The Thomas Family Foundation Inc.

The Thomas Family Foundation Inc. is a closed-door, family-governed private foundation run entirely by unpaid officers — Alfred Thomas (President/Treasurer), Phyllis Thomas (Vice-President/Secretary), and Lydia Bart (Vice-President) — with zero staff and zero officer compensation across every filing year in the record. Its IRS Form 990 explicitly states it 'only makes contributions to preselected charitable organizations and doesn't accept unsolicited applications for funds,' and its public website (thethomasfamilyfoundation.org) is an unpopulated template with no mission statement, program pages, or application form. This is a personal-network foundation, not a competitive grants program: the family selects recipients based on direct relationships, board connections, and geographic/community ties, primarily in and around Fort Lauderdale and Broward County, Florida. The grantee list bears this out — 81 of 140 tracked grants (58%) went to Florida organizations, with the remainder scattered across DC (10), NY (13), IL (10), TX (6), VA (6), CA (4), CT (4), NJ (4), and OH (1), almost certainly reflecting where the Thomas or Bart families have personal ties (e.g., a single Oberlin, Ohio grant, a Cambodia-focused NY nonprofit). First-time applicants without an existing relationship to the family, a shared board seat, or a church/community connection in Broward County should not expect a response to a cold LOI or application. The realistic path in is relationship-first: board introductions, shared committee membership (e.g., at First Presbyterian Church of Fort Lauderdale, an actual grantee), or a warm referral from an existing recipient like Women In Distress, Broward College Foundation, or United Way of Broward. Once a relationship exists, the foundation appears to reward it with sustained, repeat, multi-year support — most top grantees show 3-4 grants across the observed period rather than one-off gifts, indicating loyalty to organizations that prove effective partners over time.

Total tracked giving in the DB dataset is $1,800,749 across 140 grants to 50 unique organizations, averaging $12,862 per grant — but this average masks a steep long-tail distribution. The IRS-reported typical grant size (34 grants analyzed) shows a median of just $8,596, a mean of $13,799, and a range from $250 to $103,100 — meaning most checks are modest four-figure gifts, with a small number of much larger anchor grants pulling the average up. The clearest anchor relationship is Women In Distress, a Broward County domestic-violence shelter, which alone received $482,533 across 4 grants (averaging over $120,000 per grant) — nearly 27% of all tracked giving and roughly 10x the median grant. Other repeat, larger-dollar relationships include Life Net For Families ($175,100/4 grants, homelessness/hunger), First Presbyterian Church of Fort Lauderdale ($137,110/4 grants), Schwab Charitable ($101,000 as a single pass-through gift, likely a DAF vehicle), Broward College Foundation ($99,250/3 grants), and Jack & Jill Children's Center ($84,680/4 grants, poverty/childcare). Below that top tier, the remaining ~44 organizations each received cumulative totals under $60,000, frequently in the $2,000-$20,000 range as small, steady annual gifts (Special Olympics, Habitat for Humanity of Broward, Smile Train, Susan G Komen, Feeding South Florida, etc.). At the entity level, total annual giving has grown steadily from $228,231 (2010) to $567,841 (2021) before settling to $490,751 in FY2025, while total assets have held essentially flat around $8.6-9.1M for over a decade — this is a foundation distributing from investment income (net investment income of $260K-$489K/year) rather than growing its corpus through new contributions (contributions received were $0 in every year from 2018-2022). By sector, the pattern skews heavily toward human services and safety-net causes (domestic violence, homelessness, food insecurity, refugee services) alongside a secondary religious/community thread (church support, Jewish and Christian causes) and a scattering of health, education, and arts gifts.

The Thomas Family Foundation sits within a tight cluster of similarly-sized Philanthropy & Grantmaking-classified private foundations, most with $8.5-8.8M in assets:

All five peers cluster within $10,000 of Thomas's $8,767,369 in assets, forming a natural cohort of small family foundations nationally, but only 2 of 5 (Bellinger, Leva) maintain functioning websites — Thomas's own site is a template. Notably, Reginald R and Jameson A Baxter Foundation shares Thomas's Florida base, making it a plausible peer for grantees straddling both funders' networks, though neither foundation publishes enough independent data to compare giving levels directly. Applicants should treat this entire peer set the same way as Thomas: assume closed, relationship-driven giving unless a public grants page proves otherwise.

No news articles, press releases, or public announcements referencing The Thomas Family Foundation Inc. were found for 2025-2026 — this reflects the foundation's structure as a private family vehicle with no communications staff or public program office rather than any gap in research. The most current verifiable financial signal comes from Instrumentl's 990 aggregation (grant data last refreshed 2026-02-24), which shows FY2025 total giving of approximately $490,751, roughly in line with FY2022's $547,883 and continuing a decade-long trend of gradually rising annual distributions from a flat asset base. The foundation's own website was last checked by Granted's enrichment pipeline on 2026-02-22 and remains an unpopulated placeholder with no mission statement or program updates, confirming there has been no public-facing refresh of the site's content in that window. Leadership has shown no turnover in the tracked filings: Alfred Thomas (President/Treasurer), Phyllis Thomas (Vice-President/Secretary), and Lydia Bart (Vice-President) appear consistently across all listed filing periods with no compensation and no reported changes in title. In the absence of new announcements, the most recent "notable activity" on record remains the pattern of concentrated, repeat support to Women In Distress, which — based on the 4-grant, $482,533 cumulative total in the DB — appears to be the foundation's largest and most durable ongoing commitment, likely continuing into 2025-2026 filings not yet publicly indexed.

This foundation does not run a competitive or open grants process — the IRS Form 990 explicitly states it "only makes contributions to preselected charitable organizations and doesn't accept unsolicited applications for funds," and its website has no application form, LOI template, portal, or listed program officer. Do not submit a cold application; it will very likely go unread, since there is no public intake mechanism to receive it. Instead: (1) Identify a genuine connection point — the foundation is Fort Lauderdale/Broward County-rooted, and its grantee list points to specific community touchpoints, including First Presbyterian Church of Fort Lauderdale (an actual grantee, suggesting the family's church network matters), Broward College Foundation, and Broward Performing Arts Foundation. Organizations with board members or staff who intersect with these institutions have a realistic entry point others don't. (2) Study the grantee pattern to gauge fit before reaching out: the foundation's two largest, most sustained relationships (Women In Distress at $482,533/4 grants and Life Net For Families at $175,100/4 grants) are both Broward County human-services organizations addressing domestic violence and homelessness/hunger — an organization working in adjacent space (shelter, crisis intervention, basic needs, family stabilization) in the same county is a stronger structural match than one working nationally or outside Florida. (3) Expect modest first gifts if a relationship does form — the IRS-reported median grant is just $8,596, so a first-time or newer relationship should anticipate a gift in the low thousands to low tens of thousands, not a six-figure award; six-figure gifts appear reserved for the handful of decade-long anchor relationships. (4) Since there's no deadline or cycle published, timing outreach around the foundation's fiscal year-end reporting (calendar year, based on 990 filing patterns) or around known grantee touchpoints (e.g., a gala or annual campaign for Women In Distress or Broward Performing Arts) may be more productive than a generic outreach email. (5) A direct mail or phone approach to the listed phone number, (954) 524-3643, or PO Box 30580, Ft Lauderdale, FL 33303, is more likely to reach a real decision-maker than a web form, given the site has none.