Silver Sun Foundation

Silver Sun Foundation is a tiny, all-volunteer family philanthropy run directly by trustees Paul Goodman and Karen Sloe Goodman (listed as Founding Trustee and Director) out of a Manhattan address (241 Central Park W) and a Woodstock, NY residence (25 Chimney Road). Officer compensation has been $0 in every filed year and Cause IQ confirms zero employees — there is no program staff, no grants portal, and no published RFP. IRS records classify the foundation under Education (NTEE B82), but that label is a filing artifact: web research and grantee data both show the real giving pattern is arts & culture, filmmaking, music, environmental education, and grassroots social-justice organizing, concentrated in the Hudson Valley and New York City. First-time applicants should treat this strictly as a warm-introduction, relationship-first funder. There is no evidence of a competitive open cycle; grants flow through the trustees' personal and professional networks, artist/filmmaker/musician residencies hosted at the Woodstock property, and standing partnerships (Maverick Concerts, Skylight, Close Up Initiative, Untitled Filmmaker Organization, The Local). Cold, generic LOIs mailed to an inbox are unlikely to get traction absent a residency connection or an introduction from an existing grantee — WFUV, Jacob Burns Film Center, North Star Fund, and Woodstock Day School all appear as repeat, multi-year recipients, suggesting the foundation renews relationships rather than chasing new applicants. Geography matters: 21 of the 29 grants in the sampled data went to New York-based organizations, with only scattered support to California, Illinois, Maine, and Vermont. Fourteen of the top 15 grantees by dollar volume were coded GENERAL purpose (versus one ADVOCACY grant), signaling a strong preference for unrestricted operating support over project-restricted asks. Organizations aligned with 'culture of care,' equity, environmental stewardship, and creative-artist support (per the foundation's own who-we-support language) fit the profile best. Given the trustees personally review every gift with no staff to triage volume, the realistic path in is a short, specific, personally addressed note — not a formal application packet.

Total assets have stayed roughly flat across six filed years — $3.99M (2019) to $4.12M (2024), peaking at $4.53M in 2021 and dipping to $3.73M in 2022 with market swings. Reported total giving on the 990 rose from $201,416 (2019) to $328,312 (2023), a 63% increase, but actual cash grants paid stayed far smaller and grew more slowly: $61,030 (2019) to $88,683 (2023) — the gap implies the foundation books multi-year pledges as 'total giving' while paying them out over time. Against ~$4.1M in assets, a 5% minimum-distribution benchmark works out to roughly $206K/year; the cash-grants-paid figure ($88,683 in 2023) sits well under that, while the accrual-basis 'total giving' figure ($328,312) clears it — a distinction applicants can't see but the foundation clearly manages internally. The database's sampled grant set shows 29 grants totaling $266,656 at an average of $9,195, while the DB's typical_grant_size field (7-grant sample) shows a median of $5,000, mean $7,179, and range of $500-$20,000. Candid's independent tally is consistent: 45 grants to 32 organizations from 2020-2024 totaling $368,000, typical grant $5,000, most between $1,000 and $15,000. The foundation's most recent filed-year detail (Cause IQ, 2024) shows individual grants as small as $300 (Athens Cultural Arts Center) and $500 (Film at Lincoln Center) alongside a $15,000 gift to Skylight Engagement — confirming checks regularly land under $1,000 as well as in the five-figure range. Rather than one signature grant, the foundation builds cumulative relationships: WFUV received $64,000 across 3 grants, Jacob Burns Film Center $45,750 across 3 grants, and Woodstock Refugee Network $29,400 across 2 grants — the top of the portfolio is repeat, renewed core support, not one-off gifts. Geographically, New York recipients dominate (21 of 29 sampled grants), with small, likely relationship-driven outposts in Vermont, California, Illinois, and Maine. By purpose, general operating support overwhelms restricted/program funding (14 of 15 top grantees coded GENERAL), and only one small $516 grant across two payments was coded ADVOCACY.

All five peer foundations cluster within about $60,000 of Silver Sun's $4.12M asset base, making them a genuine size-matched cohort by IRS filing data, but Silver Sun is the only one in the set with a public mission statement, grantee list, and named contact — Beyond Borders Foundation is the sole peer with a live website, and the rest appear to be closely held family or corporate vehicles with no discoverable solicitation channel. That makes Silver Sun comparatively more approachable than its true peers even though its process remains informal and relationship-driven rather than a formal open cycle.

No leadership changes or new formal grant programs surfaced in current search results — Karen Sloe Goodman continues as Founding Trustee and Director and Paul Goodman as trustee, consistent with IRS filings back through 2021. Visible 2025-2026 activity centers on the foundation's Woodstock, NY residency programming rather than an announced grant cycle: a winter partnership with The Local brought four world-musician residencies to the Silver Sun Residence, including a stay by longtime Burnt Sugar Arkestra Chamber member Mikel Mwalimu-Banks; a Fall 2025 residency hosted filmmaker Diana Peralta; and a Summer 2026 residency hosted composer Paul Winter and pianist Henrique Eisenmann. The foundation also publicly congratulated former resident filmmaker Adam Meeks on the Sundance 2026 premiere of 'Union County' (a feature expansion of a short starring Will Poulter and Noah Centineo), and hosted a cohort of Close Up Initiative filmmakers from Southwest Asia and North Africa plus leadership from human-rights media organization VIVX. No large new single grant or capital announcement was found in the 2025-2026 window; the pattern instead reinforces steady, quiet continuation of the same core relationships (WFUV, Jacob Burns Film Center, Woodstock Refugee Network, North Star Fund, Woodstock Day School) alongside expanding use of the physical residency as a form of in-kind, non-cash support to creative and social-justice grantees.

There is no formal application, LOI portal, or published deadline — the DB's own application_instructions field reads "__none__" and funding_cycle is unspecified, matching what the website shows. The realistic entry point is a short, personal email to Founding Trustee/Director Karen Sloe Goodman at karen@silversunfoundation.org, or a letter to 25 Chimney Road, Woodstock, NY 12498; because the foundation has zero staff, expect a slow, personal (not templated) response and avoid anything that reads as a mass-mailed solicitation. Given the grant-size data, calibrate the ask: request $1,000-$20,000 in unrestricted general operating support rather than a large restricted program or capital grant — 14 of the top 15 known grantees received GENERAL-purpose funding, and the median gift across independent sources (Candid and the platform's own sample) is $5,000. Lead with an arts, culture, filmmaking, music, environmental-education, or grassroots social-justice framing — the IRS Education classification is a filing artifact, not a real signal of what gets funded, and generic "education" pitches misread the foundation's actual pattern. Geography helps: 21 of 29 sampled grantees are New York-based, concentrated in the Hudson Valley/Woodstock area and NYC, so organizations with a footprint there should say so explicitly. Because the foundation operates a residency at its Woodstock property (hosting filmmakers, musicians, and dance/visual artists through partners like The Local and the Close Up Initiative), individual artists or organizations that could plausibly fit a residency model have an additional, non-cash pathway worth raising in outreach. The strongest approach is a warm introduction from an existing grantee — WFUV, Jacob Burns Film Center, North Star Fund, and Woodstock Day School are all multi-year repeat recipients and plausible connectors. The most common mistake would be treating this like an institutional funder with a review committee: it is two people making personal decisions, so specificity, brevity, and an authentic connection to their known interests (culture of care, equity, environmental stewardship, creative-artist support) will outperform a polished formal proposal.