The Foster Family Foundation

The Foster Family Foundation is a young, tightly held private family foundation established in Delaware with an IRS ruling date of March 2023. It is administered through Foundation Source (the mailing address, 501 Silverside Rd, Wilmington, DE, is Foundation Source's service address, not a dedicated foundation office), and it is run entirely by two family officers — Justin Foster (Director, President, Secretary, Treasurer) and Corinne Foster (Director, Vice President) — both uncompensated. There is no program staff, no communications team, and no independently verifiable public website; the domain most databases attach to this EIN (thefoster.org) actually belongs to an unrelated Palo Alto art museum, and a second look-alike domain (thefosterfamilyfoundation.org) belongs to a different, unaffiliated Foster-named nonprofit. This is the operating profile of a closed, relationship-driven family fund, not an open grants program. Its own record flags application_instructions as none and preselected_only as true — a direct signal that grants flow to organizations already known to Justin and Corinne Foster rather than through a public RFP or LOI queue. The two confirmed recent grants on file — $50,000 to Massachusetts Audubon Society for habitat improvement and two $25,000 gifts to a Lexington, MA Montessori school (one for a scholarship fund, one unrestricted) — fit a personal-network giving pattern: a conservation organization and a specific independent school, the kind of causes a family typically supports because of direct affiliation (alumni ties, board service, or local community involvement) rather than a published mission statement. First-time applicants with no prior relationship to the Foster family should treat cold outreach as a long shot; the realistic path in is a warm introduction through a shared board, school, or conservation network connection, not a submitted proposal. Given the foundation's youth (three years old) and its rapidly growing asset base, it is also worth watching for signs the family formalizes a public program as payout obligations scale — but as of this filing, there is no evidence that has happened.

Total giving has grown roughly sevenfold in three fiscal years, tracking the foundation's rapid asset accumulation. FY2022: $6,533 given against $2,011,257 in assets (the foundation's near-inaugural year, funded by a $2,010,000 contribution). FY2023: $29,110 given against $3,036,858 in assets (funded by a further $1,000,000 contribution). Most recently, external filing data (ProPublica/CauseIQ) shows assets of $4,537,225 and charitable disbursements of approximately $201,067 (84.1% of $239,197 in total expenses) — consistent with the foundation moving out of its startup phase and toward a more typical private-foundation payout level as it approaches its first few years of the 5%-minimum-distribution requirement. Of the specific grants identified, the two confirmed dollar amounts are $50,000 to Massachusetts Audubon Society and $25,000 twice to a Lexington, MA Montessori school ($50,000 combined) — meaning at least $100,000 of the most recent disbursement total is accounted for by just two organizations, out of 25 total grants on file for that year. That implies a median grant size well below these two anchor gifts, likely in the low five figures, consistent with a small, first-generation family foundation spreading modest checks across a personal giving list rather than concentrating on a handful of large program grants. No breakdown by program area is available since the foundation has no published mission or focus-area taxonomy (NTEE code T22, generic Philanthropy & Grantmaking), but the two known recipients span environmental/conservation (Massachusetts Audubon) and education (Montessori scholarship and general support) — a diversified, personally-driven portfolio rather than a single-cause mandate. Net investment income has also grown alongside assets ($7,790 in FY2022 to $59,895 in FY2023), meaning a rising share of future giving capacity will come from investment returns on the corpus rather than fresh family contributions, which should support continued growth in the payout even without new gifts into the trust.

All five peer funders share the Foster Family Foundation's exact NTEE classification (Philanthropy & Grantmaking) and sit within a few thousand dollars of its $4.5M asset base — a strong indication these are all similarly small, closely held family foundations or residuary trusts rather than program-staffed institutions. None of the peers has a public grants database entry with disclosed annual giving or an application process, which is typical for vehicles at this asset size: most operate below the threshold where a public-facing grants program becomes worthwhile, and distributions are usually directed by trustees or family members to organizations they already know. For a grant seeker, this whole peer set should be approached the same way as The Foster Family Foundation itself — through personal or institutional relationships, not cold applications — and none should be expected to publish an RFP, LOI portal, or funding priorities page.

The most concrete recent activity is financial rather than programmatic: the foundation's asset base climbed from $2.0M at the close of FY2022 to $3.0M at the close of FY2023 to $4.54M in its most recent filing, driven by additional family contributions of $2,010,000 (FY2022) and $1,000,000 (FY2023) plus rising investment income. Charitable disbursements climbed in step, from $6,533 (FY2022) to $29,110 (FY2023) to an estimated $201,067 in the most recent year on file — the clearest sign of momentum is this roughly sevenfold increase in actual grantmaking over three years. On the grantee side, the only individually confirmed recent awards are a $50,000 habitat-improvement grant to Massachusetts Audubon Society and $50,000 combined ($25,000 x 2) to a Lexington, Massachusetts Montessori school, out of 25 total grants recorded for the year — meaning roughly 23 additional, smaller grants were made that could not be individually verified through public sources in this research pass. No leadership changes have occurred: Justin Foster and Corinne Foster have held the same officer roles (President/Secretary/Treasurer and Vice President, respectively) since the foundation's founding in 2022-2023, and both remain uncompensated. No news coverage, press releases, or foundation-issued announcements were found — consistent with a foundation that has no communications presence and does not publicize its giving. Grant seekers should not expect a traditional 'recent news' trail from this funder; its activity is only visible through its annual Form 990-PF filings.

There is effectively no public application process to optimize for here — the foundation's own data marks it preselected-only with no published application instructions, and no independent, verifiable website for the foundation could be located (two look-alike domains that surface in search results, thefoster.org and thefosterfamilyfoundation.org, both belong to unrelated organizations). Given that, the realistic strategy is relationship-based, not proposal-based. First, verify you are not chasing a mismatched foundation: this EIN is 88-3709233, based in Wilmington, DE, run by Justin and Corinne Foster — confirm any lead against that EIN before investing outreach time, since at least three other 'Foster Family Foundation' entities (Stockton, CA; a Maine/Massachusetts-focused fund; and a Glenn Foster Jr.-led Delaware foster-care nonprofit) are easy to confuse with it in aggregator databases. Second, use the two known grants as a signal of the family's actual interests: conservation/environmental stewardship (Massachusetts Audubon Society) and independent/Montessori education in the greater Boston area (Lexington, MA). Organizations with genuine ties to those causes or that geography have the best plausible fit, even though the foundation is Delaware-registered on paper. Third, because Foundation Source administers the foundation, formal correspondence sent to the Silverside Road address will likely reach an administrative service rather than the family directly — a warm introduction through a shared board member, school community, or conservation-organization connection is far more likely to be effective than a cold letter or emailed LOI. Fourth, do not submit an unsolicited grant proposal expecting a response; the data explicitly indicates funding goes to preselected partners. The most common mistake a grant seeker could make with a foundation like this is treating it like a program-staffed institutional funder — investing in a polished LOI, logic model, or full proposal package will not move a funder whose giving is currently relationship-driven and undocumented publicly. Instead, focus limited outreach effort on discovering and cultivating a personal connection to Justin or Corinne Foster or to organizations already in their giving circle.