Rooted Philanthropic

Rooted Philanthropic is a young, founder-directed family foundation (established 2014 by Anytime Fitness co-founder Chuck Runyon and Shannon Runyon) that scaled up its giving sharply in 2020 and now operates as a hyper-local place-based funder for a single geography: Saint Paul's East Side (city council districts D1, D2, D4, D5). Every one of the 21 grants in its most recent disclosed fiscal year (FY2023, $1.99M paid) went to organizations working in that footprint — 20 of 21 to Minnesota recipients, with a single Pennsylvania outlier. First-time applicants should treat geography as a non-negotiable screen, not a soft preference: an otherwise excellent proposal from outside the East Side will not clear the first filter.

The foundation explicitly favors general operating support over restricted program grants — every grant in the FY2023 data carries the purpose code "GENERAL SUPPORT," which signals real trust in grantee-led strategy rather than funder-directed programming. This tracks with the foundation's stated philosophy that "the community knows best what it needs." The relationship model is inquiry-first: organizations submit a brief Mini Letter of Inquiry through Temelio (Rooted's online grants portal), rather than a full unsolicited proposal. There are no published deadlines for general grantmaking — decisions happen on a rolling basis — but the foundation's one recurring structured program, the East Side Small Business Cohort, runs a defined annual application window (2025 cycle: August 18–September 18).

With an executive director (Patrick Troska, $140K comp) and a small program-officer team split by pillar (entrepreneurship, wellness), Rooted is still building institutional infrastructure — the Wellness pillar only got its first dedicated program officer in May 2025. That means program areas outside Entrepreneurship & Small Business are less mature and likely more open to shaping conversations with staff before formal submission. Grant sizes in the disclosed data span three orders of magnitude ($1,000 to $605,000), suggesting the foundation is comfortable both seeding small community groups and anchoring a flagship local institution (Hill-Murray Foundation) with a transformational gift — first-time applicants should not assume there's a single "typical ask" size to target.

FY2023 (the most recent year with disbursement data) shows $1,994,075 paid across 21 grants, an average of $94,956 per grant. The distribution is heavily right-skewed: the top grant (Hill-Murray Foundation, $605,000, general support) alone equals 30% of total giving, and the top three grants (Hill-Murray $605K, East Side Neighborhood Development Company $267,500, Esaba Charitable Foundation $159,500) together account for $1.03M — 52% of all giving that year. The median grant, by contrast, sits closer to $40,000, and the bottom third of grants range from $1,000 (Turnsignl Foundation) to $30,000, indicating a barbell strategy: a few large anchor commitments alongside many smaller community-level grants.

Geographically, 20 of 21 FY2023 grants (95%) went to Minnesota organizations, with one $38,075 grant to Tiny News Network (Pennsylvania) as the sole out-of-state exception — likely a media/journalism-focused special interest rather than a core geography shift. By program lean, the FY2023 grantee list clusters around economic development and community organizing (East Side Neighborhood Development Company $267,500, Latino Economic Development Center $150,000, several district community councils totaling roughly $78,000 combined — Payne Phalen $36,000, Dayton's Bluff $27,000, Southeast Community Council $15,000), alongside education/youth (Hill-Murray Foundation $605,000), and cultural/identity-based organizing (Indigenous Roots $100,000, Hmong American Partnership $90,000, Culture Booster $120,000).

On the balance sheet, total assets stood at $6.79M in FY2023 (grown from a near-zero base — $1 total assets — reported in FY2022, reflecting the foundation's still-recent capitalization), while current site data shows assets have since grown to roughly $8.6M. Total revenue in FY2023 was $8.3M, driven by $8.2M in contributions received (i.e., fresh Runyon family funding) against just $103,739 in net investment income — this is a foundation still being actively funded by its founders each year rather than living off endowment returns, meaning its giving capacity is likely to keep climbing as long as the Runyons keep contributing. Post-FY2023 web evidence (the $810,000 Resiliency Fund commitment in November 2025) suggests total annual deployment has grown further, though a comprehensive FY2024/FY2025 grant-by-grant breakdown was not available in the DB snapshot.

