Treet Foundation

Treet Foundation is a small, family-controlled private foundation based in Richmond, Virginia, run entirely by two unpaid officers — Terrell L. Harrigan (President) and Elliott M. Harrigan (Secretary) — with no program staff, no communications presence, and no public grants portal. Tax-exempt only since August 2020, it has no multi-decade giving history to study; its entire track record spans just six IRS filing years (2019–2025 conservatively knowable). Everything in that record points to a relationship-based, invitation-only funder rather than an open competitive grantmaker: a third-party funder database explicitly states it 'does not accept unsolicited proposals,' and the foundation itself has never published an RFP, LOI template, or application deadline. Grant seekers should treat this less like a program with guidelines and more like a family giving vehicle that periodically moves large sums to institutions the Harrigans already have a personal or professional relationship with. Every named grantee in the record — The Community Foundation ($2,750,000), MCV Foundation ($82,538), and VCU Health System ($87,169 across two gifts for its 'Healing Place' initiative) — sits inside the Richmond/VCU Health ecosystem. That is the single strongest signal available: this is very likely a foundation with personal ties to VCU Health and/or Richmond's philanthropic establishment, not a general-purpose Virginia funder. First-time applicants with no existing connection to VCU, MCV, or the Richmond regional Community Foundation network should not expect a cold LOI to be reviewed. The realistic path in is a warm introduction through one of those three institutions, a mutual board connection, or another Richmond nonprofit that has already received Harrigan family support. Because officers are unpaid and there is no visible administrative infrastructure, expect informal, low-volume correspondence rather than a staffed review process — and expect that a single well-placed personal introduction will do more than any polished unsolicited packet.

The DB-tracked grant history (through FY2023) shows just 4 grants totaling $2,919,707, averaging $729,927 per grant — a figure skewed entirely by one outlier. The three named recipients: The Community Foundation received a single $2,750,000 grant for Education (by far the largest and most likely a 2021 gift, matching that year's $2,752,364 total giving); MCV Foundation received $82,538 for Education (matching FY2020's $82,538 grants-paid figure exactly); and VCU Health System received two grants totaling $87,169 to 'Support VCU Healing Place.' Layering in fuller IRS filing data through FY2025 changes the picture further: total giving across FY2019–FY2025 was roughly $7.93 million, but it arrived in wildly uneven bursts — $0 in 2019, $87,792 in 2020, $2,752,364 in 2021, $41,601 in 2022, $49,644 in 2023, a token $7,548 in 2024, and a record $5,000,000 in 2025 (recipient not yet publicly identified). There is no evidence of a steady 5%-of-assets annual payout rhythm; 2024 in particular saw assets swell to $7.2 million on a large contribution while grants paid that year were negligible, with the bulk apparently held over and paid out the following year instead. Geographically, 100% of named grants (all four in the DB) went to Virginia recipients — specifically Richmond-area institutions. By apparent program area, Education is the dominant category by dollars (roughly 97% of the DB-tracked total, driven by the Community Foundation and MCV gifts), with health-adjacent giving (VCU Healing Place) a distant second. Grant sizes range enormously — from an $87,169 pair of gifts (roughly $43,500 each) up to a $2.75 million single grant and a $5 million single grant — meaning there is effectively no 'typical' award size to benchmark against; this looks far more like episodic major-gift transfers than a structured grants program with a defined funding range.

No named peer foundations were provided in the data bundle, and no organization with a directly comparable profile (age, asset size, and Richmond/VCU-linked giving pattern) could be confidently identified through web research. The table below therefore compares Treet Foundation against illustrative benchmark categories rather than specific named funders, to size up where it sits structurally:

Treet Foundation's asset volatility (more than tripling then dropping by two-thirds in consecutive years) and its total reliance on unpaid family officers put it squarely in the smallest, least formalized tier of private foundations — closer to a family giving vehicle than to an institutional grantmaker. Unlike an established community foundation with published cycles, it offers none of the process transparency grant seekers typically rely on, which is itself the most important comparative data point for applicants deciding whether to invest time pursuing it.

The most recent financial signal is a dramatic one: FY2025 filings show $5,000,000 in grants paid — by far the largest single-year disbursement in the foundation's five-year giving history — against year-end net assets of just $2,306,383, down from $7,216,721 the prior year. That pattern (a large contribution banked in FY2024, followed by a large payout in FY2025) is consistent with the foundation functioning as a short-term pass-through for family wealth rather than an endowed grantmaker drawing down a fixed percentage annually. No public reporting, press release, or news coverage of this $5 million grant — including the recipient's identity — could be located; it does not yet appear in our matched grantee data. No leadership changes have occurred: Terrell L. Harrigan (President) and Elliott M. Harrigan (Secretary) have held their unpaid roles since the foundation's 2020 formation. No new program announcements, strategic plan, or public statements were found in any search. One notable data-quality finding for anyone trying to research this funder online: the website on file, treet.org, does not belong to this foundation at all — it currently resolves to an unrelated UK sustainable-woodworking business ("Treet") with no charitable connection. Grant seekers should not attempt outreach through that domain, and should be skeptical of any other online source that cites it as the foundation's official site.

Because Treet Foundation has no public application portal, no published guidelines, and — per third-party funder-database research — reportedly does not accept unsolicited proposals, the standard grant-writing playbook does not apply here. Practical guidance: (1) Do not attempt to apply through treet.org — that domain belongs to an unrelated business, not this foundation, and any inquiry sent there will go nowhere. (2) The only verified official contact points are the IRS-listed mailing address (5413 Patterson Ave, Ste 200, Richmond, VA 23226) and phone number ((804) 673-8800) attached to Terrell Harrigan; use these cautiously and only after attempting a warm introduction, since a cold letter or call to a two-person unpaid family foundation is unlikely to be prioritized. (3) The strongest alignment strategy is institutional: every named grantee to date sits inside the Richmond/VCU Health ecosystem (VCU Health System's Healing Place, MCV Foundation, The Community Foundation). Organizations with an existing relationship to VCU Health, VCU's medical campus, or Richmond's community foundation network have by far the best odds of being on the Harrigans' radar already. (4) Frame any approach around Education first — it is the dominant category in every dollar-for-dollar comparison of named grants — with health/patient-support framing (as in the VCU Healing Place gifts) as a secondary angle. (5) Do not expect a predictable annual cycle; giving has ranged from $0 to $5 million year over year, tied to when the family funds the foundation rather than a fixed calendar. (6) Given zero paid staff, keep any outreach short, personal, and low-friction — a lengthy formal proposal packet is more likely to go unread than a brief, specific note delivered through a shared contact. (7) The single biggest mistake an applicant could make is treating this like a conventional program-area foundation and mass-submitting a generic LOI; there is no evidence such an approach has ever succeeded here.