Smallpage Family Foundation Inc.

Smallpage Family Foundation Inc. is a classic small, family-operated private foundation — not a staffed institutional funder. Its board is entirely composed of Smallpage and Bailey family members (John B. Smallpage Jr., President; Kathryn F. Smallpage, Vice President; David G. Bailey, Secretary; and directors Kathryn Carrere Smallpage, Charlotte Favrot Smallpage, Jack L. Smallpage, and John Benton Smallpage III), all serving with zero compensation. There is no program officer, no grants management staff, and — per its own IRS filing language — "NO SPECIFIC FORM OF APPLICATION IS NEEDED" and no stated deadline. That informality is the single most important fact for applicants: this is a relationship- and reputation-driven funder, not a competitive RFP process.

The grantee list bears this out. Of 98 tracked grants, the overwhelming majority go to organizations with a direct, personal, or geographic tie to the family: Louisiana civic, religious, and educational institutions in and around New Orleans (72 of 98 grants), plus a handful of out-of-state gifts to schools and organizations with likely alumni or personal connections (Washington and Lee University and Stratford Hall in Virginia, Christ School in North Carolina, Canterbury School in Connecticut, Aspen Elks Veterans and Youth Fund in Colorado). Every recorded purpose in the dataset is listed as "UNRESTRICTED" — the foundation writes general operating checks, not restricted program grants.

First-time applicants without an existing relationship to the family should not expect a competitive process to work in their favor. The best path in is a warm introduction through a shared institution — a school, church, hospital board, or civic group the family already supports — followed by a short, direct letter to President John B. Smallpage Jr. at the foundation's Harahan, LA address. Given the anchor gift to Children's Hospital ($202,400 across three grants, nearly a third of top-50 giving) and repeated three-year gifts to Trinity Episcopal Church and School and Christ School's capital campaign, the foundation clearly favors sustained, multi-year relationships with a small set of trusted grantees over one-off transactional requests. New Orleans-based health, education, and human-services nonprofits with an existing board or personal connection to the Smallpage family represent the highest-probability fit.

Smallpage Family Foundation Inc. is a small-dollar, high-frequency giver. Per its own IRS data, typical grant size ranges from $320 to $100,000 (median $1,800, average $6,891, across 36 grants in the most recent typical-size sample); third-party aggregators (Candid/grantmakers.io) report a slightly different but consistent window — median around $2,500-$3,000, range $200 to $70,000. The dataset's top-50 grantee list totals $646,350 across 98 grants, averaging $6,595 per grant — but that average is heavily skewed by one outlier: Children's Hospital received $202,400 across three grants, or roughly 31% of all top-50 dollars. Strip that out and the remaining 95 grants average just under $4,700, with the bulk of gifts falling well under $10,000. More than half the top-50 recipients received $5,000 or less in total, and a third received under $2,000 — this is fundamentally an annual-gala/annual-appeal-level funder for most grantees, not a program-grant funder.

Geographically, Louisiana dominates: 72 of 98 tracked grants (73%) went to Louisiana organizations, mostly in the greater New Orleans area (Harahan, where the foundation is based, sits just outside the city). The remaining grants cluster in states tied to family history or education — Colorado (8), North Carolina (5), Georgia (4), Connecticut (3), New York (3), and Virginia (3) — rather than any programmatic multi-state strategy.

By cause, the giving is broad and unrestricted rather than concentrated in a single program area: health/hospitals (led by Children's Hospital), K-12 and independent-school education (Trinity Episcopal, Christ School, Academy of the Sacred Heart, Isidore Newman, Canterbury, Stuart Hall), public safety/crime prevention (Metropolitan Crime Commission, $35,000), veterans and human services (Bastion Community of Resilience, Covenant House, Kingsley House), and arts/culture (New Orleans Museum of Art, Louisiana Children's Museum, Contemporary Arts Center).

Foundation assets grew from $1.85M (FY2011) to $6.09M (current), with total giving fluctuating year to year: $118,695 (FY2013) up to $276,619 (FY2021), settling at $253,615 in the most recent FY2024 filing — the second-highest payout of the last decade, following a large $1.58M family contribution into the foundation in FY2022 that expanded its asset base.

Smallpage Family Foundation sits in a tight asset band (~$6.08M-$6.09M) alongside several similarly sized independent family foundations tracked in this dataset, all classified under Philanthropy & Grantmaking. None of the peers have public application processes or disclosed program guidance either — this is typical for foundations at this asset size, where none employ program staff.

