Smoke Rise Foundation Inc.

Smoke Rise Foundation Inc. is a small, closely held family foundation (EIN 26-0551489) run entirely by part-time, uncompensated directors — Stephen Rojek, Blandina Rojek, and Zara Downs — with Ruth Flynn and Elliott Friedman serving as assistant secretaries. Every filing reviewed shows $0 in officer compensation, and the foundation is administered c/o Friedman & Huey Associates LLP, an accounting/law firm at 20940 S Frankfort Square Rd, Frankfort, IL — a classic 'kitchen-table' private foundation structure with no dedicated program staff. Multiple independent grant-research services (Cause IQ, Inside Philanthropy, Instrumentl) independently confirm this foundation does not accept unsolicited applications or requests for funding; it gives only to organizations the Rojek/Downs family circle already knows or has vetted directly. This matters enormously for strategy: there is no LOI-to-full-proposal pipeline, no board review calendar, and no site-visit process to prepare for, because there is no open competition to enter. The foundation has no mission statement on file with the IRS, no public grants page, and — despite public records listing 'smokerise.org' as its website — that domain in fact belongs to an unrelated New Jersey neighborhood civic association, not this foundation; third-party trackers confirm Smoke Rise Foundation Inc. genuinely operates without any web presence. For a first-time applicant, the realistic path in is relationship-based, not application-based: identify current or past grantees (via the foundation's IRS Form 990-PF Schedule I, filed annually) and seek a warm introduction through board or professional-network connections, since the directors' surnames (Rojek, Downs, Flynn, Friedman) and the administering law firm are the only public leads to their circle. Organizations should not expect a response to a cold letter, but a concise, well-targeted inquiry mailed to the registered address — clearly naming a mutual contact or existing grantee relationship — is the only documented channel with any track record of engagement. Budget expectations should be modest and specific: this is a $5,000-$50,000 typical-gift funder, not a program funder capable of underwriting large multi-year initiatives.

Smoke Rise Foundation Inc. reported total assets of $10,470,160 and income of $3,171,508 in its most recent public snapshot. Grants paid have grown substantially over the past decade: $110,167 (2011), $42,261 (2012, a down year), $216,500 (2013), $245,500 (2014), then a jump to $466,755 (2018), $469,546 (2019), $337,762 (2020, pandemic dip), $583,332 (2021), $590,333 (2022), and $504,000 (2023, most recent filed year). Total giving (which includes grants plus related program costs) followed a similar arc: $549,299 (2019) to $728,560 (2021) to $628,076 (2023). This growth tracks the foundation's asset base, which nearly tripled from $1,763,356 (2011) to $9,735,229 (2023) — driven both by a large one-time contribution of $4,691,741 in 2013 and by consistently strong net investment income (over $1.2M in both 2022 and 2023), rather than by new outside contributions, which have been $0 in nearly every year on file. The foundation's own IRS attachment data lists just 4 itemized grant-schedule references totaling $1,980,973 (averaging $495,243) — but this figure is an artifact of the filing format: the schedule recipient field reads only 'See Statement Attached,' meaning the actual itemized grantee list was filed as a paper attachment the IRS database did not capture as structured data, not that four $495K checks were cut. Independent grant trackers (Cause IQ, Inside Philanthropy) instead report typical individual award sizes of $5,000-$50,000, which is far more consistent with total annual grants paid in the $340K-$590K range being spread across roughly 10-40 preselected recipients per year. By program area, the DB's own NTEE-derived tag lists only 'Community Development,' but qualitative research from grant-tracking services describes a consistent pattern of giving toward animal welfare and wildlife, conservation, healthcare, and food security, with a secondary thread supporting girls' and women's organizations — no geographic-focus field is set in IRS records, and no state breakdown beyond the foundation's own IL location is available.

Smoke Rise sits in a tight cluster of similarly sized private foundations under the 'Philanthropy & Grantmaking' NTEE category, all holding roughly $10.4-10.5M in assets — a size band that typically produces $400K-$700K in annual grantmaking under standard 5% private-foundation payout rules.

None of these five peer foundations have a public website on file, mirroring Smoke Rise's own lack of web presence — this is a common pattern among $10M-asset family foundations, which are typically administered by an accounting or law firm rather than professional program staff. Because none publish giving strategy, the only reliable differentiator for a grantseeker is geography and any personal/professional network overlap with each foundation's named directors, since none of these six funders can be approached through a standard proposal process.

No 2025 or 2026 news, press releases, or announcements tied to Smoke Rise Foundation Inc. were found in this research — expected for a foundation with no website, no communications staff, and no social media footprint. The most recent verified financial activity is the fiscal year 2023 Form 990-PF, filed showing $504,000 in grants paid and $628,076 in total giving against $9,735,229 in year-end assets, with $1,599,982 in net investment income that year. Leadership has remained stable across the filings reviewed: Stephen Rojek, Blandina Rojek, and Zara Downs as part-time directors, with Ruth Flynn and Elliott Friedman as assistant secretaries — the same slate appears across every year sampled, with no evidence of a leadership transition. One notable data-quality finding from this research: the website address on file in public records (smokerise.org) actually belongs to the Smoke Rise Civic Association, an unrelated homeowners'/neighborhood group, and not to this foundation — a mix-up grantseekers should be aware of so they don't waste outreach effort on the wrong organization. Absent any 2025-2026 signal of new initiatives, board changes, or strategic shifts, the safest assumption for planning purposes is continuity: a preselected-giving foundation maintaining its historical mix of animal welfare, conservation, health, food security, and women's/girls' causes at a similar $500K-$625K annual grants-paid level.

Because Smoke Rise Foundation Inc. does not maintain a grants portal, published guidelines, or a public email address, standard grant-writing tactics (cold LOIs, portal submissions, deadline-driven proposals) will not work here — treat this as a relationship-first funder, not a process-first one. Concrete steps: (1) Pull the foundation's IRS Form 990-PF Schedule I from ProPublica's Nonprofit Explorer for the most recent filed year to identify actual current grantees — this is the single best source of who they fund, since the DB-level recipient field is masked as 'See Statement Attached.' (2) Look for existing grantees in animal welfare, wildlife conservation, healthcare access, food security, or girls'/women's empowerment — these are the five verified thematic buckets from third-party research — and see if your organization shares board members, donors, or program partners with any of them; that overlap is the most realistic door in. (3) If no warm connection exists, a short, specific letter (not a full proposal) mailed to the foundation's registered address — c/o Friedman & Huey Associates LLP, 20940 S Frankfort Square Rd, Frankfort, IL 60423 — naming any mutual acquaintance and clearly stating a funding need in the $5,000-$50,000 range (their documented typical gift size) is more likely to be read than an unsolicited full application. (4) Do not invest heavily in tailoring boilerplate proposal language to this funder — with zero published guidelines, generic alignment language ('community development,' the only NTEE tag on file) is unlikely to move the needle versus a direct personal reference. (5) A common mistake is to overweight the $495,243 'average grant' figure computed from IRS attachment data — it is a filing artifact, not a real grant size, and citing it in outreach as if it were a benchmark will signal you haven't done real diligence. (6) Since assets have grown from $7.4M (2019) to $10.5M (current), and grants paid have kept pace, this is not a shrinking or distressed funder — treat any relationship you do build as a multi-year one worth cultivating patiently rather than a one-time ask.