Seme Foundation Inc.

Seme Foundation Inc. is a small, family-run private foundation based in Cookeville, Tennessee, led by President Thomas H. Jones and Officer/Director Clarence Lee Jones III — both serve without compensation, and the foundation reports zero paid staff. Its IRS Form 990-PF checks the box confirming it 'only makes contributions to preselected charitable organizations' and does not accept unsolicited applications. This is corroborated independently by Grantmakers.io, Instrumentl, and CauseIQ, and it is the single most important fact for any grant seeker: cold LOIs, portal submissions, and mailed proposals are functionally invisible to this funder because there is no open review process to route them into.

Given this, the foundation is best understood as a relationship to cultivate over years rather than an opportunity to apply to. Its 36 known grants skew heavily toward organizations physically rooted in Putnam County/Cookeville, TN (29 of 36 known recipients, 81%), with the remainder concentrated in Arkansas (4 grants) and single grants in Delaware, Maine, and Texas — a pattern consistent with the personal geography and networks of its two directors rather than a formally stated program area. First-time, uninvited applicants should not expect any response to a written proposal. The realistic path in is indirect: board service or volunteer leadership at a Cookeville-area nonprofit already in the foundation's orbit (Habitat for Humanity, Mustard Seed Ranch, Cookeville Rescue Mission, Cookeville Crisis Pregnancy Clinic), an introduction through Cumberland University or Tennessee Tech University advancement offices (both past recipients), or a warm handoff via Impact Cookeville or Leadership Putnam, two community civic organizations the foundation has also funded directly.

The giving pattern mixes steady small-dollar community support ($500-$15,000 checks to youth, scouting, and church groups) with occasional large capital commitments — most notably a $1,000,000 gift, split over two payments, to an 'Ashraf Islam Engineering Building' project, almost certainly tied to Tennessee Tech University's engineering school given the foundation's other TN Tech gift and Cookeville home base. Organizations able to connect a capital campaign to Putnam County higher education, children's welfare, or crisis-pregnancy/family-services work most closely match what this foundation has actually funded, repeatedly, over two decades.

Across the 36-grant history captured in Seme Foundation's public filings, total known giving is $1,627,000 at an average of $45,194 per grant — a figure skewed hard by one outlier. Stripping out the $1,000,000 Ashraf Islam Engineering Building commitment, the remaining 34 grants average closer to $18,400, clustering mostly between $500 and $20,000. Independent analysis of the 2024 tax year alone (8 grants, $262,500 total) puts the single-year median at $28,000, ranging $2,500-$75,000; confirmed 2024 recipients include Cookeville Rescue Mission ($75,000), Mustard Seed Ranch ($50,000), and Hope Center Adoption and Family Services ($50,000).

By program area, education is the largest dollar bucket: roughly $1,180,000 across the Ashraf Islam Engineering Building ($1,000,000), Tanzania Wesley Education Foundation ($60,000), Cumberland University ($50,000), Tennessee Tech University ($50,000), Wesley College ($20,000), and smaller K-12 gifts to Cookeville High School (a $15,000 football-turf project plus $6,000 general support) — roughly 73% of total dollars, though a single capital gift drives most of that share. Excluding the outlier, human-services and community-support giving is the steadier workhorse: Mustard Seed Ranch ($210,000 across 5 gifts to assist children), Habitat for Humanity ($100,000), Cookeville Crisis Pregnancy Clinic ($70,000 across 5 gifts to assist women), and smaller sums to Children's Bereavement Center, Impact Cookeville, and Leadership Putnam.

Total annual giving has swung sharply with investment performance rather than following a fixed payout formula: $72,500 (2020), $569,984 (2021), $867,223 (2022, a year net investment income hit $2.29M), $306,817 (2023), and roughly $262,500 (2024). Total assets have ranged $4.1M-$8.1M over the past decade and stood at $7,341,830 as of the FY2024 filing, with the family periodically topping up the corpus in large lump sums ($1M in 2015, $800K in 2014, $700K in 2022) rather than running purely off investment returns. Geographically, 29 of 36 known grants (81%) went to Tennessee organizations, almost entirely in or near Cookeville/Putnam County, with the remaining grants scattered to Arkansas, Delaware, Maine, and Texas.

