Sai Kripalu Foundation

Sai Kripalu Foundation is a young, founder-run private foundation (IRS ruling dated November 2022) built by Ajay and Ananya Chandhok around a personal 'lifelong calling to service' rather than professionalized philanthropic staff. Both officers on the 990 — Arti Chandhok (Secretary) and Ajay Chandhok (Treasurer) — list $0 compensation, signaling a lean, volunteer/family-operated structure with no program officers to manage a high application volume. Applicants should read the funder in two lanes rather than one. The first is Chicago-based direct-service nonprofits working in hunger relief, homelessness/housing, and education — the foundation's three named pillars, evidenced by partnerships with Nourishing Hope, Cara Collective, The Night Ministry, Morgan Park Academy, and High Jump. The second, less obvious lane reflects the founders' Hindu/spiritual background: the past-grantee list includes Jagadguru Kripaluji Yog (JK Yog), Shirdi Sai Baba Sanstha, Shiv Durga Hindu Temple, Radha Krishna Temple of North Carolina, Om Yog Sansthan, and Vidya Jyoti, and the foundation's own stated geographic_focus explicitly names 'United States, Chicago IL, India, Global.' Organizations that fit neither lane will find this a difficult cold call. The relationship progression is a two-step funnel: a rolling, year-round Letter of Inquiry (mission, funding amount sought, program summary, expected outcomes) reviewed within roughly 30 days, followed — only if shortlisted — by an invited full proposal (detailed budget, evaluation metrics, team information) considered quarterly by the Grant Committee. First-time applicants should treat this as a relational, not transactional, funder: with only 13 named grantees on record across its short history and one organization (JK Yog, $54,400/year) already receiving consecutive-year funding, the foundation appears to favor renewing trusted partners over broad annual redistribution. A warm introduction through the Chicago human-services ecosystem or a documented tie to the Sai/Kripalu spiritual tradition is likely to matter more than proposal polish alone.

The foundation's financials show a young grantmaker still stabilizing after a large founding contribution. FY2022 revenue was $5,097,781, almost entirely a single $5,050,000 contribution (the apparent founding/seed gift), against which the foundation paid out just $54,400 in grants and $58,175 in total giving. FY2023 looked structurally different: total revenue fell to $231,087, of which $199,547 was net investment income and only $10,358 was fresh contributions — meaning the foundation is now largely funding its grantmaking out of investment returns on the initial endowment rather than new fundraising. Grants paid rose to $164,625 and total giving to $192,443, and total assets grew only marginally, from $5,039,606 to $5,078,224 (+0.8%), essentially breaking even because investment income nearly offset the year's payout. On a per-grant basis, the only verified, itemized data point is a $54,400 grant to Jagadguru Kripaluji Yog (JK Yog), a Texas-based religious organization, paid in two consecutive years for a two-grant total of $108,800 (avg_amount $54,400) — by itself roughly a third of FY2023's total grants paid. The remaining ~$110,000 of FY2023 giving is presumably spread across the foundation's other ~12 named partners (Nourishing Hope, Morgan Park Academy, Cara Collective, The Night Ministry, High Jump, Shirdi Sai Baba Sanstha, Shiv Durga Hindu Temple, Silver Seniors Group, Vidya Jyoti, Radha Krishna Temple of North Carolina, Om Yog Sansthan), implying individual Chicago-service awards likely fall in a $5,000-$25,000 band. Programmatically, the site cites cumulative impact rather than dollar splits: 4.5+ million meals via Hunger Relief partnerships, 400+ families served through Homelessness & Housing collaborations, and 100+ scholarships awarded under Education — with no disclosed percentage breakdown by program. Geography is not Illinois-limited despite the Chicago address: recorded and named grantees span Texas, North Carolina, and India-linked organizations, consistent with the foundation's self-described national-plus-India focus.

