Von Tobel Foundation Inc.

The Von Tobel Foundation Inc. is a small, closely held family foundation run entirely by three members of the Von Tobel family of Valparaiso, Indiana: Paul J. Von Tobel III (President, unpaid), Candace J. Von Tobel (Secretary/Treasurer, unpaid), and Paul J. Von Tobel IV (Administrator, the only paid officer at $40,000/year as of the FY2023 filing). There is no program staff, no online grants portal, and — despite the domain listed in IRS records (vontobel.org) — no working foundation website; that domain currently belongs to an unrelated Swiss accounting-software business. Grant seekers should treat this as an old-school, relationship-driven family vehicle rather than an institutional grantmaker with published guidelines.

The foundation's own 990-PF description is blunt: "NO DESIGNATED FORMS OR PROCEDURES," with eligibility restricted to "PREDOMINANTLY LOCAL EVANGELICAL CHRISTIAN GROUPS." Nearly every disclosed grantee fits a narrow profile: evangelical missions and parachurch organizations (Paz International, Bible Mission Global, World Harvest Outreach Mission, One Collective, One Mission Society, Operation Mobilization), campus ministries (InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, Cru, Navigators), evangelical churches and denominational bodies (Willow Creek Community Church, Evangelical Free Church of America), Christian education (Valparaiso University, Immanuel Lutheran School, Shepherds College), and a handful of local Porter County, Indiana civic organizations (Habitat for Humanity of Porter County, Special Olympics, Valparaiso Rotary Club). Secular, non-faith-affiliated applicants outside the Indiana/Illinois/Wisconsin corridor have essentially no visible track record of funding here.

For first-time applicants, the realistic path is not a cold proposal but a warm, informal introduction: a phone call to (219) 476-1500 to gauge interest, followed by a short letter of inquiry — not a formal application — addressed to Paul J. Von Tobel III at PO Box 1819, Valparaiso, IN 46384. The relationship progression favors small, renewable annual gifts over one-time grants: several grantees (InterVarsity, Cru, Willow Creek, Special Gifts Theatre, Immanuel Lutheran School) received support in 4-5 of the last 5 disclosed filing years, indicating the family renews trusted relationships rather than running a competitive annual cycle. New organizations should expect to start small — realistically $500-$15,000 — and build trust before any larger, multi-year commitment is considered.

The foundation's most recent disclosed grant-year snapshot shows a median grant of just $5,000, a mean of $44,577 pulled upward by a handful of large gifts, a floor of $500, and a ceiling of $902,516, across 38 awards. That gap between the $5,000 median and the $44,577 average is the single most useful number for applicants: most checks written are small, and a few are enormous.

The fuller five-year grantee history in the data (150 total grants worth $11,098,507, averaging $73,990 apiece) shows that skew even more starkly: one recipient, Paz International, received $6,971,917 across 5 grants — 62.8% of every disclosed dollar. Strip Paz International out and the remaining 145 grants total roughly $4.13M, averaging about $28,460 — still elevated because a second tier of six-figure repeat grantees follows close behind: Bible Mission Global ($812,500 / 5 grants), World Harvest Outreach Mission ($667,190 / 5 grants), One Collective ($430,753 / 5 grants), and One Mission Society ($327,497 / 3 grants). Below that tier, most of the 150 grants cluster in the $5,000-$95,000 range, and the smallest disclosed gifts — Fellowship of Christian Athletes, Sim USA, Church Safety Toolkit — sit at $5,000 or less.

Geographically, Indiana (38 grants) and Illinois (28 grants) dominate the state breakdown, followed by Wisconsin and Florida (13 each), Colorado and Minnesota (8 each), Georgia (7), and Arizona, Kentucky, and New York (5 each) — consistent with the foundation's IRS-listed geographic focus of Indiana, Illinois, and Florida and the family's Porter County, Indiana base. Every disclosed grant purpose is coded simply "PUBLIC SUPPORT," so there is no fine-grained IRS program-area breakdown; recipient identity, not purpose code, is the best signal, and it skews overwhelmingly toward evangelical missions, campus ministry, and Christian education.

On trend, total giving has grown sharply — from $211,225 (2011) to $2,988,285 (2021) to $3,558,819 (2023) — while total assets nearly quadrupled from $2.46M (2011) to over $9M by the FY2025 filing, driven by large new contributions ($2.08M received in 2023, $3.17M in 2019, and roughly $5.0M per ProPublica's FY2025 data) rather than investment appreciation alone. The family is actively funneling new wealth into the foundation and using it as a growing, active giving platform rather than a static endowment.

