Rothman Family Foundation

Rothman Family Foundation is a small, family-run private foundation based in Chicago (EIN 36-3490566, founded 1987) with $4.02 million in total assets as of FY2024 and no compensated staff — the five officers (Florence, Michael, Patricia, Hermine, and Gregory Rothman, all serving without pay) personally review every request. There is no program officer, no online portal, no published grants page, and the foundation's website (rothman.org) is a parked domain with no content — this is a classic 'kitchen-table' family foundation, not an institutional grantmaker with a formal review committee. That has direct implications for strategy: relationships and clear, concise written communication matter more than polished online applications, because there is no application system to navigate around.

The foundation states it accepts applications 'at any time' and asks only for a written letter covering the organization's name, history, purpose, and intended use of funds — no multi-stage LOI-to-full-proposal funnel is documented. Historical grantee data shows the family favors causes with personal or communal resonance: reproductive health access framed around 'haven state' services (Planned Parenthood, $66,929 across 2 grants), Ukraine-related humanitarian relief (HIAS, $60,000), Chicago-based anti-poverty/anti-racism/anti-antisemitism programming (Jewish Council on Urban Affairs, $40,000), and services for the deaf and hard-of-hearing (Alexander Graham Bell Association, $30,000 across 2 grants). Recorded grantee states are split evenly between Illinois (3) and Washington, D.C. (3), suggesting both a hometown-Chicago and a national-policy/advocacy orientation.

First-time applicants should treat this as a warm, relationship-first ask: a short letter of introduction, ideally referencing any connection to Chicago's Jewish civic and philanthropic community (where the Rothman name carries visibility), is more likely to get read than a cold, generic proposal. Because total giving has fallen sharply in recent years (see Funding Patterns), applicants should calibrate expectations toward smaller requests and be prepared for the foundation to fund only a fraction of a project budget rather than serve as an anchor funder.

The foundation's own typical-grant-size data (drawn from 27 recorded grants) shows a median grant of $5,000, a mean of $15,667, and a range from $1,000 to $80,000 — meaning the bulk of awards cluster well below the $15,667 average, which is pulled upward by a handful of larger gifts. Among the four largest recent grantees on record, awards ran from $30,000 (Alexander Graham Bell Association, 2 grants) up to $66,929 (Planned Parenthood, 2 grants), with single gifts of $60,000 (HIAS) and $40,000 (Jewish Council on Urban Affairs) — all comfortably inside the foundation's documented $1,000-$80,000 range but at the upper end of it.

Total annual giving has swung dramatically over the past 15 years and is now in steep decline. Grants paid ran $474,500 (2011), $474,000 (2012), $389,500 (2013), $553,500 (2014), $459,000 (2015), $501,900 (2019), and $423,000 (2020, spread across 27 grants that year) — a stable $400K-$550K/year operating band for most of the 2010s. That fell to $148,334 in 2022, then $48,595 in 2023, and an estimated $25,000 across just 2 grants in 2024 per third-party 990 aggregators, since the foundation's own 2024 filing left total_giving unreported. Total assets have stayed relatively flat near $3.2-4.0 million across the same period ($3.68M in 2011 to $4.02M in 2024), meaning the contraction reflects a deliberate pullback in payout rate rather than a loss of capital — net investment income of $249,775 (2023) and $317,404 (2022) shows the endowment itself remains healthy.

By recorded grantee geography, giving splits evenly: 3 grants to Illinois-based organizations and 3 to Washington, D.C.-based organizations, with a combined $196,929 in tracked giving across 6 grants (average $32,822 per grant in this subset) — well above the foundation's own median, suggesting the publicly tracked sample skews toward the foundation's larger, more visible gifts rather than its smaller $1,000-$5,000 awards, which are harder to trace individually.

