Tumori

The Tumori Foundation is a small, physician-directed private foundation built around the clinical and academic network of Dr. Devron H. Char, its Director and President, who founded UCSF's Ocular Oncology Unit and holds clinical professorships at both UCSF and Stanford. This is not a conventional open-application grantmaker: its most recent IRS filing flags it as making contributions only to preselected charitable organizations, and its own application_instructions field is blank. The foundation's four disclosed grants — to Stanford University School of Medicine ($135,000), UT Southwestern Medical Center ($120,000), UCSF ($100,000), and CPMC Foundation ($76,000, attributed to researcher David Minor) — all went to academic medical centers where Dr. Char has direct institutional or collaborative ties, not to organizations that applied cold. The board itself is compact and uncompensated: Dr. Char, his relative Danton Char (Secretary), and board members Lana Vento, Marci Seville, Guiselle Kundert, and Charles Gibbs, none of whom draw a salary — a hallmark of a closely held family/clinical foundation rather than a staffed grantmaking institution. For a first-time applicant, the realistic path in is relational, not transactional: an academic ocular oncology, uveal melanoma, orbital tumor, or ophthalmic pathology research group — ideally one already publishing in the same journals Dr. Char reviews for, or collaborating with UCSF's Ocular Oncology Unit — has a far better chance than a cold LOI. The foundation also maintains a modest, separate fund for uninsured or indigent patients' care, which is a distinct channel from its research grantmaking and likely flows through clinical referral rather than a grant process. Because total assets are just $3.39 million (FY2024) and disbursements are lumpy, expect this funder to support one or two research relationships at a time rather than run a competitive grant round. Organizations outside ocular/orbital oncology, or without an existing tie to Char's clinical-academic circle, are unlikely to be considered regardless of proposal quality.

Grantmaking here is small in volume and concentrated by both dollar amount and geography. Across the four grants captured in the foundation's most recent disclosed cycle, total giving was $431,000, averaging $107,750 per grant, with a tight range from $76,000 (CPMC Foundation, uveal melanoma treatment study) to $135,000 (Stanford University School of Medicine, general school-of-medicine support). Three of four grants (75%) went to California recipients (Stanford, UCSF, CPMC Foundation), with the fourth to UT Southwestern Medical Center in Texas for ocular oncology research — reflecting Dr. Char's Bay Area clinical base plus his broader ocular oncology research network. All four grants are single-year, single-installment awards (grant_count: 1 each); there's no evidence of multi-year pledges. Total giving has swung significantly year to year rather than following a smooth annual pattern: $117,398 (FY2020), $322,850 (FY2021), $121,453 (FY2022), $317,062 (FY2023), with FY2024 total giving not yet disclosed (total revenue was $380,743). Grants paid follow an even starker on/off rhythm: $0 in FY2020, $211,000 in FY2021, $0 in FY2022, $220,000 in FY2023 — a near-exact biennial cadence, meaning any given calendar year has roughly even odds of seeing zero disbursement. Total assets have held steady in the $2.6-3.4 million range across the five-year window (FY2020: $3.42M; FY2021: $3.26M; FY2022: $2.58M; FY2023: $2.82M; FY2024: $3.39M), and net investment income is modest and volatile ($401,930 in FY2021 driven by market gains, versus $4,538-$30,118 in flatter years). With income around $681,111 and assets under $3.4 million, this foundation operates at a scale where even one grant decision materially shapes a fiscal year's giving total — there is no year-round open funding pool to apply into.

The Tumori Foundation sits within a cluster of similarly small, single-focus Health-category private foundations with assets in the $3.2-3.5 million band. None of the identified peers have a public website on file, underscoring that this asset tier of foundation typically operates without dedicated grants staff, an online presence, or a formal solicitation process — Tumori's own thin, clinically-focused website fits the pattern rather than being an outlier.

What distinguishes Tumori within this peer set is disease-specificity: while peers like the psoriasis/psoriatic arthritis foundation and the alcoholic-beverage-focused medical research foundation are similarly narrow, Tumori's mandate (ocular, eyelid, conjunctival, and orbital cancers) is unusually tied to one clinician-founder's own subspecialty practice rather than a broader disease community, making it an even tighter relational network than most peers of its size.

No news coverage, press releases, or grantee announcements were found for the Tumori Foundation in 2025 or 2026 — the organization has no visible media or social presence, and its own website has not been updated with foundation-specific news (the homepage and "About Dr. Char" pages focus on Dr. Char's clinical ophthalmology practice, not grantmaking activity). The most recent verifiable financial data point is FY2024, showing total assets of $3,388,740 and total revenue of $380,743, though FY2024 total giving was not itemized in available filings. The last disclosed grant cohort (four grants, $431,000 total, most recently reflected in the FY2023 filing showing $220,000 in grants paid) went to Stanford University School of Medicine, UT Southwestern Medical Center, UCSF, and CPMC Foundation for ocular/uveal melanoma and orbital oncology research. Leadership has been stable: Dr. Devron H. Char has continued as Director and President across all available filing years, with the same five-person uncompensated board (Danton Char, Lana Vento, Marci Seville, Guiselle Kundert, and Charles Gibbs) recurring across multiple filing years. There is no indication of a leadership transition, new program launch, or strategic pivot. Grant seekers should treat this as a quiet, low-visibility funder whose activity is best tracked through its biennial IRS Form 990 filings (via ProPublica's Nonprofit Explorer or Cause IQ) rather than through news monitoring, since the foundation generates essentially no public communications about its grantmaking.

Do not submit a cold, unsolicited LOI or general grant application — the foundation's most recent Form 990 explicitly states it contributes only to preselected organizations, and its public site provides no application form, portal, deadline, or instructions (the application_instructions field on file is blank). Instead, the realistic path is direct outreach to Dr. Devron Char himself, framed around a specific ocular oncology, uveal/orbital melanoma, eyelid, or conjunctival tumor research question — ideally one that intersects with his own clinical/research interests (he has authored 350+ publications and maintains active editorial roles in ophthalmology). Because all four disclosed grants went to academic medical centers (Stanford, UCSF, UT Southwestern, CPMC), a standalone community nonprofit or non-academic organization is a poor fit; the funder's pattern strongly favors university-affiliated medical school departments and named-researcher-led studies. When approaching this funder, reference Dr. Char's specific institutional history — founding director of UCSF's Ocular Oncology Unit, clinical professorships at both UCSF and Stanford — and, where possible, an existing or proposed collaboration with that unit; the CPMC grant, tagged to researcher "David Minor," shows the foundation funds by named-investigator relationship, not by open RFP. Timing should account for the biennial disbursement pattern: grants were paid in 2021 and 2023 but not 2020 or 2022, so an outreach made in a zero-disbursement year may simply be premature rather than declined — patience and a multi-year relationship-building approach is more realistic than a single application cycle. A common mistake to avoid: treating Tumori like a typical foundation with a portal or standard proposal format — there is none, and generic boilerplate proposals sent to the general foundation address are unlikely to be read by decision-makers. Because the board is small, uncompensated, and appears to include family members (Danton Char, Secretary, shares Dr. Char's surname), any credible warm introduction through the UCSF or Stanford ophthalmology community will carry more weight than a professionally polished but unsolicited proposal.