Serafy Foundation

The Serafy Foundation is a small, single-trustee family foundation — Nicholas T. Serafy Jr. is its uncompensated trustee and, per its IRS filings, its only listed officer — based in Brownsville, Texas, with $11.4 million in assets. There is no program staff, no online application portal, and no published RFP; its Form 990-PF states plainly that 'all written requests from tax exempt 501(c)(3) organizations will be considered.' That structure means Serafy behaves less like an institutional funder with a defined strategy and more like a personal giving vehicle guided by the trustee's own affiliations and community ties.

The grantee list bears this out. Of 141 recorded grants totaling $2.06 million, 117 (83%) went to Texas organizations, and the large majority of those cluster around Brownsville and the Rio Grande Valley — Catholic parishes and schools, UTRGV and its athletics program, the Children's Museum of Brownsville, and local health and civic groups. A smaller set of national grants (University of Notre Dame, University of Minnesota Foundation, George W. Bush Foundation, World Central Kitchen, Doctors Without Borders) suggests the trustee also supports institutions tied to personal or family history outside Texas, rather than a geographically open competitive program.

The relationship pattern is one of quiet, repeat loyalty rather than one-off large awards to new applicants. Top recipients like St. Mary's Catholic School ($276,000 across 4 grants), University of Dallas ($200,000/4 grants), and Schreiner University ($200,000/4 grants) show multi-year renewal, not single mega-gifts. First-time applicants should expect to enter at a modest level — the typical single grant reported for the most recent filing year sits at a $5,000 median (range $500–$50,000, average $11,797 across 34 grants) — and build toward larger recurring support only after establishing a track record. Organizations with a Catholic, South Texas, or higher-education identity, or a credible personal connection to the Serafy family, are the strongest fits; generalist national nonprofits without a Texas or faith tie-in are a weaker match for this funder's actual giving history.

Serafy Foundation's giving is modest and steady rather than large or programmatic. Across the fiscal years with reported figures (2012–2023), total giving ranged from $567,067 (FY2021) to $852,094 (FY2020), and direct grants paid ranged from $380,987 (FY2012) to $573,450 (FY2022). FY2023, the most recent year with a full breakdown, shows $807,559 in total giving and $508,890 in grants paid — the gap reflects administrative costs, excise tax, and investment fees layered on top of direct charitable distributions. FY2024's return reports $992,407 in total revenue (net assets $11,443,491) but does not yet break out total giving.

At the individual-grant level, the most recent filing year reports 34 grants with a median of $5,000, an average of $11,797, and a range of $500 to $50,000 — this is the realistic band for a new applicant's first award. Looking at the full cumulative grantee history (141 grants, $2,056,890, averaging $14,588 per grant across recipients that often received multiple gifts over several years), education dominates: roughly 69% of cumulative dollars ($1.42 million) went to Catholic K-12 schools, parishes with attached schools, and universities — led by St. Mary's Catholic School ($276,000), University of Dallas ($200,000), Schreiner University ($200,000), and UTRGV ($182,000 plus $50,000 to UTRGV Athletics). Health and medical causes account for roughly 10% ($215,500), including the College of American Pathologists ($115,000) and UT Health ($40,000). The remaining ~20% ($420,000) spans civic, cultural, and social-service organizations in the Brownsville area — the Children's Museum of Brownsville ($99,390), South Texas Academic Rising Scholars ($80,000), and smaller five-figure gifts to police, museums, and youth programs.

Asset growth has come almost entirely from investment performance, not new contributions — net investment income has ranged from $59,387 (2012) to $1.84 million (2015), and contributions received were $0 in every year with data reported since 2012. This is a closed, endowed trust rather than an actively fundraising public foundation, meaning its total giving capacity is unlikely to expand quickly.

Serafy Foundation sits in a cluster of small, similarly-sized private foundations (assets clustered tightly around $11.4 million) that IRS/BMF data classifies under the same broad NTEE 'Philanthropy & Grantmaking' code — a categorization that reflects their legal form as grantmaking private foundations rather than a shared program focus, since most of these peers disclose little to no public program information.

Servafy is one of only two peers based in Texas (alongside Moozie Foundation) and is also one of the few in this asset tier with any documented grant history at all — most of these peer foundations disclose no website, no grantee list, and no application guidance, making them effectively closed to unsolicited outreach. That makes Serafy comparatively more accessible than its peer set: it has a stated (if minimal) acceptance policy for written 501(c)(3) requests, whereas most peers appear to give solely through pre-existing personal or family relationships with zero public inbound channel.

Public news coverage of the Serafy Foundation is essentially nonexistent — this is consistent with its structure as a single-trustee family foundation with no communications staff, no press releases, and (per its own site) a website still listed as 'under development' as of this research. The only recent, verifiable activity is procedural: its FY2024 Form 990-PF was filed with the IRS on November 18, 2025, reporting total revenue of $992,407 and net assets of $11,443,491, a modest increase from FY2023's $10,896,865 in assets. No leadership changes were found; Nicholas T. Serafy Jr. has been the sole listed trustee across all available filings, with zero reported officer compensation in every year on record.

No new program announcements, initiatives, or notable single large grants beyond the recurring pattern already established (repeat multi-year support to the same core group of Catholic schools, Texas universities, and Brownsville-area nonprofits) were identified. Grant seekers should not expect this foundation to publicize open funding rounds or deadlines — its FY2024 revenue growth appears driven by investment market performance (asset sales made up 63.6% of revenue) rather than any change in giving strategy, and there is no indication the foundation is planning to formalize its application process or hire program staff in the near term.

Because Serafy Foundation has no online portal, no published RFP, and no formal LOI template, the entire application process runs through a written letter reviewed personally by trustee Nicholas T. Serafy Jr. This has direct implications for how to approach the funder:

• Lead with 501(c)(3) status explicitly — the foundation's own filing language ('all written requests from tax exempt 501(c)(3) organizations will be considered') makes this the one hard eligibility gate it states publicly. State your EIN and tax-exempt status in the first paragraph.
• Keep the ask concrete and modest for a first request. The most recent reported grant-year median was $5,000 (range $500–$50,000); asking for a first-time gift far above that band is a mismatch with observed behavior. Large, multi-year gifts (e.g., $50,000-$70,000/year to St. Mary's Catholic School or University of Dallas) appear to be earned through years of renewal, not awarded to new applicants.
• Emphasize Texas, and ideally Rio Grande Valley/Brownsville, ties. 83% of grants by count went to Texas organizations. A Cameron County or South Texas nexus (even indirect — alumni, service area, chapter presence) is the strongest single alignment signal in the data.
• A Catholic or faith-affiliated identity is a strong secondary signal. Roughly 69% of cumulative dollars went to Catholic schools, parishes, and Catholic-affiliated universities. Secular Texas higher-ed institutions (UTRGV, UT Austin) and health/medical causes (College of American Pathologists, UT Health) are the next-strongest categories.
• Don't expect a rejection letter or formal review timeline. With no staff and no published cycle, silence after 60-90 days likely means no. Consider a polite one-time follow-up by phone: (956) 546-5315.
• Mail, don't just email — no contact email is published for the foundation; the listed address is 205 W Levee St, Brownsville, TX 78520, c/o Nicholas T. Serafy. A physical letter matches the 'written request' language in their own filing far better than a cold email to a generic address.
• Avoid generic national appeals. Groups with no Texas presence and no faith-based or higher-ed framing (the categories that make up ~99% of this funder's giving) are a poor strategic fit regardless of mission quality.