These five peers were matched almost entirely on asset size — all cluster within about $1,400 of $5.144M and share the generic 'Philanthropy & Grantmaking' NTEE category — rather than on mission alignment; only Margolis Family Foundation has a public website, and none disclose grantmaking amounts or application processes in the data available. That contrast is itself informative: Sai Kripalu Foundation is unusually transparent for its size bracket, publishing a defined mission, named funding pillars, an explicit two-step LOI/proposal process, and a public grants email — advantages an applicant should exploit, since most similarly sized funders in this cohort appear to operate with no public application channel at all.

The foundation is too young (IRS ruling dated November 2022) to have a long public activity record, and nearly all of its visible media coverage runs through grantee partners rather than the foundation's own name. Its homepage lists a '2025 Grant Recipients' announcement reaffirming continued support across education, housing, and hunger relief, though specific award amounts or organization names were not surfaced in indexed search or fetch results — a gap applicants should note when sizing expectations. The most concrete recent news involves flagship partner Nourishing Hope, which received the Baumhart Center's Social Impact Award for 'compassionate innovation' and was covered by the Chicago Sun-Times for launching Narcan Newsstands (harm-reduction vending stations) in Chicago's Uptown neighborhood; Nourishing Hope also announced a new CEO, Mitzi Baum. No leadership changes have occurred at the foundation itself since its 2022 founding — Ajay and Ananya Chandhok remain the founders, with Arti Chandhok (Secretary) and Ajay Chandhok (Treasurer) as the only officers on file, both uncompensated. No new program areas have been announced beyond the three founding pillars of hunger relief, homelessness/housing, and education. On the financial side, the most notable recent shift is structural rather than newsworthy: FY2023 total giving ($192,443) more than tripled FY2022's ($58,175), marking the foundation's transition from its initial seed-funded launch year into a steadier annual grantmaking cadence funded chiefly by investment income.

Start with the Letter of Inquiry sent to grants@saikripalu.org — there is no online portal or application_form_url on file, so a direct, personalized email is the only channel and will read better than a templated mass LOI. Keep it tight: state the funding amount requested and expected/measurable outcomes explicitly, since that's exactly the language the foundation uses to describe what it wants in step one. LOIs are accepted year-round with a roughly 30-day review, but invited full proposals are only decided quarterly by the Grant Committee — a proposal submitted right after a committee meeting could sit for up to three months, so build that lag into fundraising timelines. Size requests realistically: with total FY2023 giving of $192,443 and one recurring $54,400/year grant already committed to a single organization, most other awards are likely in the $5,000-$25,000 range — a $100K+ ask is out of scale for a foundation this size. Explicitly map the proposal to one of the three named pillars (hunger relief, homelessness/housing, education) in the opening paragraph; broader 'community development' framing is less likely to land given how narrowly the mission is scoped on both the website and the 990. Because the foundation is run by unpaid family officers with no visible program staff, expect a single clear submission to matter more than iterative back-and-forth — over-engineering a phased courtship is unlikely to pay off with an organization this lean. Build reporting capacity into the budget from day one: the foundation explicitly screens for 'financial responsibility and program sustainability with measurable outcomes and reporting,' and post-award it runs periodic check-ins plus requires a final impact report, so a credible, low-lift M&E plan strengthens a proposal materially. For organizations with a genuine tie to the Sai/Kripalu spiritual tradition, Hindu temple communities, or India-based programming, name that alignment directly — it is a documented, separate funding lane (JK Yog, Shirdi Sai Baba Sanstha, Shiv Durga Hindu Temple, Om Yog Sansthan, Radha Krishna Temple of NC) distinct from the Chicago secular human-services lane, and eligibility rules explicitly permit 'Global NGOs complying with U.S. tax law.' The biggest mistake to avoid is treating this like a large staffed foundation with a formal RFP calendar — it isn't one, and proposals that assume otherwise (e.g., addressing a nonexistent program officer or citing deadlines that don't exist) will signal a lack of real research into the funder.