Tyler-Little Family Foundation

Tyler-Little Family Foundation is a closed, relationship-driven family foundation, not a competitive grantmaker — the practical strategy is access, not proposal quality. IRS filings and every third-party profile (Charity Navigator, Cause IQ, Council of Michigan Foundations) agree: the foundation funds only preselected organizations and does not accept unsolicited requests. It is administered through Greenleaf Trust, a Kalamazoo wealth-management firm, and governed entirely by Tyler family members — Timothy J. Tyler (President), Sarah Tyler Chase (VP/Treasurer), Toni Lyn Tyler and Julie Tyler Knudsen (Directors) — all uncompensated, which signals a personally managed giving vehicle rather than a staffed program office. Filings show Mary L. Tyler recently stepping out of the President/Secretary role, and a third-party grant directory lists the program as 'In Memory of Mary L. Tyler,' pointing to a generational handoff now in progress. For grantseekers, this means the realistic path in is one of two lanes: (1) be a Kalamazoo-area institution already inside the family's civic and social orbit — the 233 tracked grants show 188 (81%) going to Kalamazoo-area organizations across arts, senior services, youth development, and education; or (2) have a genuine personal tie to the family, which explains the scattering of gifts to University of Colorado Foundation, Colorado State University Foundation, Culver Educational Foundation (IN), and Muskingum University (OH) — almost certainly alma maters or family residences rather than open-competition wins. First-time, cold applicants from outside Kalamazoo with no family connection should not expect a response; there is no LOI process, no portal, and no grants_page_url on file. Organizations already receiving smaller 'annual gift' support (the modal grant type in the data) appear to graduate over time into capital-campaign-level asks — Ecumenical Senior Center, Kalamazoo Nature Center, and Air Zoo Legacy Foundation all show a small recurring gift preceding a five-figure capital ask in later years. The relationship progression here is sponsorship and loyalty, not LOI-to-full-proposal-to-site-visit.

The foundation's own typical-grant-size data shows a median grant of just $2,000 against an average of $6,129 (range: $75 to $100,000, across 139 sized grants) — a bimodal pattern of many small annual gifts and sponsorships alongside a handful of much larger capital commitments. The broader tracked grantee file (233 grants, $1,426,569 total, $6,123 average) confirms this: dozens of $1,000-$5,000 'annual gift' and event-sponsorship lines sit beneath a short list of six-figure relationships. Total giving has been volatile and tied to investment performance rather than a fixed payout formula: $726,870 (2019) rose to $857,971 (2020), $909,989 (2021), and peaked at $923,220 (2022) before easing to $543,420 (2023) and roughly $684,000 across 116 grants (2024, per Instrumentl) — a 2021-2023 high-water mark followed by a pullback in both dollars and grant count (158 grants in 2023 down to 116 in 2024), consistent with fewer, larger commitments replacing a longer annual list. Net investment income (not new contributions — the foundation received $0 in contributions in every year on file) drives payout capacity, so giving should be expected to track the endowment's ~$3.3M-$3.8M asset base rather than grow steadily. By program area, the largest historical relationships cluster in arts and culture (Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra $115,000/3 grants; Air Zoo Legacy Foundation $98,000/4 grants; Farmers Alley Theatre $37,500; Kalamazoo Institute of Arts $25,000), senior and health services (Milestone Senior Services $66,000; Bronson Health Foundation $60,040 across 6 small annual gifts; Ecumenical Senior Center $52,500), youth and human services (Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Kalamazoo $107,000/4 grants; YWCA of Kalamazoo $44,000; Big Brothers Big Sisters $17,724), and higher education (Kalamazoo College $79,000/4 grants; WMU Homer Stryker MD School of Medicine $35,000). Geographically, 188 of 233 tracked grants (81%) land in Michigan, with small out-of-state clusters in Colorado, Ohio, Indiana, Texas, Illinois, DC, Virginia, New York, Florida, and Minnesota — almost entirely single-recipient, personal-tie gifts rather than a stated national program.

