Taylor Foundation

The Taylor Foundation (EIN 45-3167120, IRS name "Taylor Foundation," doing business publicly as the "Taylor Family Foundation") is a founder-led, faith-driven family foundation out of McDonough, Georgia, funded by quarterly profit transfers from Bennett International Group, the trucking and logistics company owned by President Marcia Garrison Taylor. It behaves less like an institutional grantmaker with published RFPs and more like a values-aligned checkbook for causes the Taylor and Lowry family already knows personally — grantees skew heavily toward Christian ministries (Community Bible Fellowship Church, Jabbok Ministries, Matthew 25 International, Samaritans Purse, Truckstop Ministries), veteran and first-responder groups (Combat Warriors, Stag Vets, Wreaths Across America), and Georgia institutions tied to the family's home base (Clayton State University, Henry County Schools, Children's Healthcare of Atlanta). First-time applicants should not expect a competitive, open call — accepting_applications is technically "true" and instructions say simply "ALL REQUESTS SHOULD BE SUBMITTED IN WRITING" with no deadline and no restrictions listed, but there is no visible online portal, LOI cycle, or published guidelines on thetaylorfoundation.org. In practice this is a warm-relationship funder: the strongest path in is a personal or institutional connection to the board (Marcia Garrison Taylor, David Lowry, Danny Lowry, Lynette Alt Mathis, Grant Brooker, David Pittman) or to Bennett International Group/Camp Bennett, followed by a short written request rather than a formal proposal packet. Organizations with no Georgia tie, no faith-based or family/veteran/senior framing, and no existing relationship should treat this as a long-shot, low-cost mail-in ask rather than a primary strategy. Recipients with the largest, multi-year totals (Donor Advised Funds at $499,300 across 3 grants, Wreaths Across America at $369,625/4 grants, Bennett Charity Fund at $244,988/4 grants) show the Foundation favors repeat, general-operating relationships over one-off project grants — 100% of the sampled top-50 grants are coded "GENERAL OPERATING FUNDS," so a flexible, unrestricted-use request framed around mission alignment will likely outperform a narrow project budget.

Financial filings show consistent, compounding growth: total assets rose from $189,980 (FY2011) to $8,648,026 (current), and total giving grew from $10,020 (FY2011) to $950,334 (FY2023) — with a step change between FY2019 ($391,399) and FY2021-2023 (averaging ~$898,000/year) as Bennett International Group's profit-sharing scaled up. Third-party 990 aggregators report FY2024 giving reached $1,193,426 across 67 grants, suggesting the upward trend has continued past the DB's FY2023 cutoff. Grant size is bimodal and dollar-heavy at the top: the DB's typical_grant_size field shows a median of just $1,000 but an average of $18,621 and a max of $196,800 across 42 tracked grants, while the top-50 grantee list (240 total grants, $2,828,348 total, $11,785 average) is dominated by a handful of large repeat recipients — the top 3 recipients alone (Donor Advised Funds, Wreaths Across America, Bennett Charity Fund) account for $1,113,913, or roughly 39% of the sampled total, while the bottom 30+ recipients each received $5,000-$10,000 one-time gifts. Geographically, Georgia dominates with 120 of 240 grants (50%), followed by Texas (17), Florida (11), Kentucky (8), Missouri (8), Virginia (8), Tennessee (6), Minnesota (6), Ohio (5), and DC (4) — confirming the DB's stated GA/TX/KY geographic focus with a long tail of national faith and veteran organizations. By theme, general operating support to churches, Christian ministries, and veteran/first-responder nonprofits appears in roughly a third of named grants, healthcare and children's hospitals (Children's Healthcare of Atlanta $215,000, Piedmont Healthcare Foundation $191,160, Mayo Clinic $75,000, Shriners $5,000) form a second cluster, and education (Clayton State University, Henry County Schools) and community/hunger relief (Atlanta Community Food Bank, food banks generally) round out the remainder — no grant in the sampled top-50 exceeds $500,000 in cumulative multi-year total, and no single-year gift is confirmed above roughly $200,000.

The Taylor Foundation sits in a cluster of similarly sized Philanthropy & Grantmaking-classified private foundations with $8.6-8.7M in assets, none of which maintain a competitive open application process — this segment of the funder landscape runs almost entirely on relationships rather than RFPs.

