Vyas Family Foundation

Vyas Family Foundation is a family-run micro-foundation established in 2019 by Drs. Jayshree Vyas (Secretary) and Mahesh Vyas (President), both physicians who immigrated to the U.S. in the 1970s. Both officers draw $0 in compensation, there is no professional program staff, and internal data flags the foundation as "preselected only" with no published application form, deadline, or grants portal — meaning it functions as a personal giving vehicle rather than a competitive grantmaking program. Its own web presence underscores this: vyas.org is an inactive, parked domain, and vyasfamilyfoundation.org is a bare-bones site offering only a generic contact form, with a note that a full beneficiary list is still "coming soon."

The 42 grants on record reveal a clear relationship pattern rather than an open call for proposals. A cluster of roughly 20 grantees receiving $250–$5,000 (Braman Samaj of North America, BAPS, Shakti Peeth of America, Yorba Linda Senior Center, Wounded Warrior, LAFD Foundation, and similar community and cultural groups) reads as first-time or modest annual gifts, often to Orange County/Los Angeles-area or Indian-American diaspora and religious organizations the founders likely know personally. A second tier of repeat relationships — CHOC Children's Foundation, Gay Men's Chorus of Los Angeles, The Trevor Project, Pratham USA, Voice of Specially Abled People (VOSAP), and Brahmakumaris — shows grant_count values of 2, i.e., support renewed across consecutive filings, with dollar amounts growing over time (Pratham USA's relationship, for example, escalated from roughly $9,400/grant historically to a single $100,000 gift in the 2024 filing).

First-time applicants should treat this as a closed, relationship-driven funder. The realistic path in is not a formal proposal packet but a short, personal, mission-aligned introduction — ideally routed through a shared community connection (a temple, Indian-American professional or medical association, or Orange County nonprofit network) — followed by a modest initial ask. Expect any response to come directly from a Vyas family member, not a program officer, and expect funding, if it comes, to be unrestricted general support rather than tied to a specific program budget.

Total assets stood at $4,026,207 as of the FY2023 filing, essentially unchanged from FY2022 ($3,645,776) and FY2021 ($3,769,901) once accounting for a one-time $2,082,782 contribution received in 2021 that built the endowment (contributions received were $0 in both 2022 and 2023). Annual giving has been remarkably stable the last three years: $235,672 (2023), $235,454 (2022), and $219,330 (2021) — up sharply from $108,398 in 2020 and just $4,570 in the 2019 founding year. At roughly $235K/year against a $4.03M corpus, the foundation is distributing close to 5.8%, comfortably clearing the IRS 5% minimum payout requirement. Net investment income ($227,316 in 2023) tracks closely with total giving, meaning the foundation is effectively distributing its investment returns rather than drawing down principal.

Across the 42 recorded grants (total $414,910, average $9,879), size is highly concentrated at the top: the three largest gifts — CAF America ($105,000, a donor-advised pass-through likely used for international/India-directed giving), Brahmakumaris ($56,700 across 2 grants), and Global Smile Foundation ($30,000 across 2 grants) — total $191,700, or roughly 46% of all dollars granted, while about 24 of the ~32 named grantees fall in the $250–$5,000 micro-grant range. The separately reported typical_grant_size figure (median $5,000, average $10,225, range $1,000–$105,000, n=20) confirms this bimodal pattern: most grants are small, but a handful of flagship relationships pull the average well above the median.

Geographically, California dominates with 24 of 42 grants (57%), followed by New York (5, 12%) and Texas (3); single grants scattered across FL, KS, MA, OH, SC, VA, and WV account for the remainder — consistent with the foundation's own CA/NY geographic-focus tag. By theme, funding clusters into four groups: Indian-American diaspora and Hindu cultural/religious organizations (Brahmakumaris, Shriji Mandir, BAPS, Braman Samaj, Shakti Peeth, Gayatri Pariwar/Chetna Center, Sister Nivedita — roughly 7 grantees), India-focused development and health (Pratham USA, Akshaya Patra Foundation USA, Sankara Eye Foundation, VOSAP), LGBTQ+ community organizations in the Los Angeles area (GMCLA, The Trevor Project, Outfest), and Orange County-anchored children's health and civic causes (CHOC Children's Foundation, Susan G Komen, Global Smile Foundation, LAFD Foundation).

