The Zacchaeus Foundation

The Zacchaeus Foundation is a small, closely-held private family foundation with $3.49 million in assets, administered through Foundation Source (its listed address, 501 Silverside Rd, Wilmington, DE, is Foundation Source's standard back-office mail drop used by thousands of family foundations). It is run by exactly two directors — Nicole Sermier (VP) and Franco Tapia (President/Secretary/Treasurer) — both drawing zero compensation, a strong signal this is a personal giving vehicle rather than a staffed grantmaking institution. The foundation's own record flags itself as "preselected only": there is no published grants page, application form, or opportunities URL, and its application_instructions field is explicitly blank. In practice, funding flows almost entirely to organizations the two directors already know personally: elite New York independent schools (Brearley, Spence, Hunter College Elementary School's Parent-Teacher Association), Episcopal parishes (St James, Grace Episcopal Church), Ivy League/prep annual funds (Harvard College Fund, Wharton School Annual Giving Fund, Cristo Rey New York High School, Cornelia Connelly Center for Education), youth-mentorship-through-squash programs (City Squash, Squash and Education Alliance), and a small set of direct-service nonprofits led by Women In Need Inc — the single largest relationship at $172,500 across three gifts — and Rural & Migrant Ministries. Thirty-two of the 39 tracked grants (82%) went to New York-based organizations, with small spillover into New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania (mostly alumni-fund gifts). For a first-time, unsolicited applicant, the realistic odds of a cold approach succeeding are very low. The productive path is relationship-building: identify whether your organization already has a board, alumni, parish, or program connection to Sermier, Tapia, or one of the existing grantees, and pursue a warm introduction rather than a formal LOI. There is no evidence of a multi-stage review process, site visits, or a defined annual cycle — grants read as recurring, discretionary, general-operating gifts to a stable circle of roughly a dozen core relationships, refreshed with occasional new small gifts each year.

Grant sizes are modest and tightly banded: the foundation's own typical_grant_size record shows a median of $10,000, an average of $12,608, and a range of $2,500 to $60,000 across 13 sampled awards; 2024 filing data reported by outside aggregators shows the range widening slightly to $500-$75,000 across 21 awards totaling $227,050. Across the cumulative multi-year grantee history in this record (39 grants, $530,300 total, average $13,597), one relationship dominates: Women In Need Inc received $172,500 across three general-and-unrestricted gifts (average $57,500 per gift) — nearly a third of all cumulative dollars tracked and five to six times the foundation's typical award. Excluding that outlier, the remaining ~$358,000 spreads thinly: Rural & Migrant Ministries ($52,500/3 grants), Cornelia Connelly Center for Education ($40,000/2, tied to its "2022 Annual Benefit"), St James Episcopal Church ($35,000/3), Brearley School ($32,500/3), and Raise The Children International and City Squash Inc (each $30,000/3). A distinct sub-pattern is elite-education loyalty giving: combined gifts to Hunter College Elementary School's PTA (~$43,500 across 3 gifts under two name variants), Spence School's Annual Fund ($10,000), the Wharton School Annual Giving Fund ($10,000), and Harvard College Fund ($9,800) total roughly $73,000 — alumni/parent-style annual-fund gifts rather than competitive project grants. Faith-based giving (St James and Grace Episcopal Church, $35,000 and $12,500) adds another $47,500. On overall trend, total giving grew from $182,820 in FY2022 (on $163,900 actually paid out) to $230,272 in FY2023 ($202,500 paid), roughly 26% growth, even as total revenue fell from $1.87M to $1.02M and contributions received nearly halved ($1.80M to $926K) — the increase was funded from net investment income ($84,162 in FY2023) and accumulated assets, which grew from $2.72M to $3.51M over the same period. Virtually every purpose field reads "General & Unrestricted," underscoring that this foundation does not fund defined projects or programs — it makes discretionary operating gifts to organizations it already trusts.