All five peers cluster within roughly $5,700 of the Taylor Foundation's $8,648,026 in assets, making this a tight asset-size peer group rather than a mission-based one — most are trusts or family vehicles with minimal public footprint, and only Carol J Adragna Family Foundation maintains a public website among the five. The Taylor Foundation stands out for having an unusually active public communications presence (an SEO-optimized foundation website, a corporate newsroom via Bennett International Group, and national press coverage of its founder) relative to peers this size, which typically operate with no public profile at all.

The most concrete recent signal is Marcia G. Taylor's inclusion on Forbes' "250: The Greatest Self-Made Americans" list, announced June 12, 2025, tying her personal and philanthropic profile to a national platform for the first time. Bennett Family of Companies also promoted a May 17, 2026 company event to "rededicate America back to God," consistent with the faith-and-heritage language embedded in the Foundation's own mission statement and grantee list. The Foundation's own newsroom (thetaylorfoundation.org/newsroom/) has not been updated with dated posts since 2017 — its most recent listed items are a May 2017 Clayton State University scholarship announcement and a 2016 Horatio Alger Award notice for Marcia Taylor — so day-to-day grant news is not being actively published on the Foundation's own site; visibility instead flows through Bennett International Group's corporate press channel. Financially, the trajectory is upward: DB filings show total giving climbing from $836,914 (FY2021) to $907,481 (FY2022) to $950,334 (FY2023), and third-party 990 trackers (Instrumentl, Hinchilla) report FY2024 giving of roughly $1,193,426 across 67 grants — indicating continued, not slowing, growth as Bennett's underlying trucking and logistics business scales. No leadership changes were found; the board (President Marcia Garrison Taylor, Treasurer David Pittman, Secretary Grant Brooker, Directors Danny Lowry, David Lowry, and Lynette Alt Mathis) has been stable across the filings reviewed. A recurring, ongoing program worth noting for applicants is the Foundation's full sponsorship of roughly 50 children annually to attend Camp Bennett, a Christian youth camp — the clearest example of a standing, non-competitive commitment rather than a grant cycle open to new applicants.

There is no portal, LOI form, or published deadline — application_deadline is listed simply as "NONE" and application_instructions read "ALL REQUESTS SHOULD BE SUBMITTED IN WRITING," which the Foundation's own website does not elaborate on beyond a general contact channel. Treat this as a relationship-first funder: the single highest-leverage move is securing a warm introduction to a board member (Marcia Garrison Taylor, David or Danny Lowry, Lynette Alt Mathis, Grant Brooker, or Treasurer David Pittman) or to Bennett International Group, since the top recipients (Donor Advised Funds, Wreaths Across America, Bennett Charity Fund, Camp Bennett-linked programs) all read as pre-existing family/corporate relationships rather than cold-application wins. Mail or submit a short written request — 1-2 pages, not a full grant proposal — that explicitly names the Foundation's own language (Christian faith, family values, children, senior care, healthcare, education, American Heritage) rather than generic nonprofit-speak; 100% of the sampled top-50 grants were coded "general operating funds," so ask for flexible/unrestricted support rather than a tightly scoped project budget. Anchor the dollar ask realistically: outside of a handful of long-standing six-figure relationships, the typical single gift is in the $1,000-$25,000 range (median $1,000, average $18,621 per the DB's typical_grant_size data), so a first-time request above roughly $25,000-$50,000 is unlikely to land without an existing multi-year relationship. Georgia-based organizations, or those serving Georgia/Henry County communities, have a structural advantage — half of all sampled grants went to Georgia recipients — so out-of-state applicants should lead with any Georgia program presence or partnership. A common mistake to avoid: treating this like a foundation with published RFP cycles or board-meeting deadlines (some aggregators suggest quarterly board meetings and a ~3-month decision wait, but this is not confirmed on the Foundation's own site) — instead, submit the written request and follow up by mail or phone (770-957-1866) after a reasonable interval rather than expecting an online status portal. Given the Foundation's public profile is currently carried more by Bennett International Group's press channel than its own newsroom (last updated in 2017), monitoring bennettig.com press releases is a better way to track the Foundation's current activity and interests than the Foundation's own "Newsroom" page.