Schurz Communications Foundation

Schurz Communications Foundation is a small, family-governed corporate foundation ($2.7-2.8M in assets) tied to Mishawaka-based media and telecom company Schurz Communications. Its board is dominated by Schurz family members (Scott Schurz Jr. as President, Todd Schurz as Secretary, Melissa Lock, Laura Ray, Sally Brown Koziel as VPs and Directors) alongside 1st Source Bank as corporate trustee — a signal that this is closely-held family philanthropy, not a professionally staffed program-officer shop. There is no dedicated grants staff; Executive Assistant Leslie Winey handles administration, and a Senior Tax Consultant/Accountant (Terri Regina) manages compliance. Applicants should expect a relationship-driven, locally-embedded funder rather than a national or thematic grantmaker.

The foundation explicitly funds capital and endowment campaigns — not general operating support — in education, the arts, and human services, and restricts eligibility to organizations serving St. Joseph County, Indiana (Mishawaka/South Bend). This is a hard geographic gate: 26 of 26 tracked grants in the data went to Indiana organizations, and application guidelines state 'LIMITED TO SOUTH BEND AREA.' Out-of-region applicants should not apply regardless of mission fit.

First-time applicants should treat this as a single-step process (no LOI-to-full-proposal ladder): submit the full online application (schurz.com/grant-application-form) with 501(c)(3) determination letter, current and prior-year budgets, board list, and articles of incorporation, at least one month before the February or August board meeting. There is no notification of a separate site visit stage in available materials, consistent with the foundation's small size and twice-yearly cadence. Given the modest total pool (~$130K-$185K distributed annually across roughly 15-25 grants), successful applicants tend to be established South Bend-area institutions — universities (Indiana University Foundation/Leighton School of Business), long-running direct-service nonprofits (Youth Services Bureau, Habitat for Humanity, Boys & Girls Club), and capital-campaign anchors (Habitat, Hospice Foundation, IUSB) — rather than new or unproven organizations. Repeat funding to the same grantees (Youth Services Bureau received 3 grants totaling $112,500) suggests the foundation favors sustained relationships over one-off gifts.

Total giving has ranged from roughly $130K to $189K per year over the last decade-plus of available 990 data, with grants paid specifically running $107,500 (FY2023) to $180,916 (FY2011) — a gentle downward drift as the foundation's asset base has also shrunk somewhat (from $553,817 in FY2011 to $2,730,321-$2,814,781 today, after a mid-2010s bump). Net investment income, not new contributions, funds nearly all giving; contributions received have been $0 in every year from FY2019-FY2023, meaning payouts are drawn almost entirely from the endowment's investment returns — a structural cap that limits future growth in the grants pool absent a fresh infusion from the parent company.

Using the tracked grantee sample (26 grants, $575,000 total, avg $22,115), typical awards run $5,000-$50,000, with a stated program-level range of $8,000-$50,000 (average $21,500) confirmed by the foundation's own data. The single largest tracked commitment was a 3-grant, $112,500 relationship with Youth Services Bureau of St. Joseph County (Young Moms Program) — nearly 20% of all tracked dollars to one grantee. Other multi-grant relationships include Logan Resource Center/Center for Autism ($70,000/2 grants), Indiana University Foundation/Leighton School of Business ($50,000/2 grants), South Bend City Church, Habitat for Humanity, and Transformation Ministries (each $50,000/2 grants under general support).

By purpose, 'general support' (which for this funder typically means unrestricted capital/endowment gifts rather than program grants) accounts for roughly 46% of tracked award count, with the remainder split across named capital campaigns (Center for Autism, Leighton School of Business, Crossroads Campaign), youth/education programs (Young Moms Program, Kindergarten Camp, Teacher Wish Lists), and one-off cultural/historical grants (Holocaust Remembrance, Northern Indiana Historical Society). Geographically, funding is 100% concentrated in Indiana (26 of 26 tracked grants), consistent with the foundation's explicit St. Joseph County restriction — there is no evidence of giving outside Mishawaka/South Bend despite the parent company's broader multi-state media/telecom footprint (Indiana, Virginia, South Carolina, Vermont, and elsewhere).

