Rucker Collier Foundation

Rucker Collier Foundation (RCF) is a small, all-volunteer family foundation, not an institutional grantmaker with program staff. Its board — John Rucker Collier (President/Treasurer), Katherine Collier, Charles C. Collier, and Ann Berkmeier (Secretary) — draws zero compensation, and the foundation is back-office administered by Foundation Source out of Wilmington, DE, a platform used by thousands of small/young family funds. There is no grants portal, no published RFP, no application deadline, and no listed application form (all confirmed blank in the foundation's own record). Third-party funder databases (Grantable) state plainly that RCF does not accept unsolicited proposals and funds by invitation only. Applicants should calibrate expectations accordingly: this is a relationship- and mission-driven vehicle, not a competitive grant program.\n\nThe foundation's giving cleanly splits into two tiers. The dominant tier (87% of the $1.2M in cumulative grants tracked in our database) is repeat, large-dollar research funding to the Children's Cancer Therapy Development Institute (cc-TDI) in Oregon — five grants totaling $1,046,120 for generalized Sclerosing Epithelioid Fibrosarcoma (SEF) research, explicitly tied to \"making SEF universally survivable.\" The second tier is small, specific-purpose community giving rooted in the family's own experience: Children's Hospital of Alabama (Birmingham, where Rucker was treated) received five grants totaling $62,796 for concrete items — iPads for the oncology floor and infusion clinic, patio furniture for the McWane Clinic. Camp Smile-A-Mile, an Alabama pediatric-cancer camp, received $15,500 across four grants for a specific program (\"Camp SAM Dances\"). Two individual families received direct \"Medical Assistance\" grants ($29,000 and $22,320 combined), and Ateam Ministries received a single $20,000 unrestricted gift.\n\nFor a first-time applicant, the realistic path in is not a cold proposal but a warm introduction: through cc-TDI's existing research network, through Children's of Alabama's pediatric oncology staff, through the NIH-affiliated rare-sarcoma Natural History Study, or through direct personal connection to the Collier family's home community of Vestavia Hills, AL. Framing matters — RCF responds to specific, tangible asks (a named piece of equipment, a named event, a named patient need), not general operating support requests.

RCF's asset base grew from $211,401 (FY2020, its startup year) to $4,994,622 (FY2024) — roughly 24x in four years — driven overwhelmingly by inbound family contributions ($1,142,870 to $1,967,000 per year in FY2021-2023) rather than investment returns, though net investment income has also grown ($792,350 in FY2021 to $728,257 in FY2023) as the corpus compounds. Grants paid tell a different story: $3,500 (FY2020, a partial first year), $366,522 (FY2021), $294,048 (FY2022), and $241,338 (FY2023) — a three-year decline of roughly 34% in annual payout even as assets nearly tripled, indicating the foundation is currently prioritizing capital accumulation over payout growth. FY2024 total_giving is not yet reported in our data, though a third-party 990 tracker (Instrumentl) cites roughly $318,000 across 14 grants for that year, suggesting payout may be stabilizing rather than continuing to fall.\n\nAcross the 20 grants captured in our database ($1,199,456 cumulative, averaging $59,973 per grant), the distribution is sharply bimodal. The research tier: cc-TDI grants cluster in a $18,000-$164,261 range with a median of $92,131 (n=4 in the typical-grant-size calculation) — this is the size band a serious SEF/sarcoma research proposal should target. The community/patient-support tier runs far smaller: $3,720 to $29,000, covering hospital-unit amenities, a camp program, an unrestricted ministry gift, and direct individual medical assistance. There is no funding in between these two tiers and no grants above $165,000 recorded.\n\nGeographically, giving is concentrated in exactly two states: Alabama (10 of 20 tracked grants — hospital, camp, and both individual-assistance recipients, reflecting the family's home base) and Oregon (5 grants — all to cc-TDI's Beaverton headquarters). There is no program-area diversification: 100% of tracked giving sits within pediatric cancer/rare sarcoma research and directly adjacent patient/family support — RCF is a single-disease vehicle, not a general community, education, or health funder, and proposals outside SEF/rare pediatric sarcoma or the Colliers' Alabama community network fall well outside its demonstrated pattern.

