Urbanek Family Foundation

The Urbanek Family Foundation is a small, all-volunteer family foundation run out of Menlo Park, CA by five family members — Lida Urbanek (President/CEO), Karel Urbanek (Director/CFO), Irene Urbanek Ruiz (Secretary), and directors Andrew and Matthew Urbanek — none of whom draw compensation. With $10.6M in assets (FY2024) and a mailing address administered through a wealth-management intermediary (C2C Wealth), it operates as a closely held, relationship-driven giving vehicle rather than an open grants program. Every third-party database that tracks it — Grantable, GrantExec, Instrumentl, TheShareWay — describes it as funding preselected organizations only, and the foundation's own record lists application_instructions as none, with no grants portal, LOI form, or public RFP. This is the single most important fact for a grant seeker: cold applications are unlikely to be read, let alone funded.

The grantee roster of 114 recorded grants totaling $2,960,800 is dominated by organizations embedded in the family's existing geography and networks — Peninsula/Silicon Valley institutions (Woodside High School Foundation, Eastside College Preparatory, Foothill-DeAnza Foundation, Redwood City Education Fund, Portola Valley Schools Foundation), San Francisco arts anchors (SF Symphony, SF Opera, SF Ballet, KQED), and Bay Area human-services and conservation groups (LifeMoves, Samaritan House, Peninsula Open Space Trust, League to Save Lake Tahoe). A handful of national/international organizations (International Justice Mission, Marine Corps Scholarship Foundation, Razom for Ukraine) show the family also funds causes with personal significance beyond geography.

The clearest path in is relational, not transactional: nearly every top grantee received 3-4 consecutive years of gifts rather than a single award, indicating the foundation favors ongoing relationships over one-time transactions once a group is inside the circle. First-time applicants should treat this as a multi-year cultivation target — through board introductions, shared affiliations with Peninsula schools or Bay Area arts and conservation boards, or a warm referral from an existing grantee — rather than a standard proposal pipeline. Because the foundation is 100% family-directed with no program staff, any outreach should be addressed to Lida Urbanek or Karel Urbanek directly, ideally through a mutual contact, since there is no grants officer to review cold submissions.

Across its full public giving history (2011-2024), Urbanek Family Foundation's disbursement scale has been shaped by a single 2014 windfall: a $3,971,437 contribution received that year pushed assets from roughly $1.2M (2012-2013) to $6.1M (2015) and eventually $10.6M today. Grants paid have ranged from $25,000 (2013) to $831,400 (2022), with the last five reported years showing 2019 – $468,000; 2020 – $473,000; 2021 – $825,000; 2022 – $831,400; and 2023 – $309,000, a notable pullback. The foundation's most recent Form 990-PF (FY2024, per ProPublica) shows a partial rebound to $527,527 in charitable disbursements against $829,928 in revenue and $10,596,471 in net assets — giving equal to roughly 5% of assets, consistent with the private-foundation minimum payout requirement.

At the individual-grant level, the foundation's own typical-grant-size data (26 most recent grants) shows a median of $18,000, an average of $31,977, and a range of $5,000 to $410,400. Across the full 114-grant history (total $2,960,800, average $25,972 per grant), funding breaks down by cause area as: environment/land conservation ~36% ($1,065,800, led by a $870,800/3-grant commitment to Northern Sierra Partnership and $100,000 to Peninsula Open Space Trust), education ~20% ($588,000 across K-12 and college-access organizations including Foothill-DeAnza Foundation and Eastside College Preparatory), human services/anti-poverty ~15% ($450,000, including LifeMoves and Samaritan House), arts and culture ~15% ($440,000, anchored by $340,000 to San Francisco Symphony), international/justice ~8% ($225,000, including International Justice Mission and Marine Corps Scholarship Foundation), and health ~3% ($85,000).

Geographically, 103 of 114 recorded grants (90%) went to California organizations, almost entirely concentrated in San Mateo County and San Francisco; the remainder went to DC (4), Virginia (4), New York (2), and Washington state (1) — reflecting isolated national organizations rather than a second regional program. This is overwhelmingly a Bay Area foundation with occasional national add-ons tied to family interest, not a foundation with a stated multi-state strategy.

