Taub Foundation

The Taub Foundation (EIN 74-6060216) is a small, all-volunteer Houston family foundation run by descendants and associates of the late Henry Taub — president Henry J.N. "Kitch" Taub II, VP/Secretary Gail Hendryx, and VP/Asst. Treasurer Dr. Kenneth L. Mattox, the well-known Baylor College of Medicine/Ben Taub Hospital trauma surgeon. None of the six listed officers or trustees draws compensation, underscoring that this is a personal, relationship-driven vehicle rather than a staffed grantmaking institution. Its own 990 filings state a preselected-only grantmaking model: the foundation identifies and invites its grantees rather than fielding open applications, and it does not maintain a public grants portal.

The clearest signal of "who gets funded" is the grantee list itself. Baylor College of Medicine is the dominant, repeat recipient (three grants totaling $828,000 in one filing year plus a separate $332,000 gift), reflecting Henry Taub's own 35-year trusteeship there and Dr. Mattox's institutional ties. Methodist Hospital Foundation is the second-largest relationship ($210,000 plus a further three-grant, $100,000 tranche). Beyond medicine, the foundation makes smaller, clearly relationship-based gifts to Houston cultural and civic institutions (The Menil Collection, Museum of Fine Arts Houston), a synagogue capital campaign (Congregation Beth Israel), a Catholic parish, and modest four-figure gifts to children's services (Depelchin Children's Center), a Deer Park-area school district, and Second Baptist Church.

For first-time grant seekers, the realistic path in is an existing institutional relationship — development/advancement office contact at Baylor College of Medicine or Houston Methodist, a shared board or donor circle at the Menil Collection or a Harris County congregation, or a personal introduction to Henry J.N. Taub II or Dr. Mattox. Cold LOIs mailed to the foundation's PO box are explicitly discouraged industry-wide for preselected-only funders of this type, and nothing in the public record suggests this foundation deviates from that norm. Note also that the domain most search engines surface for "Taub Foundation" (taubfoundation.org) belongs to an unrelated, much larger New Jersey foundation with its own open MDS research portal — applying there will not reach this funder.

Total giving has fluctuated in the $220K–$650K/year range over the past decade: $294,500 (2012) → $417,600 (2013) → $210,256 (2014) → $300,600 (2015) → $329,500 (2018) → $342,500 (2019) → $342,500 (2020) → $367,500 (2021) → $410,000 (2022) → $551,000 in grants paid for the most recent filed year (2024). Total assets grew steadily from $3.34M (2012) to $10.47M (2024), with a step-change from $8.1M to roughly $10.5M following a $4.06M contribution received in 2022 — the foundation now runs primarily on investment income ($802,417 net investment income in the 2024 filing against $939,276 total revenue).

Across the tracked grantee sample (27 grants, $1,696,000 total, $62,815 average), giving is heavily concentrated by dollar volume in a handful of medical institutions and long tail of small community gifts. Medical research to Baylor College of Medicine and Methodist Hospital Foundation together account for roughly $1.47M of the $1.696M sample (about 87%) once duplicate name-casing entries for the same institutions are combined. Separately, the foundation's own typical-grant-size profile (a 7-grant sample) shows a median of $20,000, an average of $52,500, and a range from $1,000 to $255,500 — indicating that outside the handful of large medical commitments, most individual checks are modest, four- and five-figure gifts.

Arts and culture (The Menil Collection, $80,000 over two grants; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, $10,000) and community/faith institutions (Congregation Beth Israel, $60,000 capital campaign; St. Michael the Archangel Catholic, $40,000; Second Baptist Church, $10,000) make up most of the remaining volume, with the smallest gifts ($2,000–$7,000) going to Deer Park-area schools and Depelchin Children's Center's family services program. Geographically the foundation is almost entirely Houston/Harris County-focused: 26 of 27 tracked grants went to Texas organizations, with a single California-based grant. No matched active federal or state public grant opportunities were found in Granted's database for this funder, consistent with its private, invitation-only model.

