Unlikely Collaborators Foundation

Unlikely Collaborators Foundation is a young, well-capitalized private foundation that received a single $35 million founding contribution in FY2022 and has since built one of the more distinctive giving portfolios in American philanthropy. Its intellectual core is the Perception Box™ framework, developed by founder Elizabeth R. Koch: the internal lens of beliefs, past experiences, identity, and trauma through which every person experiences the world. The foundation funds organizations that help individuals examine and expand that lens — not through advocacy or systems change, but through direct, facilitated shifts in how people see themselves and others.

Historically the foundation operated as a fully invitation-based funder with no public application pathway, making grants exclusively through relationships. President Lisa Gregorian and the small leadership team built a portfolio anchored in criminal justice (incarcerated people and correctional officers), mindfulness, and storytelling. In April 2026, the foundation made a landmark pivot: its first-ever open RFP, offering $50,000–$250,000 project grants to any eligible US 501(c)(3) with a minimum annual budget of $500,000. This is an extraordinary access window for organizations that previously had no entry point.

First-time applicants should understand that this funder is philosophically demanding. Generic program descriptions will not resonate. The foundation explicitly rejects advocacy-driven work, political programming, and projects centered on promoting a specific viewpoint. What they want is a clearly articulated mechanism: how does a participant in your program experience a specific, verifiable shift in their perception of themselves or the world? Facilitated dialogue, somatic practices, storytelling events, mindfulness experiences, and peer support models are all in-scope — but only when grounded in this internal-transformation theory of change.

The relationship model is still the long-term pathway for multi-year funding. The hiring of Sarah Haberman (former CEO of The Moth for thirteen years) as Head of Community and Impact signals that storytelling, narrative, and human connection will increasingly define the foundation's closest partnerships. Organizations that can build authentic relationships with Haberman and Gregorian — through shared programming, grantee networks, or the broader Unlikely Collaborators community — are likely to enter the invitation track over time. The RFP is the door; the relationship is the house.

Unlikely Collaborators Foundation's financial trajectory reflects the classic arc of a newly endowed family foundation: a large founding contribution, a startup grantmaking year, and then rapid scaling. FY2022 saw $35 million in contributions received and just $235,020 in grants paid as the team built out its giving framework. FY2023 represented the first full operating year, with total giving of $2,421,510 across a meaningful portfolio — a tenfold increase year over year. FY2024 web-reported figures (IRS data pending) indicate approximately $1.8 million distributed to roughly 29 grantees, suggesting a modest pullback into a more selective, relationship-focused phase.

The foundation's total assets stand at approximately $37.0 million as of the most recent filing, generating net investment income of roughly $673,000 per year — a meaningful supplement to its endowment-funded grantmaking. With no officer compensation paid, all resources flow to grantmaking and program expenses.

The known grantee portfolio (10 grants, $470,000 total, average $47,000 per grant) reveals the early focus: eight of ten grants went to California organizations, two to Maryland. The top recipients — Inside Circle ($170,000 total), KALW/Uncuffed ($100,000), and Prison Yoga Project ($100,000) — clustered tightly around incarcerated people and correctional officers. These organizations each received two grants, suggesting the foundation favors multi-year commitments from the outset rather than one-time tests.

By 2026, the grant size ceiling has risen. The open RFP offers $50,000–$250,000, and the Fireside Project announcement confirmed a $200,000 two-year award ($100,000/year). The Dougy Center grant is also multi-year. This upward drift in grant size, combined with a broadening program focus, indicates the foundation is entering a maturation phase where it supports fewer, larger, longer-term partners alongside open competition grants.

Geographic footprint: California (8 of 10 DB grantees), with recent grantees suggesting expansion to Oregon (Dougy Center is Portland-based) and national scope (Fireside Project operates nationally). Despite the Kansas legal address, the foundation is operationally a California-centric funder with national ambitions.

The five financial peers identified by asset size ($37M range) are all private grantmaking foundations in the Philanthropy & Grantmaking NTEE category. None maintain publicly indexed websites, consistent with the profile of quiet family foundations operating by invitation with no external communications posture. The contrast with Unlikely Collaborators — which issued five press releases in April 2026 alone — illustrates how unusual this foundation is for its asset tier.

