Sinha-Boutelle Foundation

Sinha-Boutelle Foundation is a tiny, all-volunteer, single-family foundation run directly by its two founders — Rashmi Sinha (President) and Jonathan Boutelle (CFO & Secretary) — with $0 in reported officer compensation across every available filing. This is hands-on family philanthropy, not a staffed grantmaking institution, and its own IRS-sourced profile flags it as `preselected_only`; independent web research confirms the foundation "only makes contributions to preselected charitable organizations" and does not review unsolicited proposals.

The foundation's genesis explains its giving logic: Sinha and Boutelle (co-founders of SlideShare, sold to LinkedIn in 2012) began funding Systemic Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis (SJIA) research after their own child's diagnosis around 2014-2016, initially through this family foundation. In 2017 they incubated that work into an independent 501(c)(3), the Systemic JIA Foundation, which is now self-sustaining — and which received the single largest documented grant in this dataset ($144,000, or 93% of the three-grant, $155,000 sample list).

Given that history, first-time applicants with no pre-existing tie to the founders should treat this as effectively closed to cold outreach: there is no LOI portal, RFP, published deadline, or application form on sinhaboutelle.org or in the IRS record, and searches turned up no public grant guidelines. The realistic path in is relational, not competitive: build visibility within the rare-disease and pediatric-research community the founders already fund (their other known grantee, NGLY1 Foundation, supports an ultra-rare congenital disorder), get introduced through a mutual connection at Systemic JIA Foundation, or align with adjacent causes the family has personally supported — a sustainable liver-transplant funding model in Bangalore, India, and support services for HIV-affected street children in northern India.

Organizations that most closely match what this funder has actually paid for are small, scrappy, pre-institutional nonprofits addressing a single rare or underserved medical condition "in a capital efficient manner" — the foundation's own stated framing. A generic health-nonprofit pitch with no personal connection to Sinha or Boutelle is very unlikely to gain traction here, regardless of program quality.

Total assets stood at $3,039,506 in FY2023 (the most recent year in this dataset), down modestly from $3,710,458 in FY2015 — roughly an 18% decline over eight years despite consistently positive net investment income, meaning giving plus overhead has outpaced returns in several years. Annual grantmaking is extremely lumpy rather than steady: grants_paid was $435,003 in FY2019, $155,000 in FY2020, $5,000 in FY2021, $0 in FY2022, and $250,150 in FY2023 — a pattern consistent with an unstaffed family vehicle that writes large checks episodically rather than running a fixed annual budget. Total_giving (grants plus other charitable disbursements) tracks a similar arc — $486,635, $173,033, $19,571, $21,548, and $267,299 across the same five years — running $5,000-$52,000 above grants_paid each year, implying modest non-grant charitable spending or administrative costs layered on top of direct grants.

On individual grant size, the only itemized list available (three grants totaling $155,000, matching the FY2020 grants_paid figure) is heavily concentrated: one $144,000 grant to Systemic Jia Foundation (93% of the batch, tagged "medical and healthcare research"), a $6,000 grant to World Ia Day (tagged "information technology" — likely reflecting Sinha's tech/UX background rather than the health mission), and a $5,000 grant to Ngly1 Foundation (also "medical and healthcare research"). The median in this small sample is $6,000, but that understates the funder's real capacity — the more useful read is "one large strategic grant plus a couple of small, personally-connected gifts under $10,000." Roughly 97% of the sampled dollars ($149,000 of $155,000) went to medical/healthcare research aligned with the rare-disease mission.

Geographically, the three known recipients are headquartered in FL, OH, and UT — reflecting where those organizations sit, not a stated geographic priority; the database's geographic_focus field is null and no public geographic restriction was found. Prospective applicants should expect grant sizes in the low five figures in a typical year, with the possibility of a much larger, strategically significant gift only in the rare case of something analogous to the original SJIA Foundation launch.

