The Frist Foundation

The Frist Foundation is a Nashville institution — one of the largest private foundations in Tennessee, with $195.6 million in assets and a 40-year track record of investing in the city's nonprofit sector. Founded in 1982 by the Frist family, whose patriarch Dr. Thomas F. Frist Jr. co-founded HCA Healthcare, the foundation has distributed more than $419 million over its lifetime. Its giving philosophy is deliberately local: organizations must primarily serve Davidson County, must have operated at least three years, must maintain a current profile on GivingMatters.com, and must carry an operating budget of at least $250,000. This is not a statewide funder.

The foundation's preferences are revealed clearly in its grantee history. Nashville Zoo ($12.47M across 6 grants), Frist Art Museum ($12.43M across 11 grants), Nashville Rescue Mission ($2.59M across 8 grants), and Project Return ($2.32M across 5 grants) dominate the ledger. What ties successful grantees together: capital campaigns, earned revenue development, technology upgrades, and organizational capacity — not ongoing salaries or programming. The foundation's current stated position is that it is not making new grants for operating or programmatic expenses.

The board's family composition matters strategically. Chairman William R. Frist, Directors Jennifer Frist, Julie Frist, Thomas F. Frist III, Patricia Frist Elcan, Lauren Elcan Ingram, and Charles Elcan sit on a board where personal relationships with Nashville nonprofit executives carry real weight. Multiple grants in the database are tagged "general support as directed by [Director name]," signaling that board member connections are a meaningful funding pathway. Organizations already embedded in Nashville's philanthropic infrastructure — connected through United Way, the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee, or the GivingMatters.com ecosystem — will find warm introductions more accessible.

For first-time applicants, the path runs through Temelio, the foundation's new (2026) grants management system. New organizations must pass an eligibility quiz and submit a request summary before being considered for a full application. Returning partners skip the quiz entirely. Email loi@fristfoundation.org for early LOI outreach; use grants@fristfoundation.org for application questions. Staff are available to discuss organizational fit — a pre-submission conversation is worth requesting given the foundation's explicitly accessible posture.

Annual giving at the Frist Foundation fluctuates significantly based on investment returns, which fund all grantmaking (the foundation receives no external contributions). Total giving peaked at $31.3 million in 2022 — a year when net investment income reached $20.9 million — and contracted to $20.9 million in 2023 when investment income fell to $8.4 million. The 2021 cycle yielded $29.8 million on $24.9 million in investment income. The five-year average (2019–2023) is approximately $24.7 million. Expect tighter budgets in below-average market years and more available capital when investment returns are strong.

Grant sizes span an enormous range. Official guidance cites typical awards of $3,000–$20,000. Across 433 recorded grants totaling $52.3 million in the database, the average grant is $120,696 and the median is $5,000. This bimodal distribution reflects two tiers: a large volume of discretionary awards ($5,000–$25,000) and a smaller cohort of transformative capital grants ($250,000–$5.23 million). The largest single recorded award — $5.23 million — funded Nashville Zoo's Grow Wild campaign. The $5 million NEEC award (February 2025) confirms the foundation's appetite for large, once-in-a-generation investments in flagship initiatives.

By program area, estimated from top-50 grantee analysis: - Arts & Culture (Nashville Zoo, Frist Art Museum, Conservancy for the Parthenon, Gospel Music Association): approximately 30% of total dollars - Human Services and safety net (Nashville Rescue Mission, Project Return, Fifty Forward, YWCA, Room in the Inn, Siloam Health): approximately 35% - Education (Belmont University, Ensworth School, Teach For America, Vanderbilt University): approximately 15% - Nonprofit Infrastructure (Center for Nonprofit Management, United Way, Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee): approximately 10% - Remaining focus areas (health disparities, food insecurity, immigrants and refugees, unhoused neighbors): approximately 10%

Technology grants are a distinctive and growing pipeline. Grants to Mosaic Institute ($88,000 for Salesforce), Legal Aid Society of Middle Tennessee (technology support), Family & Children's Service (technology improvements), and the YMCA (software installation at 188 partner agencies) establish clear comfort with digital capacity investments. Capital campaign participation remains the highest-probability path to six- and seven-figure awards: Nashville Rescue Mission's women's shelter ($3M, recent), YWCA shelter renovation ($1.025M), Project Return's property acquisition ($2.32M total), and Nashville Zoo's Grow Wild campaign ($12.47M over six grants) all followed this multi-year capital campaign model.