These peers are asset-size comparables, not mission comparables. For organizations working in consciousness, storytelling, or personal transformation, the more relevant competitive context includes the Fetzer Institute (larger, contemplative practice focus), the NoVo Foundation (social-emotional learning), and the Kalliopeia Foundation (interconnectedness and culture change) — all of which maintain invitation-only models. Unlikely Collaborators' open RFP makes it the most accessible funder in its thematic neighborhood by a significant margin. Applicants who miss this cycle should not mistake the foundation for a permanently closed institution — the RFP signals intent to open regularly.

April 2026 was the most publicly active month in the foundation's short history, with five major announcements in fifteen days:

April 14, 2026 — $200,000 two-year grant to the Fireside Project, which operates a free confidential Psychedelic Support Line and coaches people through psychedelic experiences. This is the foundation's most explicit signal yet that psychedelic-assisted mental health work falls within its Perception Box thesis.

April 16, 2026 — Sarah Haberman appointed Head of Community and Impact. Haberman spent thirteen years as CEO of The Moth, the celebrated storytelling nonprofit, and previously led development at Jazz at Lincoln Center, the Whitney Museum, Columbia Business School, and the New York Public Library. Her hire is the most consequential personnel development in the foundation's history and strongly signals storytelling will become a primary funding lane.

April 23, 2026 — First-ever open RFP launched, accepting applications through May 22, 2026. Decisions expected August 3, 2026; funding by October 5, 2026.

April 2026 — 2026 Game Jam winners announced, partnering with IGDA and IGDA Foundation to support game developers creating experiences around awe, wonder, and identity expansion.

April 30, 2026 — New two-year grant to Dougy Center (Portland, OR), the nationally recognized grief support organization, with priority on expanding services to Black and African American families and youth in foster care.

Prior to April 2026, the foundation's public profile was minimal. The burst of activity suggests a deliberate communications strategy accompanying the RFP launch — and the foundation should be expected to continue this level of external engagement going forward.

Lead with the Perception Box, not your program model. Every funded project must connect to a specific mechanism of internal transformation — how participants come to see something about themselves or the world they could not see before. Describe that mechanism in concrete terms: what happens in the room, in the conversation, in the experience. Don't bury it in outcome language.

Lived experience is an explicit criterion, not a talking point. The foundation has stated a preference for leaders who know their work from the inside. If your executive director or lead facilitators have personal histories connected to the problem you're solving — incarceration, grief, mental health crisis, trauma — say so clearly and early. This is a distinguishing factor, not background color.

Minimum budget threshold is firm. The open RFP requires a minimum annual organizational budget of $500,000. Organizations below this threshold must have a 501(c)(3) public charity fiscal sponsor confirmed before applying. Do not apply without meeting this threshold.

Request a project, not overhead. The RFP is explicitly project-specific. Define a discrete intervention: its name, duration, target population, number of participants, and the specific experience that creates the shift. General capacity-building, salaries without a tied project, or vague programming descriptions will not advance.

Avoid all advocacy and policy framing. Even if your program's downstream effects include systems change, do not front-load that framing. The foundation has been explicit: projects centered on promoting a specific viewpoint, advocacy-driven work, or ideological programming are outside scope. Describe what happens for the individual, not what changes in the system.

Use their vocabulary, but demonstrate understanding. Terms like Perception Box, mental models, compassionate self-examination, and internal conflict are in-scope — but only if used with specificity. Show you have internalized the framework, not just learned its terms.

Time your outreach to the new leadership. Sarah Haberman (Head of Community and Impact, former CEO of The Moth) is the primary relationship builder. Organizations in the storytelling, narrative, or human-connection space that missed the RFP window should explore professional connections to Haberman as a relationship entry point.

Reference grantee community alignment. Inside Circle, Prison Yoga Project, Dougy Center, and Fireside Project are current grantees. If your work is complementary — not duplicative — to theirs, note the ecosystem fit. The foundation values grantee networks.