Among this asset-matched peer set, Smallpage stands out simply because its actual grant activity is documented in detail (98 tracked grants across nine states), while the peer foundations' grantee-level data was not available in this bundle. If all five foundations distribute near the 5% IRS minimum payout requirement on comparable asset bases, expected annual giving across the group would land in the $300,000-$305,000 range — meaning Smallpage's $253,615 FY2024 payout runs somewhat below that theoretical ceiling, leaving room for the family to increase distributions in future years without touching principal. Applicants should not assume geographic overlap with these peers; unlike Smallpage's clear Louisiana anchor, the peer foundations are based in WA, FL, CA, and MA, suggesting each serves a distinct, family-specific regional footprint rather than a shared giving network.

No press releases, news coverage, or public announcements exist for Smallpage Family Foundation Inc. — this is expected for an all-volunteer, family-run foundation with no communications function. The most reliable signal of recent activity is the foundation's own IRS Form 990-PF filing history. Its most recent filing, for fiscal year 2024, was submitted September 7, 2025, and reported $261,725 in total revenue against $253,615 in grants paid — its second-largest annual payout of the past decade, trailing only FY2021 ($248,070). The prior filing (FY2023, filed December 24, 2024) reported a revenue spike to $705,153 alongside $207,350 in grants paid, and FY2022 showed a major capital infusion: $1,581,325 in contributions received, which pushed total assets from roughly $4.08M (FY2021) to $5.70M and eventually to today's $6.09M.

Taken together, these filings show a foundation whose principals — likely John B. Smallpage Jr. and family — made a substantial new contribution to the foundation around 2022 and have since increased annual distributions in step with the larger asset base, rather than banking the growth. Board composition has been stable across the filings reviewed: the same seven family/associate names (Smallpage Jr., Kathryn F. Smallpage, David G. Bailey, and four additional Smallpage-family directors) appear consistently, with no indication of leadership turnover, new committee structures, or a stated strategic pivot. Applicants should treat this as a continuity story — a family quietly growing its giving capacity — rather than a foundation undergoing any newsworthy change.

There is no application form, no online portal, and no published deadline — the foundation's own filing states plainly, "NO SPECIFIC FORM OF APPLICATION IS NEEDED." That means success here depends far more on relationship and fit than on proposal polish. Concrete guidance:

• Lead with a short letter, not a packet. A one-to-two-page letter addressed to President John B. Smallpage Jr. (6316 Humphreys St, Harahan, LA 70123; (504) 729-2520) describing your organization, a specific need, and a clear dollar ask will fit this funder's informal review style far better than a full grant application built for a larger institutional funder.

• Establish a Louisiana/New Orleans connection wherever possible. 73% of tracked grants (72 of 98) go to Louisiana organizations. Out-of-state nonprofits should be prepared to explain a specific personal, educational, or family tie — the out-of-state grantees in the data (Washington and Lee University, Stratford Hall, Christ School, Canterbury School, an Aspen, CO veterans fund) all suggest personal alumni or family relationships rather than open competitive selection.

• Expect a modest first gift. Median grants run $1,800-$3,000; even the largest documented single-year commitments to any one organization (Children's Hospital, Trinity Episcopal, Christ School) built up over three consecutive years rather than arriving as one large check. Position a first ask as the opening of a multi-year relationship, not a one-time capital solution.

• Common mistake to avoid: treating this like a program-restricted institutional funder. All recorded purposes are "UNRESTRICTED" — do not submit a narrowly scoped, metrics-heavy program proposal designed for a foundation with staff and a formal review committee; it will likely feel mismatched to a family that gives general operating support to organizations it already trusts.

• Timing: with no stated deadline or cycle, there's no wrong time to reach out, but board decisions on a family foundation like this are typically made informally, often around the family's own calendar (e.g., before calendar year-end, when the FY2022 and FY2024 filings suggest most contribution/distribution activity concentrates). A fall outreach timed ahead of December is a reasonable default.

• Relationship-building: since the foundation has no staff and no public communications presence, the only realistic channel in is a personal introduction — through a shared school, church, hospital board, or civic organization already on its grantee list (Trinity Episcopal, Academy of the Sacred Heart, Isidore Newman, Children's Hospital, New Orleans Museum of Art are all known touchpoints).