roughly a $498K investment loss that fiscal year) to $6.13M (FY2023) and $7.14M in the most recent fiscal year — a near-tripling in five years, driven by steady annual family contributions (~$65,000/year in recent years) plus investment gains, including a $497,087 gain in the latest period. Total annual giving rose in parallel: $114,122 (2019), $131,529 (2020), $184,307 (2021), $188,149 (2022), $231,370 (2023), and an estimated ~$308,504 in the most recent fiscal year per third-party 990 aggregation — meaning the foundation's giving capacity has more than doubled over five years and is still expanding.

All five peers were matched to Roberson purely by asset size — each sits within about $3,000 of Roberson's $7,140,079 in total assets — rather than by mission, so the comparison is a size cohort, not a program cohort. Roberson stands out within this group as the only foundation with a fully documented, transparent grant history and a clear (if informally stated) programmatic identity in evangelical ministry funding; the other five carry only the generic 'Philanthropy & Grantmaking' NTEE classification with no disclosed annual giving in available data, which often signals a scholarship pass-through, a dormant vehicle, or simply thinner public reporting rather than an active peer competitor for the same grantee pool.

No foundation-specific news, press releases, or announcements were found for Roberson Family Foundation (EIN 81-0712446, Chapin, SC) in 2025-2026 — this is expected for an all-volunteer, two-person family foundation with no staff, no website, and no communications function. Grant seekers should be careful not to confuse this foundation with several much larger, unrelated organizations that share a similar name: the Robertson Foundation (New York, ~$20.6M distributed to 433 grantees in 2025, plus a $20M postdoctoral fellowship program announced June 2026), the Robertson Family Foundation (Grand Rapids, MI, with a Fall 2026 cycle opening August 6, 2026), and the newly renamed Robertson Family Foundation (formerly the Louise R. Lester Foundation, Roanoke Valley, VA, renamed January 12, 2026) — none of these are connected to the Chapin, SC organization covered in this report.

The most recent concrete activity on record for this Roberson Family Foundation is financial rather than programmatic: its fiscal year ending mid-2025 showed total revenue of $620,622 (up sharply from the prior year, largely due to a $497,087 gain from asset sales) against total assets of $7,140,079, with charitable disbursements around $308,504 for the year. Leadership has remained stable since founding in 2016 — Dennis A. Roberson and Debra Lin Roberson as directors, with Robert H. Tennies, Ed.D. having also served as a director in earlier filings (at least through 2019). There is no indication of a new program, staffing change, or shift in giving focus in the most recent filings; the grantee roster and evangelical-ministry funding pattern have remained consistent year over year.

This foundation does not run a public application process — its own record shows no application form URL, no stated deadline, and no published guidelines, and a third-party grants database independently characterizes it as funding 'exclusively through invitation-only engagements' with no unsolicited proposals accepted. Treat any cold LOI or application portal submission as a wasted effort; there is no evidence one has ever been acted on.

The single highest-leverage move for a prospective applicant is mission alignment: every one of the 14 named grantees in this dataset is an evangelical Christian church, school, seminary, or missions/parachurch organization. An organization without a clear faith-based identity or evangelical ministry connection is not a realistic prospect here, regardless of program quality.

The second highest-leverage move is finding a human connection. With no staff and no communications channel, the only path in is through the Robersons' personal and ministry network — likely centered on Chapin/Lexington County, SC, and the broader evangelical missions and church-planting community (the grantee list includes missions-radio, EFCA church-planting, and international-student ministry organizations, suggesting the family has direct ties to global missions work). Referrals from existing grantees such as SonSet Solutions, ReachGlobal EFCA, or Young Life are more likely to open a door than any direct inquiry to the foundation.

Size any initial ask to the observed range: $2,000 at the low end, $65,000 at the high end, with a median of $7,500 — a first-time relationship is more likely to start small. Every grant on record funds general operating support, never a restricted program, capital campaign, or capacity-building initiative, so frame the ask accordingly.

Finally, plan for a multi-year relationship rather than a single gift: all 8 of the foundation's top recipients by dollar volume have received funding in every one of the last 4 tracked fiscal years. A first grant, if secured, is best treated as the opening of an ongoing partnership, with continued stewardship and communication expected to sustain renewal — not a one-time transactional award.