These five peers were matched purely on asset size — all sit within $2,300 of Urbanek's $10.6M — and share its NTEE "Philanthropy & Grantmaking" classification, but none have public grant lists in this dataset, and only Fontaine Family Foundation has a discoverable website. That pattern is itself informative: at the ~$10.6M asset tier, closely held family foundations overwhelmingly fund through personal networks rather than open RFPs, and Urbanek's invite-only posture is the norm for this cohort, not an outlier. Grant seekers targeting this peer set should expect the same relational, warm-introduction approach across all six organizations rather than hunting for application portals that likely don't exist.

No news coverage, press releases, or announcements about Urbanek Family Foundation were found in web search results for 2025-2026 — expected for a foundation with no communications staff and a listed contact of "% C2C Wealth" (a third-party wealth-management administrator) rather than a program office. The most substantive recent signal is the foundation's FY2024 Form 990-PF, reported via ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer: $829,928 in revenue, $670,896 in expenses, $10,596,471 in net assets, and $527,527 in charitable disbursements (78.6% of expenses). That represents a partial recovery from FY2023's steep pullback to $309,000 in grants paid / $444,065 in total giving — itself a large drop from $831,400 (2022) and $825,000 (2021) the two years prior. Net investment income has been the primary swing factor behind these moves: $1.76M (2023), $1.93M (2022), and $1.35M (2021), meaning the foundation's payout tracks market performance rather than a fixed annual budget.

Leadership has been stable across every filing snapshot in the data: Lida Urbanek (President/CEO), Karel Urbanek (Director/CFO), Irene Urbanek Ruiz (Secretary), and Andrew and Matthew Urbanek (Directors) appear identically across the three most recent years captured, with none drawing compensation. There is no indication of a leadership transition, new program launch, or strategic pivot. Grant seekers should not expect a public announcement cycle from this funder — outreach and relationship-building remain the only visible channel into its giving.

Urbanek Family Foundation does not run a conventional application process — its own record lists application_instructions as none, there is no grants portal, LOI form, or RFP, and every third-party grants database that tracks it (Grantable, GrantExec, Instrumentl, TheShareWay) describes it as funding preselected/invited organizations only. Treat any "how to apply" guidance from aggregator sites with skepticism; none could point to an actual submission mechanism, and the foundation's own listed website (urbanek.org) does not resolve to the foundation at all — as of July 2026 it hosts an unrelated academic's personal page, so it cannot be used to verify a giving process, deadline, or contact form. The only listed contact is "% C2C Wealth" at (415) 729-9180 in Menlo Park, a wealth-management administrator, not a program officer.

Given that, the realistic strategy is relationship-first, not proposal-first: - Identify a warm path to Lida Urbanek, Karel Urbanek, or Irene Urbanek Ruiz — board service overlap, shared alumni ties to Peninsula schools (Woodside, Eastside College Prep, Foothill-DeAnza), or introductions through existing grantees such as Peninsula Open Space Trust or LifeMoves are more likely to work than a cold letter. - If your organization sits in the Menlo Park/Redwood City/Woodside/San Mateo County service area and works in K-12 education, land conservation, hunger relief, or homelessness, you match the foundation's demonstrated pattern more closely than an out-of-area or out-of-cause applicant. - Do not expect a fast yes. The typical funded relationship spans 3-4 consecutive annual gifts once established — Foothill-DeAnza Foundation, Woodside High School Foundation, and Eastside College Preparatory each received 4 separate grants — suggesting the foundation renews relationships methodically rather than making one-off awards to new applicants. - If you can't find a personal connection, a brief, specific letter of interest — addressed to Karel Urbanek at PO Box 7812, Menlo Park, CA 94026, referencing a shared local cause such as a Peninsula school or Bay Area conservation effort — is a more plausible entry point than a generic grant proposal, though response rates for unsolicited outreach to family foundations of this type are typically low. - Avoid over-investing staff time in a formal full proposal until you have some signal of interest; there is no public evidence this foundation reviews unsolicited full applications at all.