Taub sits at the small end of Houston's private-foundation medical/civic funding ecosystem — its asset base and annual giving are closer to Simmons Foundation's scale than to the nine-figure Wortham or Cullen foundations, though its subject-matter overlap (medical research, arts, Houston civic institutions) is closest to Vivian L. Smith Foundation. Unlike Cullen, which publishes formal grant guidelines and accepts letters of inquiry, Taub, Wortham, and Vivian L. Smith all operate closed, invitation-only models, making warm institutional introductions the only realistic entry point across most of this peer set.

The most concrete recent activity tied to this foundation's leadership is the January 14, 2025 announcement that the Ben Taub and Henry J.N. Taub Foundation — led by the same Henry J.N. "Kitch" Taub II who serves as President/Treasurer of the Taub Foundation (EIN 74-6060216) — committed $1.5 million (with a matching $500,000 from an anonymous donor, $2 million total) to Houston Methodist. The gift establishes the Marcy E. Taub Distinguished Chair in Neurosurgical Treatment and Research at the Kenneth R. Peak Brain & Pituitary Treatment Center, honoring the late Marcy E. Taub and supporting neurosurgeon Dr. David S. Baskin's research into oncomagnetics (using magnetic fields to shrink brain tumors) and gene therapy for glioblastoma. This continues the pattern seen in the foundation's grantee history of large, named commitments to Baylor College of Medicine and Methodist Hospital Foundation.

No leadership changes, new program announcements, or public statements were identified for the Taub Foundation itself in 2025-2026 — this is consistent with its closed, low-profile, volunteer-run structure, which does not issue press releases or maintain a communications function. Grant seekers should be aware that most "Taub Foundation" news coverage found via search actually concerns the unrelated Henry and Marilyn Taub Foundation of Teaneck, NJ, which is actively running a 2025-2026 MDS (myelodysplastic syndromes) Pilot Research Grant Program with its own online application portal (opened January 1, 2025, pre-registration required, $100,000 one-year awards for December 2025-November 2026). That program is not connected to, and not a path into, the Houston-based Taub Foundation covered in this report.

This funder does not accept unsolicited proposals in any conventional sense — its 990 filings describe a preselected-grantee model, it has no public grants portal, and Granted's enrichment data lists no application instructions on file. Generic "how to apply" tips do not meaningfully apply here; what follows is guidance specific to how this foundation actually appears to make decisions.

• Go through the institution, not the foundation. The two largest, most repeated relationships — Baylor College of Medicine and Houston Methodist/Methodist Hospital Foundation — were built through the Taub family's decades-long trusteeships and clinical ties (Henry Taub was a 35-year Baylor trustee; board member Dr. Kenneth Mattox practices at Baylor/Ben Taub Hospital). If your organization has any formal affiliation with either institution, route your ask through that institution's development/advancement office rather than approaching the foundation directly.
• Local Houston ties matter for smaller gifts. The $2,000-$10,000 range gifts (Depelchin Children's Center, Deer Park ISD, Second Baptist Church, Houston Botanic Garden) suggest the foundation also responds to community and congregational relationships within Harris County — a warm introduction from a shared board member, congregant, or museum patron circle is far more likely to work than a cold letter.
• Think in terms of named gifts, not general operating support. The foundation's largest recent commitment (the $1.5M Marcy E. Taub Distinguished Chair, January 2025) was a named, honorific capital gift tied to a specific research program — proposals framed as opportunities to honor a family member or fund a clearly named initiative may resonate more than requests for unrestricted operating dollars.
• Avoid the identically-named NJ foundation's channels. Do not submit through taubfoundation.org's MDS grant pre-registration form or email mdsgrants@taubfoundation.org — that is a separate, unrelated funder and your proposal will not reach the Houston Taub Foundation.
• Common mistake to avoid: treating the PO Box (PO Box 130979, Houston, TX 77219-0979) or phone number (713) 688-3926 as an application intake channel. Given the preselected model, unsolicited mail is very unlikely to be reviewed as a formal proposal — use any direct contact only to request an introduction or ask whether the foundation is open to a conversation, not to submit a full proposal cold.