Snave Foundation

Snave Foundation is a small, family-governed trust (est. 1988 in Winchester, MA by Anne & J. Morris Evans; its name is 'Evans' spelled backward) that funds nonprofits reflecting Religious Society of Friends (Quaker) values — simplicity, integrity, community, equality, and stewardship. It is not a staffed institutional funder: all six listed people are unpaid trustees (Peter A. Evans, Executive Trustee; Brian Durant, Treasurer; Erik Remsen, Grants Chair; plus Jacqueline Durant, Evan Kravitz, and Allison Cooper), and grants are proposed by individual family members acting as 'sponsors' for organizations they know personally. First-time applicants should understand this is fundamentally relationship-based philanthropy layered on top of a formal three-tier structure: Basic Grants (up to $1,000), Matching Grants (up to $5,000, requiring matched funds from elsewhere), and Major Grants (up to $150,000, requiring a family sponsor plus a written application). Organizations without an existing sponsor connection can still apply through the website intake form and request a sponsor match, but the foundation is explicit that it limits volume to its Grants Committee to avoid burnout — meaning sponsor-backed, well-aligned proposals are prioritized over cold submissions. The grantee list is dominated by Quaker meetings, Friends schools, and small community nonprofits in the foundation's historic geographic core (Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Vermont), reinforced by repeat, multi-year funding to the same institutions — Germantown Friends School, Arch Street Meeting House Trust, and West Chester Friends School each received 3-4 separate grants. The Major Grant track follows a formal progression: a 3-page letter of interest by July 1, pre-qualification, then a full application by October 1 — effectively an LOI-to-invited-proposal model rather than open competition. New applicants should start small (Basic or Matching) to build a track record and relationship before pursuing a Major Grant, and should recognize that funding for any single project is capped at three consecutive years, so proposals should show a sustainability plan beyond Snave support.

Across 233 recorded grants in the foundation's recent Form 990-PF history, the average award is $9,419, with individual grants ranging from roughly $150 at the Basic-grant end up to the $150,000 Major Grant ceiling — though awards at that top end are rare outliers; most funding clusters near the $1,000 Basic and $5,000 Matching thresholds. Total giving has trended upward: $439,250 across 56 grants in 2022, $637,150 (total giving $658,490) across 62 grants in 2023, and $639,152 across 67 grants in 2024 — a roughly 45% increase in dollars distributed since 2022, even as the foundation's assets have stayed essentially flat at $7.4-$7.5 million for over a decade (2012: $7,418,568; 2024: $7,463,809). That stability reflects an endowed model living off investment returns — net investment income ($532,187 in 2023, $477,843 in 2022) tracks almost exactly with total revenue in most years, since the foundation receives negligible new contributions. Geographically, cumulative giving concentrates in Pennsylvania (78 of ~215 tracked grants, roughly 36%), followed by Massachusetts (33, ~15%), Vermont (24, ~11%), Georgia (23, ~11%), New York and Virginia (13 each, ~6%), Connecticut (12, ~6%), California (8, ~4%), Maryland (7, ~3%), and Florida (4, ~2%) — a footprint tied to where Quaker meetings, Friends schools, and trustee family networks are concentrated rather than a stated regional restriction. By purpose, funding is overwhelmingly coded 'General Purpose' (unrestricted operating support), with the largest cumulative recipients being The Museum School ($200,000 over 4 grants), Arch Street Meeting House Trust ($172,029 over 3 grants for historic preservation), West Chester Friends School ($150,000 over 3 grants), Fractured Atlas/Courageous Stage ($135,000 over 3 grants), Germantown Friends School ($128,000 over 4 grants, including preschool classroom renovation), and Friends General Conference ($120,000 over 2 grants) — a mix confirming that education (a stated 30% minimum) and Quaker institutional infrastructure receive the deepest, most repeated investment.

Snave sits in the same asset tier as Stockton Rush Bartol and Christopher Ludwick — small, single-digit-million-dollar endowed family trusts — but distributes markedly more per year ($639K vs. their $137K-$250K), driven by its higher grant volume (67 awards in 2024) rather than larger individual checks. All five peers share a relationship- or invitation-driven intake model rather than fully open competitive RFPs, a pattern typical of small legacy Philadelphia-region family foundations; Snave is the most accessible of the group in that it publishes an actual web application form for unsponsored applicants, where Barra and McLean lean more strictly invitation-only.

No discrete press releases, leadership announcements, or program launches for Snave Foundation surfaced in 2025-2026 web searches — this is consistent with an all-volunteer, unstaffed family trust that does not maintain an active newsroom or press presence. The most concrete recent signal is financial: the foundation's FY2024 Form 990-PF (most recent available, reflected in third-party 990 aggregators) shows grant volume and total dollars distributed both climbing for a third straight year — 56 grants/$439,250 (2022), 62 grants/$637,150 (2023), 67 grants/$639,152 (2024) — even as its investable assets held flat near $7.46 million. Trustee leadership has been stable across the available filing history: Peter A. Evans (Secretary/Executive Trustee) and Brian Durant (Treasurer) appear consistently, with Erik Remsen becoming Trustee/Grants Chair effective June 2020, replacing a prior transition involving Jennifer Kravitz and Claire Durant Needham. Jacqueline Durant, Evan Kravitz, and Allison Cooper round out the current six-member board. Granted AI's own foundation record was last verified 2026-07-29, confirming the foundation remains an active grantmaker with an open 2026-11-01 deadline for Basic and Matching tracks. Applicants should treat the absence of news coverage as normal for this funder rather than a signal of instability — Snave's activity shows up in its grants list and Form 990 filings, not in public communications.

Because Snave Foundation runs on individual trustee sponsorship rather than staff-reviewed open competition, the most effective first move is relationship-building, not proposal-polishing: identify whether your organization has any existing tie to a Quaker meeting, Friends school, or the Durant/Evans/Kravitz/Cooper/Remsen family network, since sponsored applications are functionally pre-vetted by a trustee who already believes in the cause. If no sponsor connection exists, use the website's application form and explicitly request sponsor matching rather than submitting a generic cold proposal — the foundation has stated it limits volume specifically to filter out submissions with no clear fit. Timing matters differently by track: Basic ($1,000) and Matching ($5,000, requires demonstrating matched funds from another source) grants are accepted January 1 through November 1 annually, giving a wide window, while Major Grants (up to $150,000) require a tight, competitive 3-page letter of interest by July 1 — this LOI should lead with mission alignment to Quaker testimonies (simplicity, integrity, equality, community, stewardship) and name a specific capital, education, or underserved-population project rather than general operating need, since capital/preservation projects (Arch Street Meeting House, Germantown Friends classroom renovation) and named programs draw the largest awards in the grantee history. A common mistake is treating this like a foundation with programmatic staff reviewing against published criteria; instead, tailor outreach to the individual trustee most likely to sponsor a given cause (e.g., Erik Remsen as Grants Chair for major-grant strategy questions). Note the foundation's 3-consecutive-year cap per project — proposals should acknowledge a path to sustainability or diversified funding beyond Snave rather than implying open-ended dependency. Contact grants@snavefoundation.org for sponsor questions, and consider starting with a Basic or Matching request to build a funding relationship before pursuing a Major Grant, since the top recipients in Snave's history (Museum School, Arch Street Meeting House, West Chester Friends School) all show multi-grant, multi-year patterns rather than single large awards to new relationships.