Samsara Foundation

Samsara Foundation is a small, all-volunteer family private foundation (EIN 41-1694707, ruling date October 1991) based in Minneapolis, with $4,025,744 in net assets as of its most recent filing. It is run by three uncompensated officers — Tineka Kurth (President), William T. Messinger (Treasurer), and Kera Messinger (Secretary) — the same three names across every filing reviewed, with no program staff. This is the profile of a closely held family giving vehicle, not an institutional grantmaker with a review committee or communications team.

The single most important strategic fact: multiple third-party foundation-data aggregators (Grantable, Grantmakers.io) state Samsara Foundation "only makes contributions to preselected charitable organizations and does not accept unsolicited requests for funds." That matches the foundation's own record, which lists no application form URL, no deadline, and no funding cycle. There is no LOI-to-full-proposal funnel, no site-visit stage, and no public review process to enter — because there is no public entry point at all.

The foundation's stated mission — "Enhancing the lives of children... every child deserves a promising future" — is narrower than its actual giving, which spans anti-violence work (Nonviolent Peaceforce), domestic-violence survivor services (Missions Inc's Home Free Program), general human services (NY Times Neediest Cases Fund), food security (Connecticut Food Bank, Second Harvest Heartland), homelessness, education, and a scattering of faith, animal-welfare, and civic grantees. This gap suggests the formal mission statement is legacy language while real decisions track the officers' personal and community interests.

Geographically, 33 of 52 recorded grants went to Minnesota organizations (with a visible west-metro Minneapolis/Wayzata cluster: Benilde-St. Margaret's, Wayzata Education Fund, Sunset Hill PTSA, Medicine Lake Fire Department), while Connecticut (6) and a repeat New York gift (8, mostly one recurring NYT Neediest Cases donation) point to a second family or board tie in the Northeast. First-time applicants should not expect to win funding through a proposal; the realistic path is a warm introduction via an existing grantee or a shared community/board connection in one of these two geographies.

Samsara Foundation's giving has been remarkably stable for a decade. Total giving by fiscal year: FY2019 $256,437, FY2020 $247,173, FY2021 $250,468, FY2022 $232,205, FY2023 $241,937 (grants paid $220,676 that year) — all within a tight $204K-$256K band. A third-party 990 aggregator puts FY2024 charitable disbursements at $207,448 and FY2025 at $212,100, with FY2025 revenue jumping to $350,723 (from just $96,582 in FY2023) on stronger investment returns. This is a mature, steady-state payout of roughly 5-6% of a slowly shrinking asset base — total assets have declined from $4,541,217 in FY2011 to $4,025,744 currently, with a one-time spike to $437,193 in giving in FY2015 and a trough of $165,351 in FY2014.

Across the visible sample, typical grant size is a median of $10,000 and an average of $15,429 (range $1,000-$50,000 for the sampled distribution). Calendar-year 2025 activity was 11 grants totaling roughly $210,000 (avg. ~$19,000/grant); 2024 was 9 grants totaling $204,211, led by Missions Inc Home Free Program ($82,211), Nonviolent Peaceforce ($40,000), and We Win ($20,000).

Looking at multi-year cumulative totals in the grantee history (52 recorded grants, $628,000 total, avg. $12,077/grant), a small set of "anchor" grantees dominates: Nonviolent Peaceforce leads at $130,000 across 3 gifts (End World Violence program), followed by Missions Inc Home Free Program at $105,000/3 gifts (domestic-violence survivor support), NY Times Neediest Cases Fund at $90,000/3 gifts (general human services), We Win at $60,000/3 gifts (education), Connecticut Food Bank at $55,000/3 gifts (food security), and Hope Love Option Community Foundation of NW at $27,000/3 gifts (social justice advocacy). Below that tier sits a long list of $2,000-$20,000 general-operating gifts to organizations like Interfaith Outreach, Second Harvest Heartland, Coalition for Homeless, Benilde-St. Margaret's, Animal Humane Society, Florida Southern College, Just Detention International, Wayzata Education Fund, Planned Parenthood, Aeon, and Meals on Wheels — and a bottom tier of $1,000-$4,000 civic and faith gifts (Medicine Lake Fire Department, Sunset Hill PTSA, Plymouth Congregational Church). Geographically, Minnesota accounts for 33 of 52 recorded grants, Connecticut 6, New York 8 (concentrated in one recurring grantee), with single grants in DC, FL, IL, and CA.