The Zacchaeus Foundation sits among a cluster of similarly-sized, closely-held family foundations, all filed under the "Philanthropy & Grantmaking" NTEE category with assets clustered near $3.49 million — a size band typical of Foundation Source-administered, first-or-second-generation family vehicles rather than institutional grantmakers.

Notably, none of these five peers has a public website on record, reinforcing that this asset tier of family foundation typically operates without any public-facing grant program — The Zacchaeus Foundation's preselected-only posture is the norm for its peer set, not an exception. Grant seekers should not expect any of these foundations, including Zacchaeus, to run a competitive open process; access almost always runs through personal or professional relationships with the founding family or its advisors.

No independent news coverage was located for this specific entity (EIN 87-2940863, Wilmington, DE) in 2025-2026 — search results for "The Zacchaeus Foundation" are dominated by an unrelated, similarly-named public charity in Fayetteville, AR (EIN 93-4396383) running a faith-based reparations giving circle, and a separate "Zacchaeus Foundation Inc." in Indianapolis (EIN 35-2085967); neither should be confused with this foundation. The most recent verifiable activity comes from 990-PF filing data: aggregators (CauseIQ, Grantmakers.io) report $227,050 distributed across 21 grants in the 2024 fiscal year, with per-grant amounts ranging $500-$75,000 — continuing the FY2022-to-FY2023 growth trend already visible in this record ($182,820 to $230,272 in total giving, a 26% increase). Leadership has been stable: Nicole Sermier (VP) and Franco Tapia (President/Secretary/Treasurer) are recorded as the sole directors with no compensation in both years of financial data reviewed, and no leadership transition or new program announcement was found anywhere in the public record. The foundation's asset base grew meaningfully, from $2.72M (FY2022) to $3.51M (FY2023), driven mostly by contributions received ($1.80M in 2022, $926K in 2023) rather than investment performance. Grant seekers should treat this foundation as operating quietly and consistently rather than expecting a recent strategic pivot, new focus area, or public announcement — there is no evidence of any of those in the record.

There is no formal application channel to target: application_form_url, grants_page_url, and opportunities_url are all unpublished, and the foundation's own application_instructions field is blank. Do not submit a generic cold LOI or grant proposal — a two-person, uncompensated family foundation of this size is not structured to review unsolicited volume. The single highest-leverage move is identifying a warm introduction path: review whether your organization's board, staff, alumni base, or congregation already overlaps with Nicole Sermier, Franco Tapia, or any of the foundation's established relationships — particularly Women In Need Inc, Rural & Migrant Ministries, City Squash, Squash and Education Alliance, Cornelia Connelly Center for Education, or the NYC independent-school network (Brearley, Spence, Hunter College Elementary). If a genuine connection exists, come in as a personal referral, not a written proposal — the historical pattern (recurring "General & Unrestricted" gifts to the same roughly dozen organizations year after year) indicates decisions are relational and discretionary rather than competitive or criteria-scored. If a written case is requested, keep it to one or two pages emphasizing general operating impact rather than a specific restricted project, since virtually every recorded grant purpose is unrestricted operating support. There is no evidence of a defined deadline, review cycle, or site-visit process, so there is no "optimal season" to target beyond simply having the relationship in place before the foundation's typical giving decisions are made (grants have historically clustered as flat, repeat annual gifts). The most common mistake would be treating this like an open foundation with published guidelines — it isn't one. A secondary, lower-probability channel is written correspondence routed through its Foundation Source mailing address (c/o Foundation Source, 501 Silverside Rd, Wilmington, DE 19809), but expect this to have materially lower odds than a personal introduction given the preselected-only pattern. Language that resonates, based on the funding record, should emphasize NYC-metro or Hudson Valley reach, youth mentorship/education (especially squash-based or independent-school-adjacent programming), Episcopal or broader faith-community ties, and direct services to homeless individuals or farmworker communities.