The Lampstand Foundation

The Lampstand Foundation is an unstaffed, trustee-directed private foundation run by David Winn (Director and Trustee) and Kay Winn (Trustee) out of Escondido, California since its 1991 IRS ruling. Neither trustee draws compensation; a flat $30,000/year in "officer compensation" (unchanged for over a decade) most likely covers bookkeeping or administrative support rather than program staff. There is no grants department, no online portal, and (as of this research, September 2026) the foundation's own website is inaccessible over HTTPS due to an expired SSL certificate — all reliable signals that this is a closely held family giving vehicle, not an institutional grantmaker built for high application volume.

Our database flags Lampstand as preselected_only, and the 990 grant history bears that out: the same roughly 10-15 organizations — Cru ($110K across 6 gifts, 2020-2025), Luis Palau Association/Foundation ($92K-$85K range across multiple gifts), Biola University ($90K-$10K), Family Research Council ($32K), Teen Challenge San Diego, San Diego Rescue Mission, and Heartbeat International — recur year after year. That pattern points to relationship-based, insider-network giving rather than a competitive open RFP process. The one true outlier in the record is a single $500,000 gift to The Cambridge School (a Christian school), which alone represents roughly 14% of the foundation's total assets — the kind of grant that only happens with an existing, trusted relationship, not a cold LOI.

First-time applicants should calibrate expectations accordingly: the foundation's own stated process is a one-page letter of inquiry (per its IRS filing) stating the basic purpose of the request, and it does formally list "accepting applications" as true. But the realistic opening for an unknown organization is the lower end of the giving range — the $100 to $5,000 checks that make up the bulk of grant count — not a transformative six-figure award. Applicants whose mission is explicitly Christian ministry, Christian education, or crisis-pregnancy/family-values advocacy align most closely with what Lampstand has actually funded; secular or non-faith-based organizations are a poor fit given the foundation's own stated restriction that "most funding goes to domestic Christian-based organizations."

Lampstand's total assets stood at $3,691,576 as of its most recent filing (2025), down from a 2021 high of $3,801,938, with FY2025 showing a net investment loss of $62,601 following a $78,570 gain in FY2024. Annual charitable giving has been volatile: $120K-$180K/year through the early-to-mid 2010s, dipping to $88,962 paid in 2013, then $151,430-$163,560/year in 2019-2020, $159,168 in 2021, a sharp spike to $566,396 in 2022 (driven largely by the one-time $500,000 gift to The Cambridge School), and back down to $214,074 in 2023. Web-sourced 990 aggregation covering 2020-2025 shows $1.5 million distributed across 163 grants to 80 organizations — a typical/median grant near $2,064, with most awards falling between $1,000 and $5,000, and a stated range of $50 to $50,000. Our own database's typical-grant-size field (based on a 13-grant recent sample) shows a median of $10,000, an average of $12,582, and a range of $1,000-$36,500 — the gap between these figures and the web aggregator's lower median reflects how heavily a handful of larger, relationship-driven gifts skew the average against a much larger base of small checks.

By purpose, Christian ministry and Christian education dominate: of the roughly $725,564 captured across 33 grants in our top-grantee sample, over 90% of dollars carry a "CHRISTIAN MINISTRY" or "EDUCATION CHRISTIAN MINISTRY" purpose code, led by The Cambridge School ($500,000), Luis Palau Foundation ($85,000), Edify ($48,063), Cru ($30,078), and Biola University ($10,285). A small scholarship tail (Oregon Institute of Technology, Western Seminary) and a scattering of one-off, non-religious gifts — San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance ($1,200), Judicial Watch ($1,000), Discovery Institute ($287), The Leadership Institute ($100) — reflect the trustees' personal interests beyond core ministry giving. Geographically, California and Oregon anchor the portfolio (16 and 9 of 33 sampled grants respectively, roughly 76% combined), with single grants scattered to DC, FL, MS, NC, OH, VA, and WA; more recent 990 years show modest expansion into TX and CO.

