Robin Foundation

The Robin Foundation is a small, closely-held family philanthropy governed entirely by members of the Lovett, Ashford, and Shumlin families — eight directors and officers, every one listed at $0 compensation on the FY2024 Form 990-PF — operating out of a Wilmington, Delaware address (1 Walkers Mill Rd) care of Susan Anderson Ashford's capital-management office rather than any dedicated program staff. There is no executive director, no communications function, and, despite the robinfoundation.org domain surfacing in searches, no working public website for this specific entity: that domain belongs to an unrelated Davie, FL Narcan-distribution nonprofit, a naming collision applicants should not mistake for this funder.

The practical implication is that this is a relationship-driven, low-visibility family foundation, not an institutional grantmaker with published RFPs. Granted's own data fields for 'application process' and 'deadline' both read 'CONTACT FOUNDATION' — this is accurate, not a placeholder. There is no LOI portal, no online form, and no announced cycle. The foundation's IRS filings direct requests to its Wilmington address, and the listed phone is (302) 655-1750.

Favor organizations that resemble the current grantee roster: small, direct-service nonprofits in human services, youth and family support, disability services, and food security, sized to receive four- and five-figure gifts rather than large program grants. Of 43 tracked grants totaling $734,310, the top recipient (Food Connects, a Vermont food-access nonprofit) received $100,000 across two grants; the next four (The Bear Project, Down Syndrome Association of Delaware, Family Counseling Center of St. Paul's, and Groundwork Collaborative) together received roughly $242,500 across repeat, multi-year gifts. Repeat funding of the same 10-15 organizations, not broad one-off giving to new applicants, is the dominant visible pattern.

First-time applicants should not expect a fast answer or a large check. With zero paid staff, decisions likely move at board-meeting pace and lean on personal and family relationships — note that the Ashford and Shumlin surnames recur both as Robin Foundation directors and, in the Ashford case, as principals of a separate, largely dormant Wilmington family foundation. A cold, unsolicited proposal from outside Delaware, Massachusetts, or Vermont — the three states behind 34 of 43 tracked grants — faces long odds without an existing connection.

Total assets have been range-bound between roughly $2.4M and $2.9M since 2019: $2,528,331 in FY2020, rising to $2,866,807 in FY2021 on a $426,661 net investment gain, then drifting back down to $2,401,976 by FY2024. Giving is investment-income-driven rather than formula-driven — total giving hit $275,476 in FY2020 (net investment income $784,555 that year) but fell to $155,784 in FY2019 and most recently to $175,600 in disbursements for FY2024 per the Form 990-PF filed 2025-11-11, a roughly 26% drop from the $238,892 given in FY2023. This is a foundation whose annual payout tracks portfolio performance, not a fixed strategic budget.

On a single-grant basis, the foundation's own 'typical grant size' data shows a median of $10,000, an average of $13,303, and a range of $3,750-$30,000 across 17 tracked single-year grants. Zooming out to the cumulative, multi-year top-50 recipient list (43 grants / $734,310 total, average $17,077) sharpens the picture: nearly half the tracked dollar volume — about $342,500, or 47% — went to just five repeat-funded organizations: Food Connects ($100,000/2 grants), The Bear Project ($80,000/4 grants), Down Syndrome Association of Delaware ($60,000/3 grants), Family Counseling Center of St. Paul's ($57,500/3 grants), and Groundwork Collaborative ($45,000/3 grants). The remaining ~25 recipients each received a single grant, mostly in the $10,000-$20,000 band, with the smallest recorded gift at $3,750 (Elevated Community Development Corp).

Geographically, Delaware dominates by count (21 of 43 grants, concentrated in New Castle County human-services organizations), Vermont is second (8 grants, anchoring the foundation's food-security and youth-services giving — Food Connects, Gedakina, Susu Community Farm), and Massachusetts third (5 grants, largely Cape Cod-area groups like Cape Cod Children's Place and the Community Action Committee of Cape Cod & Islands). A handful of outlier grants land in DC (3), South Dakota (4), New York (1), and Virginia (1) — evidence the family occasionally funds outside its home geography, but the exception rather than the rule.

Payout ratio: FY2024's $175,600 in grants against $2,401,976 in year-end assets works out to roughly 7.3% — below the 10.3% average payout Exponent Philanthropy measured across U.S. foundations under $10M in assets for 2024, suggesting Robin runs a more conservative payout than its size peers even in years of strong market performance.