| Foundation | Assets | Annual Giving | Primary Focus | Application |\n|---|---|---|---|---|\n| Rucker Collier Foundation | $4.99M (FY2024) | ~$241K-$330K (FY2022-23) | SEF / rare pediatric sarcoma research + family's home-community support | Invitation only |\n| ChadTough Defeat DIPG Foundation | $9.37M (2024) | ~$9.8M expenses (2024) | Pediatric brain cancer (DIPG) research | Open LOI/application process |\n| Cameron Kravitt Foundation | $664K (2024) | ~$94.5K expenses (2024) | Pediatric cancer clinical trials & family support | Invitation/relationship-based |\n| Karen Wyckoff Rein In Sarcoma | $1.09M (2024) | ~$697K expenses (2024) | Sarcoma research and patient education | Open research-grant applications |\n\nRCF sits in the middle of this peer set by asset size — larger than the Cameron Kravitt Foundation and comparable in scale to Rein In Sarcoma, but a fraction of ChadTough's footprint, which has scaled into a multi-million-dollar annual grant program with a public application process. What distinguishes RCF from all three peers is governance: it has no paid staff and no public intake process of any kind, whereas ChadTough and Rein In Sarcoma both run structured, application-based research grant cycles. Applicants who strike out with RCF's invitation-only model may find Rein In Sarcoma (sarcoma-specific, open applications) or ChadTough (larger pediatric brain/rare-cancer research budget) more accessible entry points into adjacent funding.

RCF's own website news feed has not been updated since January 31, 2022 (the \"2021 Rucker Collier Foundation Impact Report\"), even though the foundation's asset base has grown substantially since — from $1.88M at the end of FY2021 to $4.99M by FY2024. This gap suggests an active, growing foundation with a dormant public-communications function rather than a foundation that has gone quiet operationally; a third-party 990 aggregator (Instrumentl) reports roughly $318,000 across 14 grants in the most recently filed year (FY2024), with continued support to cc-TDI, Children's Hospital of Alabama, and Ateam Ministries. The last substantive announcements on the foundation's own site were research-focused: SEF's inclusion in an NIH/National Cancer Institute Natural History Study (March 10, 2021) and an early report that immune-checkpoint-blockade combination therapy was showing benefit for SEF patients (January 13, 2021) — both signal that the foundation's signature cc-TDI/NIH research investments were producing visible clinical-research movement in their first year. No leadership changes have surfaced: the same four family board members (John Rucker Collier, Katherine Collier, Charles C. Collier, Ann Berkmeier) have held their roles since inception, all uncompensated. We found no 2025 or 2026 press coverage, award announcements, or program changes in web search — grant seekers should not expect a public news cadence from this funder and should rely on the 990-filing pattern and personal outreach rather than press monitoring to track its activity.

Do not submit a generic, unsolicited grant application or LOI — RCF has no application form, no portal, no deadline, and third-party funder databases explicitly flag it as invitation-only. Cold submissions to info@ruckercollierfoundation.com are unlikely to be reviewed against any formal rubric, because there is no program staff; the board is four uncompensated family members, and the (800) 839-1754 number is a shared Foundation Source administrative line, not a program office.\n\nThe strongest path in is topical or relational alignment. If your work is SEF or rare-pediatric-sarcoma research, connect through cc-TDI's existing research network (RCF's largest and most consistent grantee, $1,046,120 across five grants) or the NIH/NCI Natural History Study the family already funds — proposals that plug into these two named programs (\"SEF Study at cc-TDI\" and \"Natural History Study at NIH\") are far more likely to be considered than a standalone research ask. If your organization serves pediatric cancer patients/families in Alabama — particularly through Children's Hospital of Alabama or Camp Smile-A-Mile, both existing grantees — a warm introduction through clinical or camp staff who know the Collier family directly is the realistic entry point, since the family's home community (Vestavia Hills/Birmingham, AL) is where all of its non-research giving is concentrated.\n\nFrame any request as a specific, tangible, itemized need rather than general operating support: the community-tier grants on record fund named items (iPads for an oncology floor and infusion clinic, patio furniture, a camp dance program) in the $3,720-$29,000 range, not unrestricted budget support (the lone exception, Ateam Ministries' $20,000 \"General & Unrestricted\" gift, still reads as a personal-relationship gift rather than a competitive award). Research asks should target the $18,000-$164,261 band (median $92,131) that matches cc-TDI's historical grant sizes.\n\nThe most common mistake would be treating RCF as a general pediatric-cancer or general Alabama community funder open to broad outreach — its 990 history shows zero diversification outside SEF/rare sarcoma research and its own founding family's direct community ties. There is no disclosed review cycle or board-meeting calendar, so timing outreach around a specific, time-bound need (a piece of equipment, an event, a documented patient gap) is more effective than trying to anticipate a funding cycle that isn't published.