Samsara sits at the small end of the Minneapolis family-foundation landscape — roughly one-thirteenth the asset size of George Family Foundation and closer in scale to a modest donor-advised fund than to an institutional grantmaker. What separates it most from every peer above is process, not size: George Family, Butler Family, and the C.H. Robinson program all run structured, publicly documented application channels, while Samsara has none. For a grant seeker, this means Samsara should be approached as a relationship-based funder to cultivate over time (through an existing grantee or community connection), not as a prospect to apply to alongside its larger, application-driven peers.

No news coverage, press releases, leadership changes, or program announcements were found for the Minneapolis-based Samsara Foundation (EIN 41-1694707) in 2025-2026 — consistent with a three-person, all-volunteer family foundation that does not maintain a communications presence. Leadership has been unchanged across every filing reviewed: Tineka Kurth (President), William T. Messinger (Treasurer), and Kera Messinger (Secretary), all uncompensated.

One important discrepancy for applicants: the foundation's on-file website, samsarafoundation.org, actually belongs to an unrelated, same-named children's charity based in Sri Lanka (with its own Facebook page @Samsarafoundationlk and Instagram @_samsarafoundation) — not this Minneapolis 990 filer. There is no evidence the Minneapolis Samsara Foundation maintains its own public website; that URL should be disregarded.

The most recent available financial data (FY2025, per third-party 990 aggregation) shows revenue of $350,723 — a sharp rise from $96,582 in FY2023 — against $229,553 in expenses and $212,100 in charitable disbursements, lifting net assets to $4,025,744. Calendar-year 2025 grantmaking activity (11 grants, ~$210,000) tracks closely with FY2024 (9 grants, $204,211), continuing the same steady pattern the foundation has held since at least 2019. No new program area, staff addition, or strategic pivot was detected in any source reviewed.

There is no formal application process to prepare for. Foundation-data aggregators state plainly that Samsara Foundation "only makes contributions to preselected charitable organizations and does not accept unsolicited requests for funds," and the foundation's own record has no application form URL, deadline, or funding cycle on file. Treat any advice about LOI timing or proposal structure as inapplicable here — the real task is relationship access, not proposal quality.

The clearest path in is a warm introduction. Trace the two geographic clusters in the grant history: a west-metro Minneapolis/Wayzata cluster (Benilde-St. Margaret's, Wayzata Education Fund, Sunset Hill PTSA, Medicine Lake Fire Department, Interfaith Outreach) and a Northeast cluster (Connecticut Food Bank, a recurring New York Times Neediest Cases Fund gift). If your organization has a board member, donor, or program partner connected to either community — or to an existing grantee like Second Harvest Heartland, Coalition for Homeless, or Nonviolent Peaceforce — that connection is worth far more than a written proposal.

Once inside the portfolio, expect a multi-year relationship: most grantees receive 2-3 consecutive annual gifts at similar dollar levels (Nonviolent Peaceforce averaged ~$43,000/gift across three years; Missions Inc Home Free Program averaged ~$35,000/gift, including an $82,211 award in FY2024). This means the foundation values stewardship and renewal more than annual reapplication — a brief yearly impact update to a contact at the foundation is more useful than a formal report.

Calibrate any informal "ask" to the realistic range: median $10,000, average $15,429, with most gifts between $1,000 and $50,000. Only long-standing, trusted relationships reach the $80,000+ tier. A common mistake would be treating this like an open funder and submitting a cold LOI or grant application — there is no mechanism to receive or review one, so that effort is better redirected toward relationship-building.

Finally, use language that matches the realized portfolio rather than the narrow mission statement: framing around child and family wellbeing, violence prevention, food security, and community stability will land better than narrowly "educational" pitches, since the actual grant history is broader than the mission text suggests. Any written outreach should go to the foundation's IRS-registered address (2620 Glenhurst Ave S, Minneapolis, MN 55416, c/o Tineka Kurth) — no public email or online form exists.