Schillhahn-Huskey Foundation

The Schillhahn-Huskey Foundation is a lean, founder-directed family foundation ($9.70M in assets) organized around four fixed program buckets: Environment & Outdoor Activities, Animal Welfare, Children's Causes, and Brain-Related Diseases. President Lauren B. Wolfford draws the foundation's only compensation ($50,000/year); directors Larry Stophel, Gregory D. Willett, Katherine H. Farmer, and Scott Mattice are unpaid. Decisions run through this small, hands-on board rather than a program-officer bureaucracy, meaning clarity of ask and demonstrated local impact matter more here than polished grant-writing. The foundation states plainly it 'does not give handouts' and instead backs organizations 'taking the initiative to help themselves improve the community around them' — applicants should frame requests around self-sufficiency and measurable outcomes, not open-ended need.

Geographically the foundation is almost entirely local: 91 of its last 95 tracked grants (96%) went to Tennessee organizations, concentrated in Chattanooga/Hamilton County, with only occasional grants to Illinois (3) and Georgia (1) recipients, plus rare historical exceptions like Florida's Loggerhead Marinelife Center. Organizations without a direct Chattanooga tie face a steep uphill climb.

Relationship progression favors repeat, escalating giving over one-off grants. Top recipients — Songbirds Foundation ($475,000 across 5 gifts for music therapy in schools), the Community Foundation of Greater Chattanooga ($449,800 across 4 gifts, largely via a donor-advised fund), Siskin Hospital ($260,000 across 3 gifts for a healing garden), and Ronald McDonald House ($106,000 across 4 gifts) — show multi-year partnerships being built incrementally rather than large one-time capital drops. First-time applicants should expect a smaller initial grant (many first gifts cluster at $10,000-$30,000) as a trust-building step, with larger, six-figure capital support (as with The Bright School's single $390,000 facilities upgrade) reserved for organizations with an established track record. The formal path in starts with an online Letter of Intent through the foundation's GrantInterface portal; there is no evidence of a cold-mail or unsolicited-proposal channel in the foundation's public materials.

Giving has held steady in the $650,000-$980,000/year range since 2019: $857,731 (2019), $980,088 (2020, the high-water mark), $791,007 (2021), $975,335 (2022), and $870,938 total giving in 2023 ($703,125 in grants paid that year). The most recent full-year figure, 2025, shows $653,800 distributed across 27 grants — down in dollars from 2022-2023 but up in grant count from 21 grants the prior year, suggesting a deliberate move toward more, smaller awards rather than fewer large ones. Assets have stayed essentially flat at $9.6M-$10.3M across the same period (currently $9,696,005), meaning the foundation distributes close to its investment income each year (net investment income ranged from $333,436 to $840,183 annually) rather than growing its corpus — an effective payout ratio of roughly 7%-10%, comfortably above the 5% IRS minimum.

Per-grant size varies by relationship stage. The foundation's own reported typical range is $5,000-$100,000, with a median of $27,500 and average of $34,000 (based on a sample of 18 grants); external aggregators cite a broader observed ceiling up to $214,900. Across 95 tracked grants totaling $3,726,175 (average $39,223 per grant, reflecting cumulative multi-gift totals to repeat recipients), giving is concentrated at the top: the 10 largest recipients alone account for roughly $2.4 million of that total.

By program area (estimated from stated grant purposes), Children's Causes & Youth Services draws the largest identifiable share at roughly 31% (~$1.16M) — schools, YMCA camps, Boys & Girls Club, Chambliss Center for Children — followed by Arts, Culture & Community Infrastructure at roughly 41% (~$1.52M, driven heavily by Songbirds Foundation's $475,000 and a $449,800 donor-advised gift routed through the Community Foundation of Greater Chattanooga), Health & Brain-Related Disease/Medical at roughly 17% (~$630,000, led by Siskin Hospital's $260,000 healing garden), and combined Environment & Animal Welfare at roughly 11% (~$393,000). Geographically, 91 of 95 grants (96%) went to Tennessee organizations.