Von Tobel sits at the small end of the Indiana faith-and-community funder landscape — far smaller in assets and giving than the state's marquee institutional funders, but distinguished by having essentially no application infrastructure at all, which cuts both ways for applicants: it lowers the barrier to a first phone call but removes any predictable review process.

Unlike Foellinger and Legacy Foundation, which both run published, staffed application processes with posted cycles, Von Tobel and Maclellan operate on relationship-based, largely invitation-driven models typical of family-controlled and evangelical-mission foundations — but Von Tobel is roughly 20-35x smaller than Maclellan in assets, meaning individual awards here are correspondingly modest ($5,000 median) rather than Maclellan's six- and seven-figure grants.

No independent news coverage, press releases, leadership announcements, or new program launches were found for the Von Tobel Foundation Inc. in 2025-2026 searches; the organization maintains no public communications presence. The most current substantive information available is its Form 990-PF filing, filed May 12, 2026 for FY2025, which ProPublica's Nonprofit Explorer reports as $9.3M total revenue, $2.8M in expenses (about 95%, or $2.7M, going to charitable disbursements), and $9.1M in net assets — continuing a multi-year pattern of asset growth. A separate aggregator (Instrumentl), citing what appears to be the same filing window, shows somewhat different topline numbers ($7.3M revenue, $6.2M net assets, $3.4M total giving across 23 awards); the discrepancy likely reflects different snapshot or restatement dates rather than two different filings, but it means applicants should treat any single third-party aggregator figure as approximate rather than authoritative.

Leadership has been stable and unchanged across the visible filing history: Paul J. Von Tobel III (President) and Candace J. Von Tobel (Secretary/Treasurer) have served unpaid throughout, while Paul J. Von Tobel IV's compensation as Administrator rose from $27,500 (2021) to $35,000 (2022) to $40,000 (2023), suggesting a gradually more active administrative role as the foundation's asset base and grant volume have grown. No board expansions, new committees, or strategic-plan announcements were found. In the absence of a website or press presence, the filings themselves are the only reliable signal of the foundation's trajectory, and they point toward a foundation that is quietly getting larger and more active, not toward any change in its evangelical-Christian, Indiana-centered giving identity.

There is no formal application to fill out — the foundation's own 990-PF filing states "NO DESIGNATED FORMS OR PROCEDURES" — so the first move should be a phone call to (219) 476-1500 to introduce your organization and ask whether the foundation is currently interested in your type of work, rather than mailing a cold packet. Because the IRS-listed website (vontobel.org) is dead and belongs to an unrelated company, do not spend time hunting for online guidelines or a portal; go straight to phone or mail outreach addressed to Paul J. Von Tobel III, President, Von Tobel Foundation Inc., PO Box 1819, Valparaiso, IN 46384.

Alignment matters more than polish here. The foundation's eligibility language explicitly says "PREDOMINANTLY LOCAL EVANGELICAL CHRISTIAN GROUPS," and virtually every disclosed grantee is either an evangelical missions/parachurch organization, a campus ministry (InterVarsity, Cru, Navigators), an evangelical church or denominational body, a Christian school or college, or a small Porter County, Indiana civic group. Use explicit language about evangelical Christian mission, biblical values, or direct community service in Indiana/Illinois/Wisconsin; broad secular-only appeals with no faith or Indiana connection are a mismatch for this funder's demonstrated giving pattern.

Size the ask realistically. The single-year grant median is $5,000, with a typical range of $500 to the low tens of thousands for new relationships; six-figure grants (Bible Mission Global, World Harvest Outreach Mission, One Collective) and the seven-figure Paz International grants all belong to long-tenured, multi-year partners, not new applicants. A first request in the $500-$15,000 range is far more realistic than leading with a large, one-time capital ask.

The most common mistake would be treating this like an institutional foundation with a review committee and published deadlines — it has neither. Response times may be slow because there is no program staff; the three family officers (two unpaid) and one part-time-paid administrator handle everything personally. Persistence via occasional follow-up calls, rather than resubmitting a formal proposal, is the more effective way to stay on their radar, and once funded, expect the relationship to renew informally year over year rather than through a competitive re-application process.