Sample Foundation Inc.

The Sample Foundation is a Sample-family-governed private foundation founded in 1954 by John Glen Sample and Helen S. Sample, originally based in Collier County, Florida, and relocated to Billings, Montana in 1977. Governance has stayed within the family across filings — Barbara Sample serves as Executive Director/President, with David F. Sample, Patrick G. Sample, Bridget Sample Joyner, Kate Sample, Ryan Sample, James Sample, John Sample, and Joseph F. Sample rotating as directors, and Ronald J. Yates Jr., CPA as treasurer. IRS filings show longtime chairman Joseph S. Sample's death recorded around October 2022, marking a generational transition point worth noting for relationship-building purposes.

The foundation funds one program only — Capital Projects and Equipment Grants — and does not make general operating grants. Its practical preference, visible across its grantee list, is for tangible, itemizable purchases: vehicles (a wheelchair-accessible van for Boys & Girls Club of Missoula County, a passenger van for Friends of the Children – Montana), building systems (HVAC and furnace replacements, security upgrades, septic system work), and program infrastructure (playgrounds, technology upgrades, a mobile health/safety bus). Applicants proposing a defined capital purchase with a clear dollar figure fit the mold far better than those requesting flexible or program-support dollars.

There is no LOI stage or site-visit gate described in the public process — it is a single-stage annual application through the foundant portal, reviewed once per year. First-time applicants should not expect a fast no; the foundation reviews once annually (August 1 deadline, decisions issued in November), so timing discipline matters more than for rolling funders. The grantee data shows a strong renewal pattern: most top recipients received support in two consecutive cycles rather than a single award, suggesting that a well-executed first grant (accurate final reporting, funds used exactly as proposed) meaningfully improves the odds of follow-on support. Typical grantees are small-to-midsize Montana nonprofits serving youth, seniors, housing-insecure families, and people with disabilities — Boys & Girls Clubs, Habitat for Humanity affiliates, Family Promise chapters, senior-services agencies, and food banks all appear repeatedly.

The foundation's own typical-grant-size data (n=74) shows a median grant of $3,345 and an average of $5,338, with a range of $100 to $18,000 — a genuinely small-dollar funder at the individual-grant level. Zooming out to the full FY2022 grantee dataset (142 grants, $971,170 distributed, $6,839 average) tells a similar story once multi-year totals are considered: the largest cumulative relationships — Child's Path Inc in Collier County, FL ($61,400 across two grants), Habitat for Humanity of Missoula ($40,000), and a cluster of $30,000 two-grant totals to Council Groves Apartments, Family Promise Gallatin Valley, Friends of the Children – Montana, Montana Food Bank Network, Billings Public Schools, Boys & Girls Club of the Flathead Reservation, Boys & Girls Clubs of Yellowstone County, and Big Sky Senior Services — still average roughly $15,000-$30,000 per grant when annualized, well above the $3,345 median. In practice this means the bulk of awards are modest ($3,000-$10,000 equipment or repair grants), with a smaller tier of flagship capital relationships in the $15,000-$30,000+ per-grant range going to organizations with a demonstrated multi-cycle track record.

Geographically, Montana dominates: 118 of 142 grants (83%). The remaining 24 grants split across Florida (8, the foundation's historical home base), Washington (8), and two each in Georgia, Illinois, New Jersey, and Wisconsin — likely reflecting family-connected legacy relationships rather than an open geographic program.

On the balance sheet, total assets have grown slowly but steadily: $5.83M (2010) to $5.97M (2018) to $6.82M (2022), with the most recent internal record showing $7.68M in assets and $1.95M in reported income. Annual giving held remarkably steady at $360K-$460K per year from 2010 through 2021, then jumped to $2.12M in FY2022 — a roughly 4x spike driven by $2.33M in contributions received that year, almost certainly a bequest or major family gift rather than a new sustained giving level. Applicants should not assume $2M+ is now the norm; plan around the $400K-$500K historical baseline unless the foundation's next filing confirms a durable step-change.

Among the roughly 79 private foundations in the Billings metro area (combined $291M in assets, $47.5M in annual revenue per Cause IQ), Sample Foundation sits well below the median asset size of the region's largest players — its $7.7M in assets is a fraction of the Bair Ranch Foundation's $56.9M or the Bair Family Trust's $33.9M. What distinguishes it within that peer set is accessibility: unlike several larger Billings-area trusts that appear to operate on invitation or long-standing relationships, Sample Foundation runs a genuinely open, published annual application cycle through Foundant, making it one of the more approachable capital funders for a first-time Montana applicant without existing family or trustee connections.

Dedicated news coverage of the Sample Foundation is essentially nonexistent — no press releases, local news stories, or philanthropy-trade coverage turned up for 2025-2026, which is typical for a small, quiet family foundation that does not maintain an active press or social-media presence (the record confirms no social media listed). The most concrete recent developments come from the foundation's own filings and website rather than news outlets.

The clearest recent inflection point is the FY2022 filing, which shows grants paid jumping to $2,089,508 against a ten-year baseline of roughly $360K-$460K annually — driven by $2.33 million in contributions received that year, consistent with a bequest or major family contribution rather than an operational shift. IRS filing data also records the death of longtime chairman Joseph S. Sample around October 2022 (coded '101322' in the filing), a generational transition that coincides with that same filing year; Barbara Sample continues in the Executive Director/President role, with a rotating slate of Sample-family directors (David F., Patrick G., Bridget Sample Joyner, Kate, Ryan, James, John, and Joseph F. Sample) across recent years' filings.

As of this report's date, the foundation's most recently listed application deadline — August 1, 2026 — has just passed. Grant decisions from that cycle are expected in November 2026 per the foundation's standard 'apply August, decide November' rhythm; the next open application window will most likely be around August 1, 2027. Applicants should treat late spring/early summer 2027 as the window to prepare materials for the next cycle.

The single hard rule is timing: the Sample Foundation reviews once per year, with an August 1 deadline and November decisions — there is no rolling or quarterly alternative, so missing the date costs a full year. Because the 2026 cycle deadline has already passed, the actionable move for prospective applicants right now is to start building the file for the 2027 cycle early rather than waiting until July.

Lead with a specific capital or equipment ask, not a program description. The foundation's own instructions ask for 'specific need & amount requested' — grantee purposes in the data are consistently concrete line items ('snow removal tractor,' 'wheelchair accessible van,' 'furnace and ductwork repositioning,' 'playground & maintenance project'), not broad initiatives. A proposal that names the exact item, its cost, and how it advances health/social-welfare/underserved-population outcomes in Montana will read as a much more natural fit than a general program-support request.

Do not request funding for anything on the explicit exclusion list: capital campaigns, religious organizations, individual artists, operating expenses (including salaries, supplies, and subscriptions), scholarships, duplicate services, lobbying, or political activity. These are stated restrictions, and violating them is likely an instant disqualifier rather than a negotiable point.

Submit through the Foundant portal (grantinterface.com) and register an account early — first-time users should not wait until close to August 1 to discover portal or login issues. Required materials are explicit: a cover letter signed personally by the CEO or board president (not a development officer), proof of 501(c)(3) status, a current board member list, and a balance sheet. Incomplete packages are a foundation's easiest reason to pass on a single-cycle review.

Given the strong renewal pattern in the grantee data (most top recipients show two grant cycles, not one), first-time grantees should treat an initial award as the start of a relationship: deliver a clean, on-time final report by the stated July 1 deadline and use funds exactly as proposed, since that discipline appears to correlate with follow-on support in year two. Direct process questions to applications@samplefoundation.org.