The Wild Gifting Project Inc.

The Wild Gifting Project runs an invitation-only, relationship-based model with no public application portal — trustees select grantees at their discretion, and the foundation explicitly does not accept unsolicited proposals. It targets projects that are 'experimental,' 'hard to measure,' 'neglected,' or 'misfit' — work that falls between the cracks of conventional philanthropy. In practice that means grassroots, often small and BIPOC- or directly-impacted-led organizations: prison abolition (Who Speaks For Me, $681,125 across 3 grants), bail funds (CT Bail Fund, $400,000/2 grants), Black maternal health (Mamatoto Village, $250,000), and harm reduction (Fringe Public Health, $200,129) all rank among its largest cumulative grantees. Governance is lean and largely uncompensated: President David Powers, Treasurer Gwendolyn Powers, and Secretary Sydney Mitchell each draw $0 in officer compensation, while day-to-day grantmaking has recently shifted to paid staff — a Director ($150,000) and Program Manager ($86,000) as of the FYE 9/30/2025 filing — indicating the foundation is professionalizing beyond its founder-run origins. Beyond pass-through grants, the foundation directly incubates or fiscally sponsors named initiatives (UnLocal immigration legal aid, Black Girls Film, Sunny Bee Mutual Aid) and funds a broad 'Specific Moments of Charitable Need' (SMOCN) bucket covering more than 30 partner programs (Project Avary, Fireside Project, Sankofa, and others) — evidence that relationships often start informal and small before scaling into a formal annual grant line. First-time applicants should not expect to find an LOI form; the realistic path in is a warm introduction through an existing grantee, a mutual-aid or abolitionist-movement network, or direct outreach once the foundation reopens (stated target: Summer 2026). Because the foundation is currently 'at funding capacity' and paused, the best near-term move is building visibility and relationships now — engaging with grantee organizations, tracking the foundation's site, and preparing a narrative in the foundation's own 'misfit/neglected' framing — rather than attempting a cold application, which this funder is not structured to receive.

This is a fast-growing, actively spending-down foundation. Grant volume and dollars have scaled roughly sevenfold in three years: $620,000 across 9 grants (2022) → $2.1 million/21 grants (2023) → $3.1 million/44 grants (2024) → $4.4 million/57 grants (2025), per the most recent Form 990-PF filings. Total assets fell from $23.9 million (FY2021) to $7.2 million (FY2025) over the same period — grants paid now substantially exceed net investment income (roughly $425,000–$476,000/year), meaning the foundation is distributing principal, not just returns, and its runway at the current pace depends on fresh contributions (it received $15.1 million in new contributions in 2021 but none recorded in 2022). The cumulative top-50 grantee dataset (39 grants, $3.32 million total) shows a median-weighted average award of $85,071, while the foundation's own typical-grant-size figure is a $50,000 median across a $15,000–$200,000 range; more recent 2025 activity (per Instrumentl/Grantable) puts the range wider, at $1,500–$361,125, with per-grant averages of roughly $77,000. The single largest recent award identified was $200,000 to WAWC Healthcare for prenatal/reproductive care in Alabama. Geographically, grantmaking concentrates near the foundation's Connecticut/DC operating base: of 39 tracked grants, Connecticut received 13 (33%), DC 7 (18%), California 4, Georgia and Wisconsin 3 each, New York and Virginia 2 each, and Arizona, Colorado, and Florida 1 each — broadly consistent with the foundation's stated Healing Justice Fund focus on the South and Midwest alongside its home-base Northeast concentration. By program, the 990 breaks out four expense lines: UnLocal ($321,773, immigration legal representation), Black Girls Film ($301,541, media/social-impact for Black girls), Sunny Bee Mutual Aid ($149,912, direct mutual aid for low-income BIPOC and queer people), and a large SMOCN programmatic bucket ($1,977,422) spanning 30+ named partner organizations, from farm and food-sovereignty projects to yoga/wellness and legal-aid groups.

