The Moraine Foundation

The Moraine Foundation is a small, entirely family-run private foundation based at 2341 Eastlake Ave E in Seattle, governed solely by Susan W. Pohl (President) and John C. Pohl (Secretary/Treasurer), both of whom draw $0 compensation across every filing year on record — there is no program staff to build a relationship with beyond the two founders. The foundation is explicit and firm on process: it does not accept unsolicited proposals, and organizations must be invited before they can even access the application form (a Word document reissued annually, currently the 'Moraine Foundation Application 2026'). This makes Moraine fundamentally a relationship-driven funder, not an open-call one.

The grantee data reveals a clearly bifurcated giving pattern. A handful of large, multi-year institutional partners dominate cumulative dollars: Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History ($3.0M across 3 grants for 'People in Nature Experience'), Dickinson College ($2.0M across 5 grants for Arctic and Alpine Studies — plausibly tied to a founder connection to the college), and National Parks Conservation Association ($2.0M across 4 grants for Clean Air and Climate). These three alone account for roughly 89% of the $7.82M in cumulative giving captured in the grantee sample. Alongside these anchor relationships sits a second tier of smaller, mostly Seattle-based four- and five-figure grants to human-services and arts organizations — Downtown Emergency Service Center ($225,000), Seattle Symphony ($150,000), Boys & Girls Clubs of King County (two branches, $155,000 combined), Alliance for Gun Responsibility ($100,000), and grants of $10,000-$25,000 to All In Washington, Northwest Girlchoir, Art Corps, and North Helpline.

For first-time applicants, the practical path is a warm introduction — through a current grantee, a board-adjacent contact, or overlapping involvement in the causes Moraine visibly favors: nature and conservation science, arctic/alpine research, community health, gun-violence prevention, youth services, and the arts. Given the tiny two-person governance structure, expect a personal, low-bureaucracy decision process rather than a multi-committee review, and expect that even funded organizations often start with a smaller 'trial' gift before being considered for larger, renewed support.

Total assets have grown roughly eightfold since 2011: from $1,035,070 (2011) to $8,225,540 today, with the most recent complete-year snapshot showing $5,575,122 in assets at the close of FY2023. That growth has been driven as much by new capital contributions as by investment performance — contributions received spiked to $3,147,960 in 2019 and $3,464,624 in 2020, compared with net investment income that has ranged from roughly $27,700 (2011) to $915,000 (2023). Grants paid have swung considerably year to year: from a low of $2,500 (2015, an evident down year) to $2,005,000 (2022), settling at $1,496,264 in 2023, and third-party 990 tracking (Impala.digital) puts 2024 distributions at approximately $1.5M across just 6 discrete grants.

Per the foundation's own reported typical grant size, the median award is $125,000, ranging from $25,000 to $500,000, with an average of $200,410 across the most recent 6-grant cycle — but cumulative, multi-year totals to anchor partners run far higher (Smithsonian $3.0M over 3 gifts, Dickinson College $2.0M over 5 gifts, NPCA $2.0M over 4 gifts). Breaking the $7.82M in cumulative tracked giving down by program purpose: environment/nature/conservation work (Smithsonian's nature-experience programming, NPCA's clean-air-and-climate advocacy, Dickinson's arctic-and-alpine studies) accounts for roughly $7.0M, or about 90% of tracked dollars; human/social services (DESC, Boys & Girls Clubs, North Helpline, All In Washington's response fund) account for about $410,000 (5%); arts and culture (Seattle Symphony, Northwest Girlchoir, Art Corps) about $180,000 (2%); education/scholarship support (College Success Foundation, Boys & Girls Clubs scholarship fund) about $225,000 (3%); and public-safety advocacy (Alliance for Gun Responsibility) $100,000 (1%).

Geographically, Washington captures the most individual grants (18 of 30, 60%) — reflecting Moraine's Seattle roots and steady local human-services/arts giving — but Pennsylvania and DC capture outsized dollar totals through the Dickinson College and Smithsonian/NPCA relationships, meaning national-caliber institutional partners outweigh, in dollar terms, what the larger number of King County nonprofits receive.