Schurz Communications Foundation sits at the small end of Indiana corporate/family foundations, both in assets and total annual giving. It shares a home city with several other Mishawaka/South Bend funders, and its use of 1st Source Bank as corporate trustee links it administratively to that bank's own philanthropic activity. Because peer foundation records were not returned in the underlying data pull, the comparison below uses general public-record characteristics rather than a matched financial dataset, and dollar figures for peers should be treated as directional, not precise.

Relative to peers, Schurz's defining traits are its narrow geographic mandate (St. Joseph County only, vs. broader regional footprints at 1st Source and the Community Foundation) and its capital/endowment-only funding model, which is less common than general operating or program support among comparably sized Indiana funders. Its all-family board and reliance on investment income rather than new corporate contributions also make it more conservative and slower-growing than bank- or corporation-sponsored peers that receive annual operating contributions.

No foundation-specific news, leadership changes, or new program announcements were found for 2025-2026; the foundation's grant guidelines, application form, and stated priorities (education, arts, human services; capital/endowment campaigns; St. Joseph County only) appear unchanged from prior cycles, based on the current live versions of schurz.com/grant-guidelines and schurz.com/grant-application-form. The most recent 990 data available (FY2023) shows $107,500 in grants paid against $130,693 in total giving and $2,730,321 in total assets, with the foundation's own site listing $2,814,781 in current assets — suggesting modest asset growth since the FY2023 filing.

At the parent-company level, Schurz Communications has been notably active: it launched Schurz Broadband Group on 2025-07-30 to unify its regional fiber-internet providers, added data-protection/managed-cloud services through subsidiary Otava (2025-09-25), and saw a leadership transition at subsidiary Burlington Telecom, with Mike Callahan named President and GM on 2026-01-07 following Mike Loucy's retirement. John Schurz was also appointed SVP of People and Culture effective 2025-09-02. None of these corporate developments have yet produced visible changes to the foundation's giving footprint, deadlines, or focus areas, and the foundation's own 'Awarded Grants' page (schurz.com/foundation/awarded-grants) lists long-tenured recipients — Beacon Children's Hospital, Bethel College Nursing School, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, The History Museum, YWCA, St. Vincent de Paul Society — without specific 2024-2026 dollar amounts, indicating the page functions as a general 'who we've funded' showcase rather than a current-cycle award list. Applicants should not expect a public real-time grants database and should confirm current-cycle activity directly with foundation staff.

Apply through the official 4-step online form at schurz.com/grant-application-form — there is no LOI stage, so the application itself is the full ask; incomplete submissions or missing attachments (IRS determination letter, current and prior-year budgets, board contact list, articles of incorporation/bylaws, annual/treasurer's report) are the likeliest reason a strong project gets passed over given the board's twice-a-year review cadence and small staff.

Timing is critical and asymmetric: while the foundation cites January 15 and July 15 as 'recommended' submission dates ahead of the February and August board meetings, the hard rule buried in the guidelines is that requests must arrive 'at least one month prior to any meeting' — treat the recommended dates as the real deadline and do not submit in the final week before a meeting expecting consideration. Because the board meets only twice yearly, a missed deadline means a six-month wait, so build this into any capital campaign timeline.

Lead with a capital or endowment ask, not general operating support — despite 'general support' appearing frequently in the tracked grant data, the foundation's own guidelines and mission statement are explicit about capital/endowment campaigns being the core purpose, and applications framed as program/operating requests are a weaker fit. Emphasize measurable local impact within St. Joseph County specifically (Mishawaka/South Bend) — the foundation has never funded outside this footprint in the tracked data, so any regional or statewide framing should still center the South Bend metro impact.

Because the board is entirely composed of Schurz family members (Scott Schurz Jr., Todd Schurz, Melissa Lock, Laura Ray, Sally Brown Koziel) plus 1st Source Bank as corporate trustee, warm introductions and existing relationships with South Bend civic and business circles matter more here than with an institutionally staffed foundation — consider whether a board member, staff contact (Leslie Winey, Executive Assistant), or 1st Source Bank relationship can make an introduction before applying cold. Given median award sizes of $20,000-$25,000, right-size the ask: requests should be framed as one meaningful piece of a larger capital campaign (as IU Foundation, Habitat for Humanity, and Hospice Foundation have done) rather than the sole funding source, and be prepared to name other confirmed funding sources on the application, since that field is explicitly requested. Plan for the required one-year progress report as a condition of the grant, and treat that report as an opportunity to seed a repeat request, since roughly a third of the tracked grantees received multiple awards.