Rogers Foundation

Rogers Foundation is a small, family-run private foundation based at 4201 N 23rd St in Lincoln, Nebraska, operating since its 1954 ruling date with no program staff — filings show only two officers, President/Trustee Mary Kay Jones and VP/Secretary Kuulei M. Marquart, across every year of available data. There is no online application portal, no published grants page, and no LOI stage: the foundation's own stated process is a single mailed proposal covering the project plan, all activities and objectives, who benefits and how, total project cost versus amount requested, and — notably — a list of other funders approached and their responses. That last requirement signals the foundation wants to see itself as part of a funded plan, not a sole source. Grant-tracking platforms (GrantExec, Instrumentl) list zero live or open opportunities for this funder, which is consistent with a quiet, relationship-driven giving style rather than a competitive open cycle. The grantee record reinforces this: of the 76 grants captured across roughly two fiscal years, most top recipients (Food Bank of Lincoln, Cedars Home of Children Foundation, Community Action Partnership, Bryan Foundation, Lincoln Children's Zoo, and others) received two separate awards rather than one, indicating the foundation renews relationships with organizations it already knows well more often than it initiates new ones. First-time applicants should treat the mailed proposal as a full application, not a pre-screening step, include every requested attachment (IRS determination letter, current budget, income sources, board list, latest annual statement), and expect a personal, low-bureaucracy review given the tiny officer footprint. Because 75 of the 76 tracked grants went to Nebraska organizations (only one to Illinois), out-of-state applicants without a clear Nebraska or Lincoln/Lancaster County tie should not expect to be a priority. Given the absence of a public deadline field, calling (402) 477-3725 ahead of submission to confirm the mailing address and any informal timing expectations is the single highest-value step a new applicant can take before investing in a full proposal packet.

Rogers Foundation's typical grant, per its own record, ranges from $2,000 to $40,000 with a median of $13,750 and an average of $15,347 across 36 tracked awards; a separate aggregation of 76 grants over roughly two fiscal years shows a similar average of $15,122 on $1,149,300 total. Individual award sizes cluster tightly: most listed grants fall between $10,000 and $25,000, with a small number of larger, often cumulative, commitments — Food Bank of Lincoln ($80,000 across two grants), Cedars Home of Children Foundation ($60,000), Community Action Partnership and Bryan Foundation ($50,000 each) — and a long tail of $4,000-$12,000 awards to smaller arts and civic groups (Nebraska Trumpet Ensemble, Capital Jazz Society, Nebraska Jazz Orchestra, Nebraska Brass). Annual giving has been remarkably stable for over a decade: $487,615 (2011), peaking near $652,810 (2014), and settling at $596,800 in grants paid on $680,751 total giving in FY2023. The most recent available filing (FY2024, via Instrumentl) shows $596,000 in giving across 37 grants — essentially flat year-over-year — even though total assets grew sharply, from $5,595,804 (2023) to $8,081,593 (2024) and a projected $8,789,921 (2025), driven by strong net investment income ($395,444 in 2023 alone) rather than new contributions (contributions received have been $0 in every year on record — the foundation is fully endowed, not actively fundraising). By sector, the grantee list clusters around four themes: human services and food security (Food Bank of Lincoln, Community Action Partnership, Fresh Start, Goodneighbor Community Center), child and family welfare (Cedars Home of Children Foundation, Tabitha Foundation, Nebraska Children & Families Foundation, Child Advocacy Center, CASA for Lancaster County), health (Madonna Foundation $40,000, Alzheimer's Association $25,000, Crohn's & Colitis Foundation $30,000, Children's Hospital & Medical Center $17,500), and arts/culture plus University of Nebraska-Lincoln Foundation programs, which together received four separate designated awards totaling roughly $70,000, including one fund explicitly named 'UNL Fdn - Rogers VFT.' Geographically, giving is almost entirely Nebraska-based (75 of 76 tracked grants), with a single Illinois exception.

