Stackpole Hall Foundation

The Stackpole-Hall Foundation operates as a family-rooted private foundation with 73 years of sustained investment in Elk County, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1951 by cousins Lyle G. Hall Sr., J. Hall Stackpole, and Harrison C. Stackpole, the foundation holds approximately $30.6 million in assets and disburses $1.2–1.7 million annually across education, human services, health, community development, arts, religion, and youth employment. Its geographic mandate is firm: Elk County, Pennsylvania, comes first, and organizations without a credible Elk County presence or direct impact on its residents are not competitive applicants.

Unlike many private foundations that wait passively for applications, Stackpole-Hall functions as both a reactive grantmaker (responding to submitted proposals) and a proactive one (identifying community needs and seeding solutions). This dual posture means trustees arrive at grant meetings already holding views about local needs — and applicants who demonstrate prior knowledge of Elk County-specific conditions and data will differentiate themselves from out-of-area organizations seeking a geographic extension of existing programs.

The organization's leadership reflects its family origins. Chairman William C. Conrad and trustee descendants including Rory Sheble-Hall, Heather Conrad, Megan Hall, Dauer Stackpole, Devon Turner-Riley, and Laurey Turner sit alongside independent community trustees. This family-trustee composition means institutional relationships, community reputation, and personal introductions carry real weight in deliberations — more so than in a professionally managed institutional foundation.

Executive Director Jennifer Dippold (compensated at $84,490) is the primary gateway to the foundation. Applicants should treat her as a genuine program partner, not just a gatekeeper: she guides proposals toward fundable framing, flags misalignments early, and can serve as an internal advocate before trustees meet. A pre-application phone call or meeting is explicitly recommended by the foundation — skipping this step is a meaningful competitive disadvantage.

The typical relationship arc runs: brief pre-application conversation with Jennifer Dippold → email submission with required documents → quarterly trustee review → award notification within 6–10 weeks. Multi-year relationships dominate the portfolio: Penn Highlands Elk (9 grants), Ridgway Public Library (7 grants), Grace Episcopal Church (6 grants), and the City of St. Marys (5 grants) reflect a pattern of sustained organizational partnerships rather than one-time checks. First-time applicants should explicitly position their application as the start of a long-term relationship, articulate a sustainability plan, and make clear how they will steward the foundation's investment.

Since its 1951 founding, the Stackpole-Hall Foundation has distributed $44.4 million in grants. In the five most recent fiscal years in our data (FY2019–FY2023), annual total giving ranged from $1.55M (FY2021) to $1.71M (FY2019 and FY2022), with grants paid (actual disbursements) ranging from $1.14M to $1.31M. In FY2023, the most recent complete year, total assets stood at $30.6M, total giving was $1.63M, and grants paid were $1.17M. The foundation's net investment income of $1.14M in FY2023 essentially funds the grants paid — giving levels are tightly coupled to investment performance, and a strong equity market year like FY2021 (net investment income of $5.15M, total assets $34.9M) can create temporary giving capacity above the long-run norm.

At the individual grant level, the foundation's published profile shows: minimum $500, maximum $571,338, median $5,260, and average $23,034 across 55 reported grants in the grant-size distribution. Across the broader 180-grant grantee dataset (approximately FY2019–FY2023), the average disbursement is $20,744 against $3.73M in total grants. This distribution implies a portfolio heavily weighted toward small-to-mid-range grants ($5,000–$30,000), punctuated by several large investments in anchor institutions.

The $592,416 cumulative total to St. Marys Area School District — the largest single grantee — was delivered through four grants: three rounds of Summer Jobs Program funding plus per-school capital distributions (St. Marys $262,020; Ridgway $173,818; Johnsonburg $111,000; ECCSS $24,500). These figures reveal that headline-large grantee totals are typically multi-tranche multi-year relationships, not single-year awards. The most notable single-year capital grant is the $172,664 disbursement to St. Marys Ambulance Service for cardiac monitors and hydraulic transport equipment — demonstrating the foundation will fund significant capital equipment for public safety infrastructure when community need is documented.

By program area (inferred from grant purpose language across the 180-grant dataset): - Youth employment and education: approximately 40% of giving — Summer Jobs Program, school districts, NPRC tutoring, R. Dauer Stackpole Pitt Scholarship, preschool and STEM programs - Human services and health: approximately 25% — Penn Highlands Elk hospital, ambulance services, elder care, mental health, refugee resettlement, food banks, drug and alcohol programs - Community development and infrastructure: approximately 15% — Ridgway Public Library, parks, municipal projects, search and rescue, senior centers - Religion: approximately 10% — Grace Episcopal Church, Episcopal Diocese of NW PA, St. Agnes Episcopal Church, St. Boniface Church - Arts, environment, and higher education: approximately 10% — Keystone Elk Country Alliance, conservation district, university diversity grants

Geographically, 166 of 180 grants landed in Pennsylvania — led by St. Marys, Ridgway, Johnsonburg, and Kane — with 12 grants to Connecticut (Hotchkiss School, Yale University) and 2 to Massachusetts. The out-of-state awards appear to reflect family trust distributions rather than open competitive grantmaking.

