Shivers Cancer Foundation

Shivers Cancer Foundation is a small, tightly-held Austin family/community foundation (roughly $10.4M-$10.9M in assets across every year on file, 2011-2023) that behaves less like an open grantmaker and more like a private giving vehicle steered by a board of Central Texas physicians and civic leaders. There is no public RFP, LOI form, or 'apply now' page anywhere on shiverscancerfoundation.org, and Instrumentl confirms '0 live grant opportunities' — a strong signal that funding flows through existing relationships rather than a competitive process. The foundation's own DB record lists application_instructions as '__none__' while accepting_applications is flagged true, meaning it will consider outside requests but has built no formal intake channel for them.

The grantee list is small and concentrated: just 19 total grants since inception in the sample, averaging $151,935 each, flowing overwhelmingly to a handful of large, established Central Texas institutions — Dell Children's Foundation/Medical Center ($1.2M combined), United Way of Greater Austin ($896,772), Ronald McDonald House ($400,000), and Hospice Austin ($40,000). Smaller regional nonprofits (Bastrop County Cares, Regarding Cancer, Conquer Cancer) appear only at the $20,000-$30,000 level. First-time applicants — especially those outside the Austin/Central Texas cancer-care ecosystem — should treat this as a long-relationship funder, not a quick-turnaround one. The realistic path is: identify a board connection (several directors are practicing oncologists at Central Texas health systems), make contact with Executive Director Trish Young Brown to gauge fit, and expect any first ask to be modest and tightly scoped to a specific patient-care, screening, or education gap rather than general operating support. Given zero paid staff and zero reported officer compensation, this is a genuinely volunteer-governed foundation — proposals should be concise and decision-ready rather than exhaustive.

Grants paid have climbed steadily: $419,603 (FY2020) to $811,772 (FY2023), with FY2024 giving reported at $991,500 across 7 grants per Instrumentl — roughly a 2.4x increase over five years. Total giving (which includes grants plus program costs) tracks closely alongside: $556,698 (2020) to $929,838 (2023). This growth is funded almost entirely by investment returns, not new contributions — net investment income has ranged from $390,752 to $1.07M annually while direct contributions received have stayed under $25,000 every year on record (as low as $6,110 in 2021), confirming this is an endowed foundation living off its ~$10.4M-$10.9M asset base rather than an actively-fundraising one.

In the DB's grantee sample (19 grants, $2,886,772 total, averaging $151,935 per grant), funding is extremely concentrated by recipient: Dell Children's Foundation and Dell Children's Medical Center together absorbed $1.2M (about 42% of sampled dollars) across 4 grants, and United Way of Greater Austin took another 31% ($896,772) across 3 grants — meaning two organizations account for roughly 73% of tracked giving. Geographically, 13 of 19 grants (68%) went to Texas recipients, with smaller allocations to Illinois (4 grants) and Virginia (2 grants). The foundation's own typical_grant_size record shows a tighter, more recent band: $10,000 to $205,000 (median $80,000, average $83,921, n=5) — considerably lower than the historical top-line, suggesting recent individual grants skew smaller even as total annual giving has grown, consistent with a strategy of funding more organizations at moderate amounts rather than concentrating in mega-gifts. External sources cite a broader range of $3,500-$450,000, indicating occasional larger capital or program gifts alongside the smaller recurring awards.

Shivers Cancer Foundation sits within a cluster of similarly-sized, asset-matched philanthropic foundations (all clustering near $10.9M in assets), though most peers disclose no public website at all — making Shivers comparatively more visible despite having no formal application infrastructure.

All five peers are generically classified under the same 'Philanthropy & Grantmaking' NTEE category with near-identical asset bases, but none surface a public website with programmatic detail — most appear to be pass-through or family-directed vehicles with minimal public footprint. Shivers stands out for having an actual mission-driven website, a real program focus (cancer screening, treatment access, clinician training), and a governance board of named medical professionals, which makes it comparatively more approachable than this peer set even though it still lacks a formal application channel.

Public-facing news specific to Shivers Cancer Foundation is sparse — there is no dedicated press page or news archive on shiverscancerfoundation.org, and web search turned up no grant-specific press releases for 2025-2026. The most concrete recent signal is financial: aggregator sites (Instrumentl, Cause IQ, ProPublica) show the foundation's most recent Form 990 was filed 2025-08-01 covering activity through FY2024, reporting total giving of $991,500 across 7 grants — its highest annual distribution on record, continuing an unbroken upward trend since the FY2020 low of $556,698. Foundation directory listings were refreshed as recently as 2026-06-10, but with no accompanying announcement of new programs, leadership changes, or initiatives.

Leadership has been stable: Clarke Heidrick continues as Chair, Trish Young Brown as Director/Executive Director, and the board's physician-directors (Dr. Robert E. Askew Jr., Dr. Shannon Cox, Dr. Debra Patt) show no turnover across the filings reviewed. One documented relationship worth noting: Dell Children's Foundation has publicly credited a Shivers Cancer Foundation gift toward care at the Dell Children's Blood & Cancer Center, consistent with Dell Children's appearing as the foundation's single largest cumulative grantee ($1.2M across the DB sample). Absent a dedicated news channel, grant seekers should treat the annual Form 990 filing (typically filed each August for the prior fiscal year) as the most reliable source of what the foundation actually funded most recently.

There is no formal application form, LOI portal, or published deadline for Shivers Cancer Foundation — the foundation's own record lists application_instructions as none, and Instrumentl confirms zero live grant opportunities are posted. Treat this as an invitation-only or relationship-first funder rather than one with a competitive open cycle. The most effective entry point is a warm introduction: the board includes practicing Central Texas oncologists and health-system leaders (Dr. Robert E. Askew Jr., Dr. Shannon Cox, Dr. Debra Patt, Trish Young Brown as Executive Director), so a referral through an Austin-area hospital, oncology practice, or existing grantee (Dell Children's, United Way of Greater Austin, Hospice Austin) carries far more weight than a cold submission.

When you do make contact, lead with a tightly scoped ask tied to one of the foundation's three explicit priorities: cancer screening/early detection, training and education of oncology clinicians, or ancillary patient support (navigation, hospice/homecare, blood products) for uninsured and underserved Central Texas patients — generic 'cancer research' or out-of-region asks are a mismatch for a foundation whose sampled grants are 68% Texas-based. Anchor your requested amount to their documented typical range: recent grants cluster at a median of $80,000 (range $10,000-$205,000 per the foundation's own reported figures), while historical outliers have reached $450,000-$900,000 for major institutional partners — first-time, unaffiliated applicants should expect to land toward the lower end of that band, not the top. Because the foundation runs with zero paid staff and zero officer compensation, keep any outreach brief, specific, and decision-ready (a one-page concept note beats a full proposal packet as a first touch) — a lean, volunteer board has limited bandwidth to evaluate lengthy unsolicited submissions. Common mistake to avoid: assuming this is a competitive RFP process and waiting for a posted deadline that will never appear — proactive relationship-building is the only real pathway in.