The five closest asset-size peers (all within roughly $4,000 of Moraine's $8,225,540 in total assets) sit in the same broad NTEE Philanthropy & Grantmaking category but are geographically scattered (FL, CA, PA, VA, OH), none headquartered in Washington State, and none have public giving-level or application-process data in this dataset — a pattern consistent with small, closely held family foundations that file minimal public information. Moraine stands out among this peer set for having a documented, if informal, public-facing application page and a relatively transparent (if invitation-gated) process, which is not the norm for foundations of this size and structure.

Public news coverage of The Moraine Foundation is essentially nonexistent — consistent with its profile as a two-person, unstaffed family foundation that does not issue press releases or maintain active social media (the DB record shows no social_media data and no dedicated press presence). The most concrete recent signal is third-party 990-PF tracking (Impala.digital) showing roughly $1.5M distributed across 6 grants in 2024, and the foundation's website currently referencing a live 'Moraine Foundation Application 2026' form, indicating an active current-year cycle as of this report. No leadership changes have occurred: Susan W. Pohl (President) and John C. Pohl (Secretary/Treasurer) have held the same roles, drawing $0 compensation, across every filing year captured in this dataset. The foundation's DB record was last enriched on 2026-02-22 and last verified 2026-06-20, with total assets reported at $8,225,540 — up from $5,575,122 at the close of FY2023, implying a strong asset-growth and likely active-giving year in the interim.

One important caution for grant seekers: a domain closely resembling the foundation's name, themoraine.org, is registered to an unrelated Dutch cultural and ecological arts venue in Beek-Ubbergen, Netherlands ('Growers of spaces, furniture & trees') — not to this foundation. The correct and verified web presence for The Moraine Foundation (EIN 20-4195024, Seattle, WA) is morainefoundation.org; applicants should be careful not to confuse the two when researching or attempting outreach.

Moraine's process is unusually blunt for a foundation this size: the website states outright that unsolicited proposals are not accepted and that an organization 'must be invited to access and submit the application form.' Sending a cold LOI or grant application is very unlikely to work and risks little more than being discarded — the entire strategy has to start with relationship-building, not proposal-writing. Because the foundation is run solely by Susan W. Pohl and John C. Pohl with no program staff and $0 officer compensation on record, look for a personal or organizational connection: current grantees (Dickinson College, National Parks Conservation Association, Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, Downtown Emergency Service Center, Seattle Symphony, Boys & Girls Clubs of King County, Alliance for Gun Responsibility, All In Washington, Northwest Girlchoir, Art Corps, North Helpline, College Success Foundation) may be able to make introductions, or Seattle-area philanthropic networks may surface a warm path in.

Once invited, align your narrative explicitly with the foundation's own stated framing — 'strengthening families and communities,' 'promoting human welfare,' and 'safeguarding the natural world' — and, where genuinely relevant, its explicit naming of racial inequity, social injustice, and climate change as interconnected priorities. Given the small, informal governance structure, expect a faster and more personal review than a large institutional funder — but also expect funding decisions to be closely tied to the founders' own interests (nature/conservation science, arctic-alpine research, and Seattle human-services and arts organizations are the clearest through-lines in the data).

Size your ask realistically: the documented typical grant is a median of $125,000 within a $25,000-$500,000 range for a standard single-year request; six-figure-plus asks appear reserved for organizations matching the profile of Moraine's existing anchor partners (national museums, elite liberal-arts colleges, major conservation nonprofits). First-time grantees more often receive a smaller opening gift — Impala.digital's aggregated data shows a median first-year grant of $50,000 — with roughly half of grantees going on to receive a larger, renewed second-year grant (median $118,800). Treat a first grant as the start of a multi-year relationship to cultivate, not a one-off transaction, and be prepared to report back on outcomes if renewal is a goal.