The table below compares the Stackpole-Hall Foundation to regional peer foundations using publicly available IRS filing data (approximate figures; peer foundation assets and giving are estimates based on most recent available 990 data).

The Stackpole-Hall Foundation occupies a distinctive position in Northwestern Pennsylvania philanthropy: larger than the Elk County Community Foundation but narrower in geographic scope and more family-oriented than the professionally managed regional anchors. At $30.6M in assets and $1.2–1.6M in annual giving, it is often the single largest philanthropic investor in any given St. Marys or Ridgway project — a position that makes it an anchor funder rather than a gap-filler. Unlike the Erie Community Foundation or Community Foundation for the Alleghenies, which serve multi-county regions and operate structured online competitive grant cycles, Stackpole-Hall retains a relationship-first model centered on direct email submission and trustee deliberation. This design rewards organizations that have cultivated genuine Elk County community roots and have a history with the foundation's leadership — and disadvantages first-time applicants who submit without prior contact.

The most significant recent activity centers on Dickinson Center's new behavioral health facility in St. Marys. On August 22, 2025, the Stackpole-Hall Foundation's Board of Trustees conducted a site visit tour of the completed center, which Dickinson Center explicitly credits as having been made possible through the foundation's sustained financial support. This visit — and the foundation's multi-grant history with Dickinson Center, including a Children's Prevention Division grant named the Liz Hall Memorial award — signals continued investment in behavioral health infrastructure as a priority through 2025–2026.

In higher education access, Northern Pennsylvania Regional College received a $27,500 grant to fund Smarthinking, a 24/7 live personalized tutoring platform, supporting NPRC's post-independence transition from its former university partner. NPRC Founding President Dr. Joseph T. Nairn publicly credited the foundation as enabling this capability for working adult students.

The foundation reported 67 grant awards in FY2023 and 60 awards in FY2024, indicating a slight compression in award volume without a corresponding reduction in total giving — consistent with a modest shift toward slightly larger average grants. No formal leadership transitions have been publicly announced; Jennifer Dippold has served as Executive Director across at least three consecutive IRS filing years (FY2021–FY2023, compensation range $78,500–$84,490), providing continuity. Trustee compensation records indicate a stable board of 8–10 members receiving $4,000–$6,500 per year, with next-generation Stackpole-Hall and Conrad family descendants active alongside independent community advisors.

Establish contact before you submit. The foundation explicitly recommends a pre-application call or meeting with Executive Director Jennifer Dippold (jen.dippold@stackpole-hall.org | 814-834-1845). Practitioners confirm this step substantially affects whether a proposal receives serious consideration. Come prepared with a one-paragraph project summary, your organization's geographic reach within Elk County, and the dollar figure you intend to request. Use the conversation to test alignment before investing staff time in a full proposal package.

Choose your deadline strategically. The four quarterly deadlines — January 1, April 1, July 1, October 1 — are hard cutoffs. Trustees review and decide in the weeks following each deadline. If your project has a defined start date, submit at the deadline that gives maximum lead time: an April 1 submission reviewed in May can produce a June–July award decision. Budget for a 6–10 week turnaround from submission to notification.

Lead with Elk County impact data. The restriction is explicit and non-negotiable: projects should advantage people of Elk County, Pennsylvania as the first priority. Open your proposal narrative with specific data about the Elk County population you will serve — number of residents, zip codes, age demographics, income levels — before describing your organization's broader work. Reviewers who need to justify an award to family trustees will find county-specific impact statistics far more useful than general mission language.

Frame for sustainability and leverage. The foundation funds matching grants, seed money, partnership grants, and occasionally operational grants. Projects that leverage Stackpole-Hall dollars to attract additional investment — from county agencies, other foundations, or earned revenue — fit the foundation's grant theory well. The $229,000 CAPSEA succession and sustainability planning grant illustrates that the foundation will fund organizational capacity when it has long-term community impact implications.

Use aligned language. Terms appearing in funded grant purposes and foundation communications include: "community welfare," "quality of life in Elk County," "educational access," "human services," "youth employment," "workforce development," "sustainability," and "community development." Mirror this vocabulary rather than importing generic national grant-writing language.

Avoid common misalignments. Organizations without a meaningful Elk County presence, those that submit without prior contact, or those requesting operational funding without demonstrating organizational stability will face an uphill battle. The audited financials requirement is non-negotiable — reviewed or compiled statements are insufficient. Ensure your most recent audit (no older than 12–18 months) is complete and ready to attach before your target deadline.