All six foundations sit within a tight $3.0M-$3.8M asset band, forming a natural peer class of small, single-purpose health funders rather than large institutional grantmakers — none of these peers publish an annual giving figure or application process in the available dataset, which is itself a useful signal: at this size class, transparency about process is the exception, not the rule. Sinha-Boutelle stands out mainly for the volatility of its own disclosed payout — swinging from $0 to $487K in giving across five years, an unusually erratic rate (roughly 0%-16% of assets) for a foundation its size, versus what is typically a more consistent (if still modest) payout at comparably-sized peers. Grant seekers should treat this whole peer class similarly: absent a named application process anywhere in the group, direct relationship-building — through board contacts, past grantees, or shared professional networks — is far more productive than a cold letter of inquiry to any of them.

No dedicated press coverage, leadership changes, or new program announcements were found for Sinha-Boutelle Foundation in 2025-2026; search results returned only third-party nonprofit-database listings (Instrumentl, Cause IQ, Grantable, Candid, Gudsy) rather than original news. The most concrete recent signal is administrative: per Instrumentl's 990 tracker, the foundation's Tax Year 2025 Form 990-PF was indexed around June 2026, confirming it remains active and continues to file.

The most recent substantive financial activity in this dataset is the FY2023 giving figures — $267,299 in total giving and $250,150 in grants paid — which represent a rebound after a near-dormant FY2022 (just $21,548 in total giving and $0 in direct grants). That swing from a quiet year back to active grantmaking is the clearest "recent activity" pattern available: the family appears to fund in bursts tied to specific opportunities rather than on a set annual cycle.

The foundation's last major programmatic milestone remains the 2017 spinoff of the Systemic JIA Foundation, which today operates independently with its own fundraising infrastructure and board, reducing the family foundation's role from primary funder to (at most) one supporter among several. No evidence surfaced of new spinoffs, partnerships, or public statements since. Given the founders' backgrounds — Rashmi Sinha and Jonathan Boutelle, who built and sold SlideShare to LinkedIn in 2012 — any future visibility is more likely to surface through tech-industry or rare-disease-advocacy channels than through traditional foundation communications, since the foundation currently has no visible press or social media presence.

Do not submit an unsolicited letter of inquiry or proposal — the foundation's own IRS-sourced record flags it as `preselected_only`, and independent research confirms it "only makes contributions to preselected charitable organizations." There is no public LOI process, RFP, grants page, or application form on sinhaboutelle.org or anywhere else searched.

There is also no published deadline or grant cycle: grants_paid swung from $0 (FY2022) to $435,003 (FY2019) within five years, so there is no predictable annual window to target. Plan around relationship milestones (an introduction, a shared conference, a mutual contact) rather than a calendar date.

The foundation's website offers no contact form, staff directory, or email address; third-party grant-database aggregators surface a phone number (510-708-9825), but this could not be independently confirmed on the foundation's own site, so verify before relying on it. Because officer compensation is $0 across every filing, there is no program staff or grants office — any viable contact goes directly to Rashmi Sinha or Jonathan Boutelle personally, which in practice means outreach needs to travel through a trusted third party rather than a general inbox.

Use the foundation's own language when framing alignment: its website describes its mission as addressing "unmet medical need" through solutions delivered "in a capital efficient manner," with a specific focus on rare and ultra-rare pediatric conditions (their own giving history centers on Systemic Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis and NGLY1 deficiency). Mirroring that framing — rather than generic health-nonprofit boilerplate — signals genuine familiarity with the funder.

The single most reliable path in demonstrated by their actual grant history is a warm introduction through an existing grantee or the founders' professional network (the SlideShare/LinkedIn tech-alumni circle, Bay Area tech philanthropy, or the rare-disease patient-advocacy community) — not a competitive written proposal. The clearest common mistake to avoid is treating this like a conventional health foundation with an annual RFP cycle; with only a handful of grants across most years and a full $0 in FY2022, there may be entire years with no realistic opportunity at all. Set size expectations accordingly: outside of a rare, founder-driven initiative on the scale of the original SJIA seed grant, expect four- to five-figure support ($5,000-$50,000), not six-figure program funding.