All five peer foundations sit within roughly $100,000 of Vyas Family Foundation's $4,026,207 in assets and share its NTEE classification of Philanthropy & Grantmaking, but none maintain a public website, so their actual annual giving and application posture cannot be confirmed from public data — a common footprint for sub-$5M family foundations that operate as private giving vehicles rather than public-facing grant programs. Vyas Family Foundation is distinguished mainly by having at least a nominal public web presence (vyasfamilyfoundation.org) and disclosed Schedule I grant data, giving outside researchers unusually good visibility into an otherwise typical small, closely held family foundation. Applicants should not expect this size tier of foundation, Vyas included, to behave like a staffed, competitive grantmaker — assume relationship-based access is standard across this peer set.

The most recent available data (FY2024, per CauseIQ's summary of IRS filings) shows total revenue falling 70.3% year-over-year to $74,185 — driven by lower gains on invested assets rather than any change in mission — while total expenses were $248,596 and total assets held essentially flat at $4,026,207. Grantmaking that year totaled at least $160,100 across 11+ grants, headlined by a $100,000 gift to Pratham USA (a major step up from its prior multi-year, sub-$10,000-per-grant pattern) and $50,100 to Voice of Specially Abled People (VOSAP), alongside $10,000 to Global Smile Foundation. This reads as a deepening of two existing India-focused relationships rather than a new funding direction.

No leadership changes were identified: Jayshree Vyas (Secretary) and Mahesh Vyas (President) have run the foundation, uncompensated, since its 2019 founding, and no press coverage, new program announcements, or public statements from the foundation itself turned up in this research. Note for clarity: a $500,000 gift to Orlando Health's Lake Mary Hospital reported in December 2025 was made by the separately registered Suree & Zaby Vyas Foundation, a different organization entirely — not Vyas Family Foundation of Anaheim, CA. Vyas Family Foundation's own public footprint remains minimal: its vyas.org domain is an inactive parking page, and its working site, vyasfamilyfoundation.org, still displays a placeholder noting a full beneficiary list is forthcoming, with no dedicated grants, programs, or how-to-apply page found.

There is no formal application system to navigate — no LOI, no downloadable form, no listed deadline, and no grants portal (application_form_url and grants_page_url are both unset in the foundation's own record, and application_instructions reads simply "none"). Attempting to submit a conventional grant-proposal packet is unlikely to reach anyone, since there is no evidence of program staff to receive or review one.

The most viable channel is the general contact form on vyasfamilyfoundation.org (name, email, and a note on where you heard about the foundation), used to introduce your organization in a short paragraph rather than a full proposal. Because both officers serve without compensation and there is no staff layer, any reply will come directly from a Vyas family member — so tone should be personal and mission-focused, not bureaucratic. Given the grantee list, the strongest alignment language references community impact for Indian-American diaspora and Hindu cultural/religious institutions, India-based education, disability-inclusion, or eye-health programs (echoing Pratham, Akshaya Patra, VOSAP, and Sankara Eye Foundation), LGBTQ+ community support in the Los Angeles area, or Orange County-based children's health and civic causes — the observable throughline across nearly all 42 recorded grants.

Set a realistic first ask: about 24 of the ~32 named grantees received $250–$5,000, suggesting that is the practical entry point for an organization with no prior relationship to the family. Larger gifts ($10,000–$105,000) only appear for organizations with a multi-year track record (Pratham USA, VOSAP, Brahmakumaris, CAF America). There is no fixed cycle, but three straight years of stable ~$210K–$235K annual giving suggest an internal, roughly annual family budgeting rhythm — reaching out earlier in the calendar year likely improves the odds of being considered before that year's allocation is effectively spoken for. The single biggest mistake to avoid is treating this like an open, competitive RFP: the "preselected only" pattern in the underlying data, combined with the absence of any published guidelines, means cold outreach with no personal or community connection is the weakest path in. A warm introduction through a shared temple, diaspora association, physician network, or Orange County nonprofit contact is materially more likely to succeed.