The Raintree Foundation

The Raintree Foundation is a small, family-run private foundation with no professional program staff. President/CFO James A. Frank and Vice President Jessica Frank serve unpaid; the only compensated officer is Secretary Ellicott Million, at $41,000-$42,577 a year across the years on file, functionally the administrator handling correspondence and filings. There is no website, no online portal, and no published RFP cycle — this is relationship-driven, mail-in philanthropy, not competitive grantmaking. Grant data reveals two distinct tiers. First, a small number of very large, multi-year gifts to major university and conservation institutions where the family evidently has a personal or alumni connection: the Regents of the University of California ($1,061,500 across 3 grants), Washington State University Foundation ($900,000/3), and California Polytechnic State University Foundation ($900,000/3) together account for $2.86M — 55% of the $5.17M tracked across the foundation's top 50 grantees. Second, a long tail of smaller checks ($1,000-$50,000, median $10,000 in the most recent full grant-list filing, compressing to $5,000 in 2024) to Santa Barbara County nonprofits and a Jackson Hole/Teton-area cluster (Grand Teton Association, Teton Science Schools, Community Foundation of Jackson Hole, Teton County Search & Rescue Foundation). Organizations without an existing relationship should not expect a competitive open process, a site visit, or a staged LOI-to-full-proposal pipeline — the documented mechanism is a single letter of inquiry addressed to James A. Frank. Best-fit applicants are (a) Santa Barbara County education, health care, and youth-serving nonprofits seeking general-support or program grants in the $5,000-$50,000 range, and (b) established university or conservation institutions capable of stewarding a legacy gift tied to a program the family already funds year after year. Geographic concentration is stark: 83 of 110 tracked grants (75%) went to California recipients, with the remainder split among Wyoming (12), Arizona (6), and small one-offs in DC, Colorado, Washington, Tennessee, and Utah. Cold applications from outside these regions or outside education/health/youth face long odds unless the request has a strong conservation or environmental-education angle, which is the foundation's other clear (if unstated) pattern.

Assets have fallen from a 2014 peak of $12,965,600 to $6,083,611 in 2024 — a 53% decline — and the foundation has received essentially no new contributions in 9 of the last 10 filed years, meaning it is drawing down a shrinking, unreplenished corpus rather than granting from steady endowment income. Total giving has contracted in tandem: $2,271,662 (2019) to $2,048,108 (2021) to $1,643,019 (2022) to $1,335,671 (2023), with 2024 web-reported figures showing roughly $1.15M-$1.2M across 32 grants — a nearly 50% cut over five years. Grant sizing has compressed alongside it: the most recent full single-year grant list on file (43 grants) shows a median of $10,000, average of $44,686, and range of $5,000-$385,500; the 2024 data point shows the median dropping to $5,000 with a range of roughly $500-$305,000/$335,500, indicating smaller, more numerous small checks alongside a shrinking set of large ones. Program mix across the $5,172,370 tracked in the top-50 grantee list (110 grants total, average $47,022): roughly 55% ($2.86M) to higher-education STEM/environmental-science support at three universities (UC Regents, Washington State, Cal Poly SLO); roughly 15% ($765,000+) to conservation and land-trust organizations (Grand Teton Association $255,000, Grand Canyon Conservancy $250,000, Yosemite Conservancy $225,000, Land Trust for Santa Barbara County $100,000, Save the Redwoods League $60,000, California State Parks Foundation $75,000); roughly 7% to scholarships (Scholarship Foundation of Santa Barbara, $250,000); and the remainder — dozens of $1,000-$20,000 grants — to Santa Barbara health, human-services, and youth organizations (Direct Relief, Foodbank of Santa Barbara County, Boys & Girls Club, Girls Inc. of Greater Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara School of Squash) plus a Wyoming Teton-region cluster (Teton Science Schools, Community Foundation of Jackson Hole, Teton County Search & Rescue Foundation) that suggests a second-home or personal tie to Jackson Hole.

Raintree is by far the smallest and most asset-constrained of its Santa Barbara-area peers, with an endowment roughly 8-15x smaller than Hutton Parker's or Towbes's and 70-80x smaller than the Santa Barbara Foundation's, yet its annual giving is within the same order of magnitude as Towbes's — meaning Raintree is spending down its corpus rather than granting from stable endowment income, a trajectory its peers are not on. Unlike Hutton Parker and the Santa Barbara Foundation, which run open or structured application cycles, Raintree has no portal, published deadline, or program staff — it behaves more like a personal family checkbook than an institutional grantmaker, closer in process (though not in scale) to a small donor-advised fund.

No 2025-2026 press coverage, program announcements, or leadership changes were found for this foundation in web search — expected for an unstaffed family foundation with no communications function. Search results for "The Raintree Foundation" are dominated by two unrelated organizations of similar name: a climate/reforestation nonprofit based in Thane, India (which also owns the domain theraintree.org listed as this foundation's website in public records) and a volunteer-placement organization in Thailand; neither has any connection to the Goleta, CA funder. The most recent verifiable activity is the FY2024 Form 990-PF filing: total assets of $6,083,611, total revenue of $1,444,724 (93.7% of which came from asset sales rather than new contributions, per ProPublica's analysis), and web-reported 2024 grantmaking of roughly $1.15M-$1.2M across 32 awards — a continuation of the decline from $1,335,671 in total giving in 2023 and $1,643,019 in 2022. Leadership has been stable for well over a decade: James A. Frank (President/CFO) and Jessica Frank (Vice President) have held their unpaid roles across every filing reviewed (2012-2023), and Secretary Ellicott Million's compensation has held steady at $41,000-$42,577 annually — no succession or governance changes were detected. Applicants should treat this as a quiet, low-visibility funder: there will be no public grant announcements or social media presence to monitor, so tracking activity means checking the foundation's IRS Form 990-PF filings (via ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer) as they post.

There is no online application — the foundation's own filing instructions specify a letter-form request that must include proof of 501(c)(3) exempt status and a statement of the program's "social value," so mirror that exact framing in your letter. Address correspondence to James A. Frank, President/CFO, The Raintree Foundation, 1255 Franklin Ranch Rd, Goleta, CA 93117-1784, or call ahead at (805) 967-7964 to confirm where to send it — there is no grants staff to route a misdirected inquiry. Lead explicitly with Santa Barbara County framing: the foundation's stated preference is for proposals "within Santa Barbara County, for programs related to education, health care and youth activities," and requests outside that geography or those three categories are reviewed only "on merit." If your program has an environmental or conservation angle (land trusts, national park support, outdoor youth education), frame it as environmental education or youth programming rather than pure land acquisition — this matches the foundation's actual pattern of six-figure gifts to Grand Teton Association, Grand Canyon Conservancy, and Yosemite Conservancy. Calibrate the ask: 2024 data shows a median grant of just $5,000, and the foundation's few six-figure gifts (UC Regents, Washington State University, Cal Poly SLO) went to long-standing university relationships, not first-time applicants — a realistic opening request for a new relationship is $5,000-$25,000. There is no published deadline, so this is a rolling, anytime process, but budget for a slow and informal review given the foundation has no program officer — only a part-time compensated secretary and two unpaid family officers. Do not expect a site visit or a staged LOI-to-full-proposal pipeline; the documented process is single-stage. The most common mistake will be applying as an out-of-region or non-education/health/youth organization without a compelling merit case — 75% of tracked grant dollars have stayed within California, and the foundation's overall giving has fallen roughly 50% since 2019, so it is not expanding into new causes or geographies. Existing or renewal relationships likely carry more weight than they would at a growing funder.