Rogers Foundation sits at the small end of Lincoln, Nebraska's private-foundation landscape — roughly a third the asset size of Woods Charitable Fund and well under a third of Cooper Foundation, and two orders of magnitude smaller than the community-wide Lincoln Community Foundation. Its giving process is also the least formalized of the group: no published cycle, no online portal, and no visible open call, versus peers that run structured biannual or quarterly cycles.

All four funders share a hard geographic anchor in Lincoln and Lancaster County, but Rogers Foundation is the only one without any public grant guidelines, deadline, or portal — applicants coming from Woods, Cooper, or LCF's more process-driven cycles should expect a much more informal, phone-and-mail relationship with Rogers by comparison.

No foundation-specific news coverage, leadership changes, or program announcements were found for Rogers Foundation in 2025-2026 searches — this funder maintains essentially no public media presence. Two domains that surface prominently in search results for 'Rogers Foundation' — rogersfoundation.org (Rogers Family Foundation, an Oakland, California education funder now sunsetting its grantmaking program by 2025) and therogers.foundation (a Las Vegas, Nevada scholarship foundation founded 2013) — both belong to unrelated organizations with similar names; this Lincoln, Nebraska Rogers Foundation (EIN 47-6026897) does not appear to maintain its own public website. The most current confirmed public signal is a live sponsor listing on Junior Achievement of Lincoln's website, consistent with the foundation's long-running, low-visibility local giving pattern. Governance has been stable throughout the entire period covered by available filings (2019-2023): Mary Kay Jones as President/Trustee and Kuulei M. Marquart as VP/Secretary, with no evidence of turnover. Officer compensation rose from $0 (2019) to $30,000 (2020-2022) to $66,000 for Jones in 2023, the only notable financial shift in recent filings. The most significant recent development is on the balance sheet rather than in the news: total assets climbed from $5,595,804 (FY2023) to $8,081,593 (FY2024) and a projected $8,789,921 (FY2025) — nearly 60% growth in two years — driven by investment performance rather than new gifts, since contributions received have been $0 every year on record. That asset growth without a matching increase in grant payout ($596,800 in 2023 versus $596,000 in 2024) is the most concrete 'recent activity' signal available for applicants to factor into timing expectations.

Because Rogers Foundation runs no online portal and lists zero live opportunities on grant-tracking platforms, the entire relationship happens by mail and phone — start with a call to (402) 477-3725 to confirm the current mailing address (4201 N 23rd St, Lincoln, NE 68521-1222) and ask whether the foundation has any informal submission windows before sending a full proposal. There is no LOI stage: the foundation's stated process asks for a complete proposal on the first pass, including the project plan, all activities and objectives, who benefits and how/where/when/why, total project cost versus the amount requested, and — critically — a list of other funders approached and their responses. Don't treat that last item as optional boilerplate; naming specific funders and outcomes signals a credible, multi-source funding plan, which matters more to a small, all-volunteer-officer foundation than to a staffed program officer who screens hundreds of cold LOIs. Attach every required document exactly as specified: latest annual financial statement, current-year budget, listing of present income sources, a copy of your IRS tax-exempt determination letter, and a full board of directors list — incomplete packets to a funder with no staff to follow up are likely to simply stall. Right-size the ask to the observed pattern: the median award is $13,750 and the average $15,347, with most funded organizations receiving between $10,000 and $25,000; requests above $40,000-$50,000 are rare and appear reserved for long-standing relationships (Food Bank of Lincoln, Cedars Home of Children Foundation). A common mistake would be assuming a national or out-of-state project fits — 75 of 76 tracked grants went to Nebraska organizations, so applicants without a genuine Lincoln or Lancaster County connection are working against the grain of the portfolio. Since roughly half of top recipients received two separate awards, position a first request as the start of an ongoing relationship rather than a one-time ask, and follow a first grant with a timely, concrete report to support renewal. Given the foundation's themes — food security, child and family welfare, health, arts/culture, and University of Nebraska-Lincoln programs — frame proposals in terms of immediate, practical community benefit rather than research, advocacy, or national-scale language.