All five peer foundations sit in a tight ~$7.3M asset band and share the same 'Philanthropy & Grantmaking' NTEE classification, marking them as small, single-family giving vehicles rather than staffed grantmaking institutions — a profile Seme fits precisely, with two uncompensated family officers and zero employees. None of the five peers publish an open RFP or application portal in available records; like Seme, they most plausibly operate on personal or board referral rather than competitive review. The practical differentiator within this peer set is not process (all appear effectively closed to cold applicants) but geography and family network: Seme's giving is anchored to Cookeville/Putnam County, TN, so an organization's realistic odds rise or fall on physical and relational proximity to that community rather than on proposal quality or budget size.

No dedicated news coverage, press release, or 2025/2026 announcement from Seme Foundation Inc. surfaced in web searches — expected for a two-person, no-website family foundation that does not solicit applications or publicize its giving. The most recent verifiable activity is its FY2024 Form 990-PF, filed November 14, 2025, covering the calendar year ending December 31, 2024: $342,775 in total revenue (largely investment income and asset-sale gains), $449,578 in total expenses, and $262,500 disbursed across 8 grants (median $28,000), leaving $7,341,830 in year-end net assets. Confirmed FY2024 recipients include Cookeville Rescue Mission ($75,000), Mustard Seed Ranch ($50,000), and Hope Center Adoption and Family Services ($50,000) — the latter two do not appear in the foundation's historical top-grantee list compiled from earlier filings, suggesting some rotation of favored causes even within its tight geographic footprint.

Leadership has been stable for years: Thomas H. Jones (President/Director) and Clarence Lee Jones III (Officer/Director), both unpaid, with no reported staff changes or new board appointments found in any source. Notably, the website address on file for this foundation in the platform's own data (seme.org) actually resolves to an unrelated Spanish aesthetic-medicine professional society (Sociedad Española de Medicina Estética, based in Barcelona) — this is a data mismatch, not a dormant foundation site. Grant seekers should treat Seme Foundation Inc. as having no public web presence at all, consistent with its two-person, no-staff, invitation-only operating model.

Because Seme Foundation checks the IRS box for 'preselected only' giving and has no public application portal, generic grant-writing tactics (cold LOI, online form, mailed proposal) will not work here — do not spend cycles drafting an unsolicited proposal package for this funder specifically.

• Build presence in Cookeville/Putnam County, TN first. 81% of known grants (29 of 36) went to organizations physically located in or serving that community; an out-of-state nonprofit with no Cookeville tie is a very long shot regardless of mission fit.
• Target the causes it already funds repeatedly, not just broadly: children's welfare and youth services (5 gifts to Mustard Seed Ranch totaling $210,000), crisis-pregnancy/women's services (5 gifts to Cookeville Crisis Pregnancy Clinic, $70,000 total), and higher-education capital campaigns tied to Tennessee Tech University or Cumberland University.
• Look for board or volunteer connections. With only two uncompensated directors (Thomas H. Jones, Clarence Lee Jones III) making all decisions, a personal introduction — through a shared church, a civic group like Leadership Putnam or Impact Cookeville, or an alumni tie to TN Tech/Cumberland — is worth more than any written proposal.
• If your organization already receives Seme support, focus stewardship on renewal rather than expansion — the same names recur across multiple years (Mustard Seed Ranch, Cookeville Crisis Pregnancy Clinic, Cookeville High School), suggesting loyalty to existing relationships over funding new applicants.
• Time outreach around their fiscal year-end (December) and 990-PF filing cycle (typically filed each November) — disbursement decisions cluster within the calendar year, and directors are more reachable through community events than through any office, since the foundation lists no staff and no public phone line for grant inquiries.
• Avoid framing a capital-campaign ask around the one seven-figure gift on record: the $1,000,000 Ashraf Islam Engineering Building commitment, paid over two installments, appears to be an exceptional, personally-connected gift rather than evidence of a standing capital-grants program — don't assume it's replicable without an equivalent personal tie.
• Common mistake to avoid: treating the '$500-$500,000' typical-award range quoted by third-party grant databases as an invitation to apply broadly. That range describes historical grant sizes paid to preselected recipients, not an open funding ceiling for new applicants.