Skylight Foundation Inc.

Skylight Foundation Inc is a small, family-directed private foundation ($12.3M in reported assets, EIN 20-4281816) headquartered in Wilmington, Delaware and administered through 'The Siegfried Group,' its listed dba/fiscal agent. It is run by exactly two uncompensated officers — Lisa D Kabnick (President) and John H McFadden (Chair/Secretary/Treasurer) — with no program staff, no published guidelines, and no application portal. Multiple third-party funder databases (Impala, Grantable, Candid) independently confirm the foundation does not accept unsolicited proposals and funds strictly by invitation, which matches the near-total absence of any application infrastructure in its own filings: no deadline, no form URL, and application instructions logged simply as none.

Giving is extremely concentrated and personal rather than programmatic. Across its full known grant history, the foundation has made only 8 recorded grants to just 5 unique recipients, and one gift — $1,250,000 to Woodstock Street Foundation Inc, likely a related or pass-through charitable entity — accounts for roughly 82% of total dollars given. The remainder went to Philadelphia-area cultural institutions (Woodmere Art Museum, Philadelphia Orchestra Association) and to international wildlife conservation research (Ongava Research Centre in Namibia, $100,000-$125,000). Although the IRS classifies the foundation under NTEE code B12 (Education), its actual grant purposes are logged as 'VARIOUS' and 'WILDLIFE CONSERVATION AND RESEARCH' — the Education label appears to be a filing artifact, not a real programmatic focus.

For grant seekers, the honest read is that this is not a competitive grantmaking program to court with a cold proposal. The realistic path in is a genuine personal or institutional relationship with Kabnick, McFadden, or the Siegfried Group's Wilmington network — ideally through an existing connection to one of its current beneficiaries (Woodmere Art Museum, the Philadelphia Orchestra). Organizations without such a tie should not expect a response to a written inquiry and are better served directing effort toward peer foundations with open, competitive programs.

Skylight Foundation's full recorded grant history totals $1,532,633 across 8 grants to 5 recipients, for an average grant of $191,579 — but that average is misleading given the extreme skew. The single largest gift, $1,250,000 to Woodstock Street Foundation Inc, represents 82% of all recorded giving. Below that anchor grant, amounts drop sharply: Ongava Research Center received $125,000 in one grant; Ongava Research Centre (a related listing) received $100,000 across two grants (~$50,000 each); Woodmere Art Museum received $50,000; and 'K-1 Activity - Easton Coach' received three small allocations totaling $7,633 (~$2,544 each), which reads as a pass-through K-1 accounting entry rather than a discretionary charitable grant. Five of the recorded grantee relationships are based in Pennsylvania, consistent with the foundation's Delaware/Philadelphia-corridor orientation.

More recent 2023 filings (via Candid/Impala, not yet reflected in the core dataset) show 3 grants totaling $1.4 million: roughly $1.3M to Woodstock Street Foundation Inc, $270,400 to the Philadelphia Orchestra Association, and $95,000 to Woodmere Art Museum — the same small, recurring recipient set.

Asset and payout trends are volatile and appear tied to investment performance rather than a steady spending policy. Total assets grew from $2.6M (2011) to $20.7M (2021) to $20.5M (2022), then declined to $12.3M (per IRS BMF) and $10.6M (per the FY2025 990). Total giving swung from just $26,378 (2011) to $2,351,847 (2022) to $1,314,167 (FY2025). The 2021 fiscal year is a clear outlier, with revenue spiking to $10.98M on $10.27M of net investment income — almost certainly a one-time realized gain — followed by the 2022 giving spike that included the Woodstock Street Foundation transfer. There is no evidence of a fixed percentage-of-assets payout rule; giving tracks large, infrequent liquidity events more than an annual budget.

Skylight Foundation sits within a cluster of similarly-sized, Education-classified private foundations, though its actual giving behavior (concentrated, invitation-only, family-directed) diverges sharply from a typical institutional education funder.

All six foundations cluster tightly around $12.2M-$12.4M in assets, making them a fair size comparison set, but none of the peer records in this dataset include disclosed annual giving, geographic restrictions, or application processes — none appear to have a public web presence either, which is common for small family foundations at this asset tier. Skylight is distinguished mainly by having verifiable current-year financials (via its FY2025 990) and a confirmed invitation-only posture; grant seekers should assume the peer foundations are similarly closed until proven otherwise, and should not expect any of the six to run a competitive, application-based program typical of larger institutional education funders.

The most current verifiable data point is Skylight Foundation's FY2025 Form 990, which shows revenue of $1,518,905 against expenses of $1,549,193 — a modest net loss of $30,288 — with $1,314,167 (84.8% of expenses) distributed as charitable disbursements and net assets of $10,645,449. This continues a multi-year pattern in which giving fluctuates year to year rather than following a fixed payout schedule: the foundation reported $2,351,847 in total giving in 2022 (driven by the $1.25M Woodstock Street Foundation transfer) versus $897,773 in 2021 and $442,455 in 2020.

The most recent detailed grant-level data available (2023, via Candid/Impala) shows 3 grants totaling $1.4 million to the same small recipient set the foundation has funded historically: Woodstock Street Foundation Inc, the Philadelphia Orchestra Association, and Woodmere Art Museum. No leadership changes were identified — Lisa D Kabnick and John H McFadden remain the sole, uncompensated officers, a structure that has been stable across all available filings.

No independent news coverage of this foundation was found. Web searches for 'Skylight Foundation' surface entirely unrelated organizations — a consumer family-calendar technology company that raised $50M in debt financing in April 2025, a Human Services-focused 'Skylight Foundation' in New York, and another in Evanston, IL — none of which are affiliated with this EIN. Grant seekers should be careful not to conflate these. Notably, the website listed in this foundation's own record (skylight.org) redirects to an unrelated site, confirming the foundation has no active public web presence to monitor for updates; the IRS Form 990 filed annually via ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer (EIN 20-4281816) is the only reliable ongoing source of new information.

There is no formal application process to optimize — this is the central fact to plan around. The foundation's own IRS filing lists application instructions as none, with no deadline, no form URL, and an 'accepting applications' flag that is contradicted by every third-party funder database (Impala, Grantable, Candid), which independently confirm funding is by invitation only and unsolicited proposals are not accepted. Do not spend fundraising staff time drafting a cold LOI or full proposal for this funder — it will not be reviewed through a formal channel because no such channel exists.

The only credible path to funding is relationship-based. Because the foundation's recorded grant history includes only 5 unique recipients across its lifetime, and one grant (Woodstock Street Foundation Inc, $1.25M) dominates the total, this reads as a foundation whose giving is directed by the personal networks and interests of its two officers, Lisa D Kabnick and John H McFadden, rather than by a competitive review process. The clearest signal of fit is thematic and geographic overlap with existing grantees: Philadelphia/Delaware-corridor arts and cultural institutions (Woodmere Art Museum, Philadelphia Orchestra Association) and, more unusually, international wildlife conservation research (Ongava Research Centre in Namibia). Organizations working in those specific spaces — and with an existing board or personal connection to the principals or to the Siegfried Group's Wilmington office — have the only realistic opening.

The most common mistake would be treating this like a standard education funder because of its NTEE classification. Its actual grantee purposes are logged as 'VARIOUS' and 'WILDLIFE CONSERVATION AND RESEARCH,' not education programming, so proposals framed around K-12 or higher-ed alignment language would be misdirected even if a channel existed. If a warm introduction is secured, keep any case for support short, personal, and focused on shared relationships rather than formal outcomes metrics — the filings show no evidence this foundation evaluates proposals against a competitive rubric.