All five peers sit in the same IRS 'Philanthropy & Grantmaking' NTEE category with near-identical asset bases (~$7.2 million), but none has an independently verified public giving figure in this dataset, which itself is telling: The Wild Gifting Project is unusually transparent for its peer cohort, publishing program-level detail (UnLocal, Black Girls Film, Sunny Bee Mutual Aid, SMOCN) and a stated selection philosophy, where the comparison set otherwise reads as opaque, likely closely-held family vehicles. Given that The Wild Gifting Project is spending down assets nearly as fast as its peers' entire asset base each year, it is effectively giving at a multiple of what a peer-sized foundation operating on investment income alone (typically 5% of assets, or roughly $360,000/year for a $7.2M corpus) would distribute — a strong signal that it is a limited-life or accelerated-payout vehicle rather than a perpetual endowment.

The foundation's most recent Form 990-PF, covering fiscal year ending 9/30/2025, was filed 2026-01-15 and shows 57 grants totaling $4.4 million — up from 44 grants/$3.1 million in FY2024. Total revenue fell 50.5% year-over-year to $1.88 million, driven by a drop in realized gains from asset sales ($1.5 million versus $3.4 million the prior year), while investment income held at roughly $332,000. Notable large 2025 awards include $200,000 to WAWC Healthcare for prenatal and reproductive care in Alabama, $180,900 to The Healing Underground for food distribution in Portland, $150,000 to 1in6 Support for disability family advocacy in New Jersey, $105,000 to Street Health DC for care for unhoused individuals, and $100,000 to Exposure Project Incorporated. Staffing has grown beyond the founding family-officer structure: a Director (Erin Livensparger, $150,000) and Program Manager (Laurel Steinhauser, $86,000) are now listed as of the FYE 9/30/2025 filing, alongside unpaid officers David Powers (President), Gwendolyn Powers (Treasurer), and Sydney Mitchell (Secretary). Most significantly for prospective applicants, the foundation has publicly stated it is currently 'at funding capacity' and has paused accepting new relationships or proposals, with an intent to reopen in Summer 2026 — meaning the immediate window for outreach is closed, and the highest-value near-term action is preparation rather than application.

There is no formal LOI, portal, or open call — the foundation explicitly does not accept unsolicited proposals, and 990 data shows selection happens at trustee/staff discretion through relationships. Given the foundation is currently paused and has said it will reopen in Summer 2026, the immediate priority is positioning, not submission: build visibility within the prison-abolition, bail-fund, harm-reduction, reproductive-justice, Black/Indigenous-led grassroots, and mutual-aid networks the foundation already funds (Who Speaks For Me, CT Bail Fund, Mamatoto Village, Fringe Public Health, Project Avary are useful reference points and potential connectors). When outreach does become possible, frame the pitch using the foundation's own screening language — work that is experimental, hard to measure, neglected, or a 'misfit' relative to standard categories — since this is the explicit criteria trustees cite. Right-size the ask: the working median is $50,000, with most awards clustering $15,000–$200,000 and a small number of larger relationship grants reaching $250,000–$681,000 (the latter reflects three cumulative grants to one long-term partner, not a single award). A realistic first ask for a new relationship is likely in the $50,000–$100,000 band rather than near the outer ceiling. Emphasize flexible, general-operating or emergency-use framing over narrowly restricted deliverables — the foundation runs its own 'Specific Moments of Charitable Need' bucket for exactly this kind of unrestricted, fast-moving support, suggesting a cultural preference for trust-based philanthropy. If the organization's work touches reparations policy design, reference the foundation's ReparationWorks initiative by name; if it touches Black or Indigenous community healing and health equity in the South or Midwest, reference the Healing Justice Fund. The most common mistake to avoid is treating this like a conventional funder: sending a cold LOI, a heavily restricted budget, or a request sized for a $200M+ foundation will not fit this shop's model. Contact (646) 334-3081 is listed publicly, but is best used to confirm relationship status after an introduction, not for a cold ask.