Stillwell Family Foundation Inc.

This is a small, newly formed (IRS ruling date February 2023) private family foundation controlled entirely by the Stillwell family — Bruce A. Stillwell serves as founding President, Secretary, and Director, joined by Kate, Alexa K., and Eric M. Stillwell as directors, with zero officer compensation reported in every filed year. That structure is the single most important fact for a grant seeker: this is a closely-held vehicle for personal and family-directed philanthropy, not a staffed, application-driven grantmaking program. With total charitable disbursements of only about $31,837 across nine grants in FY2024 (the latest year filed) and an average award size near $3,000, the foundation is not built to process unsolicited proposals at scale — third-party grant trackers explicitly note it "does not respond to unsolicited applications." It has no working website (stillwell.org is a parked domain that redirects to a GoDaddy for-sale page), no published mission statement, no grants portal, and no opportunities or application-form URL in any public record, despite one database field generically flagging "accepting applications" — that flag should be treated with skepticism given the total absence of actual application infrastructure. Practically, grant seekers should assume funding here is relationship-driven rather than competitive: named FY2024 recipients (TSC Alliance, Feeding America, World Wildlife Fund, Hearing Loss Association, Habitat for Humanity, Boys & Girls Clubs of Annapolis, UNICEF USA, Alzheimer's Association, Maryland Federation of Art) span large, well-known national causes alongside small Annapolis-area community groups — a pattern consistent with a family selecting personal-interest causes rather than responding to a themed program area. The organizations most likely to receive funding are either (a) nationally recognized nonprofits the family already has an affinity for, or (b) Annapolis/Anne Arundel County-based groups where a board member has a personal or geographic tie. There is no evidence of a formal LOI-to-full-proposal-to-site-visit pipeline; the foundation's size and all-family board point instead to direct board nomination. First-time applicants without an existing relationship should treat a cold written proposal as low-probability and instead pursue a warm introduction through Annapolis-area nonprofit networks or brief, personal outreach to Bruce A. Stillwell.

The foundation's financial trajectory, per IRS Form 990-PF filings (ProPublica) and internal records, shows total assets growing from $204,646 (FY2022) to $586,053 (FY2023) to $1,570,130 (FY2024) — roughly a 7.7x increase in two years, driven almost entirely by family contributions ($308,380 contributed in FY2023 alone; roughly $912,550 in FY2024 per ProPublica) rather than investment returns (net investment income was just $771 in FY2022). This is a foundation still being funded up, not yet operating at a steady-state payout level. Charitable giving has scaled alongside it but remains modest in absolute dollars: $0 in FY2022, $13,966 in FY2023 (of which only $10,500 was actually paid out as grants), and roughly $31,837 in FY2024 across nine grants — an average grant size of about $3,000-$3,500, with individual FY2024 awards ranging $2,500-$5,000 and no grant on record (2022-2024, 15 grants total) exceeding $50,000. At this asset size the foundation's required minimum distributable amount is roughly $51,000 per year, meaning FY2024 giving of about $31,800 may still sit below its payout obligation — a signal that giving could rise further as the foundation matures. Geographically, Maryland captures the clear majority of grant dollars (Cause IQ cites roughly 92% of tracked grant dollars to Maryland-based organizations), with smaller allocations trailing to the District of Columbia (4%), New York (2%), Colorado (1%), and Illinois (1%) — a distribution that likely tracks family members' home locations rather than a formal geographic mandate. No formal program-area breakdown is published (the IRS classifies it generically as NTEE T22, "Philanthropy, Voluntarism & Grantmaking"), but the actual FY2024 recipient list skews toward health/disability causes (TSC Alliance, Hearing Loss Association, Alzheimer's Association), basic needs (Feeding America, Habitat for Humanity), and arts/community organizations (Maryland Federation of Art, Boys & Girls Clubs of Annapolis) — a generalist, personal-interest giving portfolio rather than a single programmatic focus.