Asset-comparable foundations in the Philanthropy & Grantmaking category — all carrying roughly $194–$197 million in total assets — offer useful context for understanding the Frist Foundation's relative accessibility and giving scale.

The Frist Foundation stands apart from its asset-comparable peers in two critical ways. First, its annual giving of $20–31 million is two to three times higher than the roughly $10 million expected from a $195 million endowment following a standard 5% payout, reflecting a deliberate decision to distribute substantial investment returns rather than preserve capital. Second, it is the most accessible of this peer group: the only foundation actively accepting unsolicited applications through a public portal (Temelio) with a dedicated LOI email address. The Jefferson, Meijer, Desai Sethi, and Dian Graves Owen foundations all serve their home states or specific constituencies through largely invitation-only processes. For Middle Tennessee nonprofits, the Frist Foundation represents a uniquely open channel to significant private funding — and at giving levels that can anchor capital campaigns attracting additional major donors.

The most consequential recent announcement is a $5 million award to the Nashville Early Education Coalition (NEEC), confirmed in February 2025. The grant establishes the Nashville Childcare Opportunity Fund, targeting the city's childcare crisis — over 60% of Nashville families cannot access affordable quality childcare for children birth to five. CEO Corinne Bergeron described it as having "the potential to transform the future of early childhood education in Nashville." This is one of the largest single grants in the foundation's recent history and signals a broadened definition of capacity-building to include social infrastructure and workforce development, not only bricks-and-mortar capital projects.

A second high-profile recent award: a $3 million capital grant to Nashville Rescue Mission for its North Nashville women's shelter, which is now open. Nashville Rescue Mission is the foundation's third-largest cumulative grantee in the database, and the women's shelter grant extends a relationship spanning at least eight recorded awards from COVID-era emergency support through capital expansion.

Operationally, 2026 marks the foundation's transition to Temelio as its grants management platform, replacing a prior hybrid Word document and online application process. This is the most significant administrative modernization in recent memory. CEO Corinne Bergeron, who succeeded longtime President/CEO Peter F. Bird Jr. on January 1, 2022, has overseen both the platform transition and an expansion into large strategic investments. Her compensation grew from $250,000 (2022) to $261,500 (2023), and the institution is actively communicating an updated approach — no longer accepting operating grants, emphasizing capacity and sustainability projects, and building public-private partnerships at scale.

Geography is the first and most important filter. An organization must primarily serve Davidson County, Tennessee residents — not aspirationally, but measurably. The foundation explicitly excludes organizations whose principal impact falls outside Middle Tennessee. National organizations with Nashville programming, or Tennessee nonprofits whose primary beneficiaries live outside Davidson County, should not apply.

Start with GivingMatters.com before touching Temelio. The foundation requires an updated profile on this Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee platform as a hard prerequisite. Create or refresh your profile at least two weeks before initiating a formal application. Log in at givingmatters.com and confirm your financial data and contact information is current.

Align the request with one of the six current focus areas: Arts & Culture, Food Insecurity, Health Disparities, Human Services, Immigrants & Refugees, Nonprofit Infrastructure, and Unhoused Neighbors. Name the focus area explicitly in your Temelio request summary. "Nonprofit Infrastructure" is intentionally broad and an excellent fit for technology, planning, capacity, and sustainability projects.

Frame every request around building capacity, not sustaining operations. The foundation is not currently funding recurring salaries, ongoing program expenses, or operational budgets. Winning request types based on the grantee record: capital renovation or construction, technology system acquisition (CRM, case management, data infrastructure), strategic planning with an outside consultant, and earned revenue stream development. If your project touches any of these categories, lead with that framing — not the population served or the program outcomes.

Size the ask to your relationship. First-time applicants seeking under $20,000 should submit a tight, focused request summary. Organizations seeking $100,000 or more should demonstrate at minimum one of the following: a completed strategic plan, documented project readiness (site control, permitting secured), other lead funders already committed, or a prior relationship with a foundation board member or staff person. Cold first-time requests for six figures face long odds — build the relationship over two or three smaller grants first.

For timing, submit your Temelio request summary 8–10 weeks before your target board meeting (January, April, July, or October). Contact grants@fristfoundation.org to confirm timing expectations for your project scope. For initial outreach before entering the portal, email loi@fristfoundation.org with a two-paragraph project description.