Tyler-Little sits among a cluster of similarly-sized ($3.5M-asset) private foundations classified under Philanthropy & Grantmaking, all of which appear to be closed, family- or trust-administered vehicles with no public website or listed application process:

All five peers show asset bases within $10,000 of one another (roughly $3.52M-$3.53M), suggesting they were selected as size-matched comparables rather than programmatic peers, and none has a discoverable website or application process in this data set. Tyler-Little is distinguished from this peer set mainly by its unusually well-documented, name-driven grantee list (Kalamazoo Symphony, Air Zoo, Boys & Girls Clubs) and its administration through a named trust company (Greenleaf Trust), which most small family foundations of this size do not disclose. Grantseekers should treat all six as effectively closed to cold outreach; the differentiator for Tyler-Little is that its historical grantee pattern is public enough (via 990-PF data) to reverse-engineer its true, unstated funding priorities.

Documented recent activity is thin, consistent with a foundation that does not publicize its grantmaking. The clearest dated item is a June 2021 Air Zoo Legacy Foundation news post crediting the foundation with an additional pledge toward restoring the Douglas SBD-2P Dauntless and F-117 Nighthawk Shaba aircraft — part of a broader multi-year relationship that totals $98,000 across four grants in the 990 data (exhibit sponsorship, gala support, and the Science Innovation Hall of Fame Awards Gala). Beyond that, the most notable recent signal is financial rather than editorial: giving fell from a 2021-2023 peak of $850,000-$925,000/year to roughly $543,000 (2023) and $684,000 across 116 grants (2024, per Instrumentl), a meaningfully smaller and more concentrated distribution than the prior three years. IRS filings also show a leadership change — Mary L. Tyler no longer appears as President/Secretary in the most recent records, with Timothy J. Tyler and Sarah Tyler Chase now leading the board — and a third-party grant directory lists the program under the name 'In Memory of Mary L. Tyler,' which together suggest a recent family transition, though no obituary or primary-source foundation announcement was found to date this precisely. No new program launches, RFPs, or public statements of changed funding priorities were found in this research; the foundation appears to be continuing its existing Kalamazoo-area relationship roster (Symphony, Air Zoo, Boys & Girls Clubs, Kalamazoo College, Bronson Health Foundation) rather than announcing new initiatives.

There is no unsolicited-application channel to optimize — every available source (the foundation's own IRS filings, Charity Navigator, Cause IQ, Council of Michigan Foundations) confirms it funds preselected organizations only, and this data bundle shows accepting_applications flagged true in aggregator metadata but with no application_form_url, no deadline, and no grants_page_url — meaning any 'apply' button seen on a grant-finder site is generic template text, not a live process. Do not submit a cold LOI or proposal; it will not be reviewed. The one real lever is relationship access: the foundation is administered by Greenleaf Trust (211 S. Rose St., Kalamazoo), and its board is entirely Tyler/Chase family members, so an introduction through a shared board connection, a Kalamazoo civic institution (United Way of Battle Creek & Kalamazoo Region, Kalamazoo Nonprofit Advocacy Coalition — both existing grantees), or Greenleaf Trust itself is the only documented path in. If your organization is not based in Kalamazoo County, the data shows the only exceptions are personal-tie gifts to family alma maters and hometowns (University of Colorado Foundation, Colorado State University Foundation, Culver Educational Foundation in Indiana, Muskingum University in Ohio) — pursue this route only if a genuine, provable family connection exists, not a mission-alignment pitch. For organizations that do have access, the data shows a clear entry ramp: nearly every large capital-level grant in the file was preceded by smaller 'annual gift' or event-sponsorship support in prior years (Ecumenical Senior Center's $52,500 capital-campaign grant followed years of smaller annual gifts; Air Zoo's exhibit sponsorships preceded its restoration-campaign pledge). So the realistic ask sequence is: get on the annual-gift list first (typical size $1,000-$10,000), sustain visibility through galas, tournaments, or board relationships over 2-3 years, then bring a specific capital or named-recognition opportunity once trust is established. Common mistake to avoid: pitching general operating support cold — the purpose tags in the data are dominated by 'ANNUAL GIFT,' sponsorships, and capital campaigns, not open general-operating grants to new relationships. Expect no formal timeline or portal-based decision date; awards appear to follow the family board's own annual giving cycle rather than a published RFP calendar.