Rooted's identified peer set consists of similarly asset-sized private foundations (all clustering tightly around $8.6M in total assets), but nearly all are generically classified under "Philanthropy & Grantmaking" with no public website, mission statement, or disclosed giving pattern — several appear to be family/pass-through vehicles with limited public grantmaking infrastructure. Rooted stands apart within this peer group by being the only foundation with an active public-facing website, named program staff, a defined multi-pillar strategy, and a documented, inquiry-based application process — for grant seekers, this makes Rooted far more accessible and predictable to approach than its balance-sheet peers, most of which appear to give exclusively through personal networks or invitation.

Rooted Philanthropic has been highly active through 2025 and into mid-2026. In November 2025, the foundation launched a $810,000 Resiliency Fund combining business loans and technical assistance to help East Side Saint Paul businesses weather road construction disruption and shifting government support over a 12-18 month period — a notable move beyond pure grantmaking into blended capital. The Small Business Cohort ran its second annual cycle with applications open August 18 to September 18, 2025, building on a 2024 program that reportedly drove the foundation's LISC grant ($248,400, per web data referencing the FY2024 990 grant list) and Sanneh Foundation grant ($50,000).

On staffing, Felicia Henderson joined as the foundation's first dedicated Program Officer – Wellness on May 12, 2025, formalizing what had previously been a less structured funding area. In October 2025, the foundation launched the second cohort of its East Side Saint Paul Women Leaders Initiative, a Special Initiatives program addressing isolation, burnout, and limited mentorship access for women leaders — signaling growth in programming outside the three core pillars. Most recently, the foundation published its FY2025 annual impact report and Form 990 in May 2026, and has kept a visible community presence in 2026 by backing the East Side Farmers Market (running 2nd/4th Sundays through September 2026). No leadership transitions at the executive or board level were identified in this window — Patrick Troska remains Executive Director and Chuck/Shannon Runyon remain President/Treasurer.

Start with the Mini Letter of Inquiry, not a full proposal. Rooted's only listed application entry point is a brief inquiry form through their Temelio grants portal (accessible from the Grantmaking page) — do not send unsolicited full proposals or budgets, as the foundation reviews inquiries first and requests fuller materials only from aligned organizations.

Lead with your East Side of Saint Paul connection in the first line of your inquiry. Because 20 of 21 disclosed grants in FY2023 went to Minnesota organizations working specifically in council districts D1, D2, D4, D5, reviewers are almost certainly screening for geographic fit before anything else — state plainly how your programming, staff, or beneficiaries are rooted in that specific footprint, not just "Saint Paul" broadly.

Match your ask to the right program officer. Vong Thao owns Entrepreneurship & Small Business; Felicia Henderson owns Wellness (a newly formalized pillar as of May 2025, so there may be more room to shape what "wellness" funding looks like in early conversations). For Education requests, note that Rooted's current disclosed education activity centers on two named programs it already runs directly (the Rooted Philanthropic Leadership Institute and the Future Leader Scholarship at Hill-Murray School) — a cold pitch for a new, unrelated education program may be a harder sell than aligning with existing infrastructure.

Use general-operating framing, not restricted-program framing. Every FY2023 grant carried a "GENERAL SUPPORT" purpose code — this is a funder that trusts grantee judgment over funder-directed line items, so proposals framed around organizational capacity and mission delivery will likely land better than narrowly scoped project asks.

If pursuing the Small Business Cohort specifically, plan around the fixed August–September annual window (2025 cycle: Aug 18–Sep 18) and be ready to document one year of continuous operation, active Minnesota Secretary of State standing, and a credible commitment to operate for four more years — these are hard eligibility gates, not soft preferences.

Don't expect a grant range to anchor to. Disclosed FY2023 grants ranged from $1,000 to $605,000 with no single "typical" size — request an amount that matches your organization's actual capacity and need rather than trying to fit a perceived sweet spot, and let the strength of the general-support case, not the dollar figure, carry the inquiry.