No formal peer set was returned in the data bundle for this foundation. For context, below are other same-name-family foundations surfaced in web research — these are legally distinct entities (different EINs, states, and boards) and should not be confused with Rothman Family Foundation of Chicago, but they illustrate the range of scale and focus among small family foundations sharing the Rothman name.

On assets and typical grant size, the Chicago foundation sits in the middle of this group — larger in assets than the Wilmington, DE entity but with a far smaller and now-shrinking annual payout than the two Tampa-based Rothman foundations, which each moved six or seven figures in 2025. Applicants should not assume any relationship or shared eligibility criteria across these organizations simply because of the shared surname; each maintains its own board, geography, and focus areas.

Public reporting on this foundation is sparse: there is no active website, no press coverage, and no grants-database news beyond routine IRS Form 990-PF filings. The most recent filing on record (FY2024, processed by third-party aggregators around May 2026) shows total revenue of $496,823 (63.1% from asset sales, 21.9% from dividends), total expenses of $242,198, net assets of $4,020,815, and charitable disbursements of roughly $25,000 across 2 grants — continuing the sharp multi-year decline from $148,334 (2022) and $48,595 (2023). No leadership changes were found; the same five family officers (Florence C. Rothman as President; Michael C., Patricia C., Hermine C., and Gregory C. Rothman as Vice Presidents, with Patricia also serving as Secretary) have held their roles across the filings reviewed, and none draw compensation.

The foundation's domain, rothman.org, currently resolves to a parked 'this domain may be for sale' landing page, indicating the foundation either never built out a public web presence or has let a prior one lapse — a further sign this is a low-overhead, family-administered vehicle rather than an actively marketed grant program. No 2025 or 2026 grant announcements, new initiatives, or funding priority statements were found in web search. Given the declining payout trend, applicants should treat 2026 as a year of constrained capacity and should not expect the foundation to fund at its 2010s-era $400K-$550K/year levels; recent activity suggests total 2025-2026 giving is more likely in the tens of thousands of dollars, spread across very few grants.

This is a no-portal, no-staff, rolling-deadline foundation, so the standard 'submit through the online form by X date' playbook does not apply. Instead:

• Format: Send a written letter (mail or email) — not a grant-platform submission — covering the organization's name, history, mission, and the specific purpose and use of the requested funds, exactly as specified in the foundation's own filing instructions. Keep it concise; there is no evidence of a multi-page proposal template or budget-form requirement.
• Timing: Applications are accepted at any time with no stated cycle or board-meeting calendar, so there is no deadline to plan around — but given the sharp drop in annual giving (to an estimated $25,000 in 2024), apply as early in the calendar/fiscal year as possible before that year's modest payout is allocated.
• Sizing the ask: Request within the documented range of $1,000-$80,000, and anchor expectations near the $5,000 median rather than the $15,667 average, which is skewed by a few larger gifts. A request above $40,000 should be treated as a stretch ask given current giving levels, not a baseline expectation.
• Alignment language: Use language that mirrors the foundation's known giving pattern — frame reproductive-health work in terms of access and 'haven state' services if relevant, frame refugee/international work in terms of active humanitarian crises (e.g., Ukraine), frame Chicago-based work around combating poverty, racism, social inequality, and antisemitism, and frame disability-services work specifically around the deaf and hard-of-hearing community, echoing the Alexander Graham Bell Association grant language.
• Relationship-building: Because the board is entirely family members with no program staff, there is no 'officer to schmooze' distinct from the decision-makers — any warm introduction to a Rothman family member, or visibility within Chicago's Jewish civic/philanthropic circles, is likely to carry more weight than a cold, unsolicited letter.
• Follow-up: The foundation states it will notify applicants of approval, rejection, or requests for more information, but with no online tracking system, a polite phone or written follow-up after 4-6 weeks of silence is reasonable.
• Common mistake to avoid: Don't search for an online application portal, grants management system, or published RFP — none exists (grants_page_url, application_form_url, and opportunities_url are all unset), and time spent looking for one is time not spent drafting the letter.