Sports Venue Foundation

Sports Venue Foundation (EIN 20-5165911) is a private operating foundation that does business as the Upper Valley Aquatic Center (UVAC) in White River Junction, VT. This is the single most important fact for any grant seeker to understand: the entity does not function as a grantmaker to outside nonprofits. Its own IRS filings show $0 in grants paid to third parties in every reported fiscal year (2010-2022), while total program spending ("total giving" in the 990-PF sense) ran $2.0M-$3.8M annually — all of it funding its own swimming and fitness programs, not external grant awards. The `is_grantmaker` and `accepting_applications` flags in aggregator databases reflect its IRS foundation-code classification, not an actual open grant program; treat those flags as misleading for this record.

What UVAC does do is operate as a mission-driven community asset: instructional, recreational, and competitive swimming for Upper Valley residents, plus adaptive programming, a splash park, and a fitness center. It is itself a successful grant *recipient* — in March 2025 it received a $24,999 Quality of Life grant from the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation for paralysis-inclusive aquatic programming, which signals the kinds of partners (health equity, disability inclusion, youth development) it aligns with.

For organizations that still want a relationship with this funder, the realistic paths are partnership, not proposal: co-programming (Red Cross lifeguard certification, adaptive swim, physician-referral wellness), facility-use collaboration for events like blood drives or the World's Largest Swimming Lesson, or board-level relationship building — Executive Director Joe Major sits on the board of the Upper Valley Haven, a regional human-services nonprofit, indicating he is receptive to cross-sector collaboration even though it isn't structured as a grant.

Individuals and families, by contrast, have a real and functioning assistance channel: UVAC's Financial Aid Fund, Splash Camp scholarships, and swim team scholarships, applied for directly through PDF forms on its own site — this is the closest thing to a "grant application" this organization runs.

Because this is an operating foundation, its financial pattern should be read as program investment in itself, not grant disbursement to others — there is no median grant size or grant range to report, since grants_paid = $0 in every one of the ten fiscal years in the data (2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022).

Total program spending (facility operations) grew from $2,025,732 in FY2010 to $3,840,116 in FY2022 — an 89.5% increase over 12 years, roughly 5.5% average annual growth, tracking the buildout and staffing of the aquatic center. Total assets grew in parallel, from $6,512,707 (FY2010) to a current $11,923,737, with a peak of $9,981,488 in FY2020 (likely reflecting a large one-time contribution: FY2020 contributions received were $1,185,617, and FY2019 contributions were $1,468,620 — both far above the FY2010-2018 norm of $13,967-$335,986).

Revenue is a mix of earned program revenue, investment income, and contributions. Net investment income has been volatile: $1,062,998 in FY2019 versus $99,711 in FY2014, reflecting market conditions on an ~$7-10M endowment/asset base rather than any grantmaking strategy. Officer compensation (Executive Director) rose from $72,325 (FY2010) to $138,126 (FY2022), with an outlier spike to $259,600 in FY2018 that likely reflects a leadership transition or severance rather than an ongoing pay level.

Current-year IRS figures list total assets of $11,923,737 and income of $7,162,409, both consistent with a mid-sized, growing community facility rather than a philanthropic grantmaking vehicle. Grant seekers should not model UVAC's numbers the way they would a typical family or corporate foundation's median-grant/range figures — there is no such distribution to analyze here, only a facility operating budget.

The peer set below is drawn from foundations of comparable asset size (~$11.7M-$12.1M) tagged under the same broad "Human Services" NTEE category. None have a published website on file, so their actual grantmaking posture (if any) could not be independently verified via web research — treat the "Application" column for peers as inferred from asset scale and category norms, not confirmed.

All six entities sit within a tight $11.7M-$12.1M asset band, suggesting they were grouped by IRS asset bracket rather than by grantmaking behavior — a reminder that "Human Services" NTEE tagging and similar asset size do not guarantee comparable funder types. Sports Venue Foundation is distinguished from a typical peer by being a documented operating foundation (it runs a physical facility with paid program staff and $0 in third-party grants), whereas family foundations of similar size more commonly do make outside grants. Grant seekers should independently verify each peer's actual application process before applying, since none had public grant portals discoverable in this research.

The most concrete recent activity is UVAC's own receipt of a $24,999 Quality of Life grant from the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation, announced March 29, 2025 via Vermont Business Magazine — funding paralysis-inclusive aquatic programming, which reinforces that UVAC's community-facing priorities include disability inclusion and adaptive fitness. On the programming side, UVAC announced it would host the World's Largest Swimming Lesson event on June 25, 2026 at its White River Junction facility, part of a global water-safety awareness campaign, per Vermont Business Magazine (2026-05-26).

Leadership and staffing show continued investment: UVAC hired a new head swim team coach, Kevin Blum, alongside an assistant executive director, according to reporting from the Vermont Journal & The Shopper and the Valley News (exact publication dates not captured in search results but both consistent with 2025-2026 coverage). Executive Director Joe Major — a 20+ year health and wellness industry veteran previously with Sport Fit and World Gym — was also elected to the board of directors of the Upper Valley Haven, a separate regional human-services nonprofit, and has served on Hartford's Selectboard including as vice-chair, indicating an active community-leadership footprint beyond UVAC itself.

No news, filings, or announcements were found indicating any new or expanded grantmaking program to outside organizations. The organization's public-facing activity in 2025-2026 is entirely programmatic (facility renovation, staffing, community swim events, its own scholarship fund) and consistent with its decade-long pattern of $0 in grants paid to third parties.

The single most important tip: do not submit a traditional grant proposal to this organization expecting funding for your nonprofit's programs — its IRS filings show no history of third-party grantmaking, and its own leadership and financial structure indicate it operates as a direct-service aquatic and fitness facility, not a grantmaking foundation. Time spent researching "how to apply" in the conventional LOI-to-full-proposal sense will not be productive here.

If your organization serves the Upper Valley region (Vermont/New Hampshire border area around White River Junction) and shares programmatic overlap — youth development, adaptive/disability programming, health and wellness, water safety — the higher-value approach is a partnership pitch, not a funding request. UVAC has shown willingness to co-program with the Red Cross (lifeguard training, blood drives) and to pursue disability-inclusive programming (the Reeve Foundation-backed initiative), so a proposal framed around shared programming, facility access, or joint community events is more likely to get traction than a check request.

For businesses, the concrete, real channel that exists is program sponsorship — for example, sponsoring the Hartford Learn-to-Swim Program in exchange for pool-deck signage and community visibility. This is a marketing/CSR relationship, not a grant.

For individuals or families needing swim access, financial aid, camp scholarships, or swim team scholarships are real and active: 49 families received Financial Aid Fund memberships and 14 children received Splash Camp scholarships in the most recent reporting period, with 6 swim team scholarships also awarded. Applications are downloadable PDFs (English and Spanish) at uvacswim.org/donate_financialaid, with inquiries directed to 802-296-2850 ext. 0 or info@uvacswim.org.

Common mistake to avoid: confusing this record with an actual sports-facility grants program (search engines and generic "sports venue foundation" queries surface many unrelated grant programs, such as youth-athletic-facility grants in other states — none of those apply here). Also avoid the sportsvenue.org domain listed in some databases; that domain belongs to an unrelated Greek facility-management company and has no connection to this Vermont entity (confirmed via direct site visit). The correct site is uvacswim.org.