Robin Foundation sits in the middle of Delaware's family-philanthropy spectrum: it is over 400 times smaller by assets than a staffed institutional funder like Longwood, but it is materially more active than a dormant, same-region vehicle like the Ashford Foundation of Delaware, whose $1,800 in FY2025 giving amounted to just 0.7% of its revenue. Robin's roughly 7.3% FY2024 payout ratio trails the 10.3% average Exponent Philanthropy measured for sub-$10M foundations — it is giving away a smaller share of its base than a typical peer its size, even though its multi-year repeat-grantee pattern (Food Connects, The Bear Project, Down Syndrome Association of Delaware) shows an active, ongoing grantmaking relationship rather than the near-total inactivity seen at Ashford.

The most recent verifiable activity is administrative: the foundation's FY2024 Form 990-PF was filed November 11, 2025, reporting $230,662 in revenue, $244,517 in expenses, and $175,600 in charitable disbursements against $2,401,976 in year-end net assets — the filing that anchors this report's financial figures. No leadership changes surfaced across the filings reviewed: the same eight Lovett/Ashford/Shumlin family members appear consistently — Dorothy Dehaven Lovett as President/Treasurer, Evelyn Dehaven Lovett as Secretary, Robert A. Lovett II chairing the Finance Committee, and Virginia G. Lovett, Theodore Ashford, Theodore Ashford III, Julia Shumlin, and Benjamin Shumlin as directors — with zero reported officer compensation in every year of data available back to 2019.

No press coverage, grantee announcements, or foundation-issued releases were found for this entity in 2025-2026, which is expected for a foundation with no communications staff or public-facing program office. One important caution for applicants: web searches for 'Robin Foundation' surface almost exclusively unrelated organizations sharing the name — the multi-billion-dollar-scale Robin Hood Foundation in New York City (which awarded roughly $39.9 million to 96 nonprofits in Q3 2025 alone), the Richmond, VA-based Robins Foundation (a distinctly spelled early-childhood-education funder running active SPARK grant cycles through 2025 and 2026 via its own GOapply portal), and a Davie, FL-based Narcan-distribution nonprofit that has claimed the robinfoundation.org domain. None of these is the Wilmington, DE, EIN 51-0338698 foundation profiled here, and an applicant who follows the .org domain's overdose-prevention guidance or the Richmond nonprofit's ECCE application portal will waste an entire outreach cycle chasing the wrong funder.

Because the 'application process,' 'instructions,' and 'deadline' fields on file all read 'CONTACT FOUNDATION' and no portal exists, treat this as an invitation/relationship funder rather than an open-RFP one.

1. Skip the search for an online grant portal. Direct correspondence to the foundation's Wilmington address is the pathway: Robin Foundation, 1 Walkers Mill Rd, Wilmington, DE 19807, or by phone at (302) 655-1750. IRS filings route correspondence care of Susan Anderson Ashford Capital Management, so a brief call to confirm the current best contact before mailing anything is worthwhile — family foundations that route mail through an advisor's office can leave misaddressed requests unopened for months.

2. Match the geography before drafting anything. Confirm your program operates in New Castle County, Delaware; Vermont; or the Cape Cod/coastal Massachusetts area — 34 of the 43 tracked grants (79%) went to organizations in those three states. The DC, South Dakota, New York, and Virginia grants in the record are the exception and likely reflect a personal board connection rather than an open geographic mandate.

3. Size the request to observed behavior, not just the published range. The typical single-grant range is $3,750-$30,000 with a $10,000 median, but the strongest relationships (Food Connects, The Bear Project, Down Syndrome Association of Delaware) were built through repeat annual asks in the $10,000-$25,000 band rather than one large request. A first ask near $10,000-$15,000, with an implicit opening for a follow-up request, is a more realistic entry point than requesting the observed $30,000 ceiling.

4. Lead with direct service, not overhead or capital campaigns. Every tracked grant purpose is coded 'GENERAL,' and the visible grantee list is almost entirely direct-service nonprofits — housing, youth programs, disability services, food access, counseling — rather than research or capital projects; Groundwork Collaborative (a national economic-policy nonprofit) is the one clear advocacy-oriented outlier.

5. Do not confuse this funder with its namesakes. Don't submit through the Richmond, VA Robins Foundation's GOapply portal or reference the Davie, FL Robin Foundation's Narcan program — both are unrelated organizations that rank ahead of this one in a generic search.

6. Because every officer is unpaid and there is no program staff, expect an informal, board-paced review. A warm introduction through an existing grantee or a Delaware nonprofit network (e.g., Philanthropy Delaware) is more likely to get traction than a cold mailed letter.