Grantable's peer set groups foundations by near-identical asset size (~$9.69M-$9.70M) rather than by mission, so most peers here are asset-matched, not focus-matched, and detailed giving/focus data for them is not available in this dataset:

What stands out is transparency, not asset size: only 2 of the 5 peers (Honey Foundation, Thewes Family Foundation) maintain a public website at all, and none of the five publish an open online application portal comparable to Schillhahn-Huskey's GrantInterface presence. That makes Schillhahn-Huskey unusually accessible for a foundation its size — most similarly-sized family foundations in this tier operate by invitation or personal referral only, so a documented LOI process and public grantee list are real advantages for a first-time, unconnected applicant.

The most current verifiable activity is the foundation's 2025 giving: $653,800 distributed across 27 grants, per 990 filing data aggregated by Instrumentl. That compares to $703,125 across 21 grants the prior year (matching the foundation's FY2023 IRS filing of $703,125 in grants paid) — more grants, smaller average size (roughly $24,200/grant in 2025 versus roughly $33,500/grant previously). No news articles, press releases, leadership changes, or new-program announcements for 2025-2026 surfaced in web searches; the foundation's visible footprint is limited to its own website, its GrantInterface application portal, and nonprofit-data aggregator profiles (Instrumentl, Candid/Foundation Directory, ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer, GuideStar, CauseIQ, Zeffy, Grantable). Leadership remains unchanged: Lauren B. Wolfford as President ($50,000/year, consistent since at least 2020), with Larry Stophel, Gregory D. Willett, Katherine H. Farmer, and Scott Mattice serving as unpaid directors/officers. The foundation's published past-grantee list (McKamey Animal Center, Chattanooga Area Food Bank, Bridge Scholars, T.C. Thompson's Children's Hospital) is consistent with the broader grantee data and shows continuity rather than a change in direction. Given the absence of new public statements, the most reliable signal of the foundation's current posture is the shift toward a larger number of smaller grants observed in the 2025 filing — worth factoring into ask-sizing for any 2026 application.

Apply through the portal, not cold outreach. The foundation's website routes every applicant to its GrantInterface account (grantinterface.com, urlkey=Schillhahnhuskeyfoundation) for a Letter of Intent — there is no indication that mailed proposals, unsolicited emails, or phone pitches to the (423) 756-3000 office lead anywhere without a portal submission first.

Use the foundation's own language. Its site explicitly says it does not fund 'handouts' but backs groups 'taking the initiative to help themselves improve the community around them.' Proposals should foreground applicant-driven initiative, a concrete action plan, and a defined use of funds — not general operating need framed passively.

Size the ask to your relationship stage. The foundation's typical per-grant range is $5,000-$100,000 (median $27,500, average $34,000); first gifts to a new grantee cluster at $10,000-$30,000 in the grantee data (e.g., McKamey Animal Shelter $30,000, Teaching to Teach $30,000, Skyuka Hall $30,000). Six-figure capital gifts (Bright School's $390,000, Siskin Hospital's cumulative $260,000) appear only after a multi-year track record — do not lead with a large capital ask as a first-time applicant.

Stay in-region. With 96% of tracked grants going to Tennessee organizations (overwhelmingly Chattanooga/Hamilton County), out-of-area applicants should demonstrate a clear, direct Chattanooga-area service population or partner organization to have a realistic shot.

Match one of the four fixed buckets exactly. Applications should map cleanly to Environment & Outdoor Activities, Animal Welfare, Children's Causes (education, food, healthcare access, youth outdoor activities), or Brain-Related Diseases — the foundation does not appear to fund outside these four areas based on 95 tracked grants.

Expect a lean, low-bureaucracy review. With only one paid staff member (the President, at $50,000/year) and three unpaid directors, this is not a foundation with program officers who will proactively follow up — a complete, self-contained LOI that answers project description, goals, and budget use in the portal's own fields is more likely to get read than one that assumes a phone conversation will fill gaps. A common mistake to avoid: requesting general/unrestricted support with no specific project or capital purpose, which runs against the foundation's stated preference for initiative-driven, purpose-built requests.