All five database-matched peers cluster within about $700 of Stillwell's $1,570,130 asset base ($1,570,041-$1,570,747), which indicates they were matched algorithmically by asset size rather than by mission or geography — none of the five maintain a public website, so their giving levels and application posture could not be independently verified for this report. Stillwell is a mild outlier within this peer set only in that its FY2024 grant activity (nine named recipients, verifiable through IRS filings) is more documentable than any of its size-matched peers, despite lacking a dedicated grants program of its own. Grant seekers should not expect meaningfully better odds from these peers — the entire cohort appears to be small, closely-held family philanthropic vehicles rather than accessible institutional funders with formal intake processes.

The most recent public disclosure is the FY2024 Form 990-PF, filed August 19, 2025 (ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer). That filing shows nine grants totaling roughly $31,837, averaging about $3,000 each, with named recipients including TSC Alliance, Feeding America, and World Wildlife Fund (reportedly $5,000 each), plus Hearing Loss Association, Habitat for Humanity, Boys & Girls Clubs of Annapolis, UNICEF USA, Alzheimer's Association, and Maryland Federation of Art (ranging $2,500-$5,000). The foundation's board has expanded to include Kate, Alexa K., and Eric M. Stillwell alongside founder Bruce A. Stillwell, with all directors reporting zero compensation across every filed year (2022-2024) — consistent with an unstaffed, purely family-run vehicle. No press releases, executive changes, new program announcements, or media coverage were identified via web search for 2025-2026; that absence is itself informative, since a foundation of this size and structure would not typically issue public communications. Notably, the foundation's own domain (stillwell.org) currently redirects to a GoDaddy "domain for sale" page, indicating the family either let a prior web presence lapse or never built one out — even as underlying foundation assets grew nearly 8x between FY2022 and FY2024. The next filing to watch is the FY2025 Form 990-PF, likely to be filed around August 2026, which will show whether giving continued climbing toward (or past) the roughly $51,000 minimum distribution threshold implied by the foundation's current asset base, and whether any application infrastructure has since been established.

There is no formal application process to prepare for: no grants portal, no LOI form, and no application-form or opportunities URL exist in IRS or public database records, and the foundation's own "application instructions" field is blank. Don't invest time building a formal proposal package aimed at a portal that does not exist. Third-party grant trackers (Grantable.co) explicitly flag the foundation as not responding to unsolicited applications, so treat any cold written submission as a long shot. Instead, the pathway that actually produced grants in FY2024 appears to run through direct relationships with the four-person, all-family board (Bruce A., Kate, Alexa K., and Eric M. Stillwell). If your organization has any existing tie to a Stillwell family member, an Annapolis/Anne Arundel County civic or nonprofit network, or one of the specific cause areas they've already funded (health/disability, basic needs, arts, or hometown Annapolis community services), lead with that connection rather than a cold pitch. Calibrate the size of any ask carefully: FY2024 awards ranged $2,500-$5,000, and no grant in the foundation's three-year filing history (2022-2024, 15 grants total) has exceeded $50,000 — a request materially above $5,000 would be outside everything documented so far. Geographic framing matters too: Maryland-based, and especially Annapolis-area, organizations have the clearest track record (roughly 92% of tracked grant dollars). Non-Maryland organizations should not expect priority unless they match the specific national-brand pattern already funded (Feeding America, World Wildlife Fund, UNICEF USA, Alzheimer's Association, TSC Alliance) rather than a niche regional group outside MD. Given the absence of a working website, the best contact points are the foundation's listed phone, (410) 353-5902, or its mailing address at 3418 Hidden River View Rd, Annapolis, MD 21403 — keep outreach brief and relationship-oriented, not transactional. A common mistake to avoid: assuming a database's generic "accepting applications" flag means there is an active intake process — there is no evidence one exists. A short, personal letter of interest is a far better fit than a lengthy formal proposal for a foundation this size and structure. There is no disclosed deadline or funding cycle, so there is no documented "best time" to apply beyond keeping any outreach light-touch and periodic.