Lampstand sits at the small end of the Christian family-foundation peer set — comparable in asset size to the Christian Family Foundation but with no visible staff, portal, or public program description, more akin to Birtcher and Gemmer's personal-trustee model than to an institutionally staffed funder like Herzog. Applicants should expect a far more informal, relationship-dependent process here than at any peer with a published application form, and should size requests toward Lampstand's actual $1,000-$36,500 typical range rather than Herzog-scale six-figure awards.

No news coverage, press releases, or social-media activity for The Lampstand Foundation surfaced in this research — consistent with an unstaffed family trust that has never sought public visibility. The most concrete recent signal is financial: FY2024 showed a modest net gain ($78,570) while FY2025 recorded a net investment loss of $62,601, and ProPublica's summary of the latest filing shows total assets of $3,691,576 with officer compensation flat at $30,000, unchanged from prior years. Trustees David Winn (Director and Trustee) and Kay Winn (Trustee) remain unchanged and uncompensated — no leadership transition was found.

On the grantmaking side, third-party 990 aggregation (Instrumentl, philanthropy.org) shows the foundation's most recent giving (through 2025) still flowing to its long-standing core recipients: Cru ($110K cumulative, latest gift 2025), Luis Palau Association ($92K cumulative, latest 2025), Biola University ($90K cumulative, latest 2025), and Family Research Council ($32K cumulative, latest 2025). Newer entrants to the recipient list since 2023-2024 include Teen Challenge San Diego ($25K across 2 grants) and "Dr Peck Legacy" ($14K across 2 grants), suggesting the trustees continue to add a small number of new relationships each cycle rather than opening to broad public applications. Notably, the foundation's own website (thelampstand.org) returned an SSL certificate error during this research (September 2026), meaning it is not currently reachable over a secure connection — applicants should not assume the site is a reliable or current point of contact and should verify by phone or mail before relying on it.

Lead with explicit, unambiguous Christian-ministry or Christian-education framing — the foundation's own IRS purpose codes for nearly every grant read "CHRISTIAN MINISTRY" or "EDUCATION CHRISTIAN MINISTRY," and its stated restriction is that most funding goes to domestic Christian-based organizations. Secular organizations, even strong ones, are a mismatch here; save the outreach for a funder whose purpose codes match your work.

Keep the initial approach to exactly what the foundation asks for: a one-page letter of inquiry stating the basic purpose of the grant request. There is no online application form or portal in our data (`application_form_url` and `grants_page_url` are both blank), no listed deadline (`application_deadline` is null), and no defined funding cycle (`funding_cycle` is null) — this reads as a rolling, informal process governed entirely by trustee discretion rather than a calendar. Do not over-invest in a polished multi-page proposal on a first contact; a concise, personal, faith-aligned one-pager mailed or emailed to "% David Winn" at the foundation's Escondido address is the documented entry point.

Size the ask realistically. The bulk of Lampstand's grant volume falls in the $100-$5,000 range, with a smaller number of repeat, multi-year relationships reaching into the $10,000-$36,500 typical band, and only one documented outlier ($500,000 to The Cambridge School) that reflects a pre-existing, deep relationship rather than a responsive grant. First-time applicants should request an amount consistent with the smaller end of that range and treat a first grant as the opening move in a multi-year relationship — most of the foundation's largest cumulative recipients (Cru, Luis Palau, Biola, Family Research Council) built their standing through repeated gifts across five-plus years, not a single large award.

The most common mistake would be treating this like a staffed institutional funder: sending a generic, secular-toned LOI, expecting a portal or published RFP, or expecting a fast turnaround. Given the expired SSL certificate on the foundation's website as of September 2026, applicants should verify current contact details by phone before mailing materials, and should not assume email submitted through the website will be received reliably. Because the trustees appear to prize personal relationships (evidenced by the same handful of ministries receiving gifts year after year), warm introductions through shared church, ministry, or Christian-education networks in the San Diego/Escondido or Oregon (Sunriver/Bend) communities are likely to outperform a cold approach.