West Davis & Bergard Foundation

West Davis & Bergard Foundation is a small, closely-held family foundation run out of Oakland by a five-to-seven-member volunteer board (currently including President Robert F Wright, Treasurer Tony Rimac, Secretary Maryanne Kaplan, and board members including Doris Seyranian, Megan Nakahara, Matt Haley, Eleanor Manuel, and Jeanne Richards). Founded in 1996 by Carl Bergard and Leon Seyranian, its mission is explicitly to help "smaller non-profit organizations support and improve our community" — meaning it favors grassroots, direct-service groups over large institutions with big development departments. Critically, the foundation's own site states that new grantee requests are not currently being accepted; the board is only reviewing requests from organizations with an existing relationship. For grant seekers, this reframes the entire strategy: this is not a cold-application funder. The realistic path in is a warm introduction — through a current grantee, a board member's personal network, or a shared connection in the Oakland/Alameda nonprofit community — followed by relationship-building before any formal ask. Once a relationship exists, the pattern in the grantee data shows the foundation renews smaller, steady project grants year after year rather than making one-time large awards: recipients such as Oakland Catholic Worker, Operation Dignity, Dorothy Day House, and St Mary's Center each appear with 2-3 grants over the recent multi-year window, suggesting the board rewards continuity and treats early, modest grants as the opening of a longer funding relationship. First-time (relationship-eligible) applicants should expect an initial award in the $2,500-$15,000 range rather than a flagship gift, with the possibility of graduating to larger, more frequent support in subsequent cycles — mirroring the trajectory of the foundation's most tenured grantees.

Across the most recent 100-grant window captured in IRS/990 data, the foundation distributed $967,620 to grantees at an average of $9,676 per grant; the foundation's own stated typical grant size is $7,500. 2025 giving data shows a wider real-world range: awards from $500 up to a $290,273 outlier, against 37 total awards worth $881,795 — nearly double the roughly $492,000 given across 38-39 grants in 2024. Excluding that single outsized award, the working range for a normal grant is roughly $2,500-$40,000 in cumulative multi-year support per organization (e.g., Oakland Catholic Worker: 3 grants, $58,000 total; Operation Dignity: 3 grants, $40,500; Swords to Plowshares and Dorothy Day House: 3 grants, $33,000 each). Geographically, funding is overwhelmingly local: 96 of the last 100 grants went to California organizations (almost entirely Alameda County and Oakland-area groups), with just 2 grants to Washington DC-based organizations (likely national relief groups such as World Central Kitchen) and 2 to Wisconsin. By program focus, the grantee list is dominated by homelessness and housing services (Operation Dignity, Dorothy Day House, Berkeley Food & Housing Project, Oakland Elizabeth House, St Mary's Center, A Safe Place, Step Samaritan Neighborhood Center), senior and disability services (Legal Assistance for Seniors, Center for Elders Independence), veterans' services (Swords to Plowshares), and youth/education (Cristo Rey De La Salle EBHS at $22,500, Aspire Education, Lumen Christi Academies), with smaller allocations to animal welfare (East Bay SPCA, $22,500) and disaster/humanitarian response (World Central Kitchen and Nova Ukraine, $20,000 each). Total assets stood at $8,327,295 as of the FY2024 filing, up from $5.9M in 2022 and $2.3M in 2011 — steady long-term asset growth funded by periodic large contributions (e.g., a $2.9M contribution received in FY2020) plus reinvested net investment income (consistently $50,000-$215,000/year).

All six foundations sit within roughly $70,000 of each other in total assets (~$8.3M-$8.4M), making West Davis & Bergard's payout unusually aggressive: $881,795 in 2025 giving equals roughly 10.6% of assets, well above the 5% minimum distribution the IRS requires of private foundations and above what similarly-sized peers would give if paying out only the floor (an estimated $415,000-$420,000). None of the peer foundations besides Walt Disney Family Foundation maintain a public website, reinforcing that West Davis & Bergard — despite being closed to new applicants — is comparatively more transparent and locally embedded than most foundations in its asset tier.

The most concrete recent signal is financial: 990 data shows the foundation's giving nearly doubled from approximately $492,000 across 38-39 grants in 2024 to $881,795 across 37 grants in 2025, including one unusually large $290,273 award far outside the foundation's normal $5,000-$10,000 range — likely a one-time capital, bequest-linked, or special project grant rather than a new baseline. No news articles or press releases were identified for 2025 or 2026; this remains a low-visibility family foundation with no media presence beyond nonprofit data aggregators (GuideStar, ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer, Instrumentl, Candid, Cause IQ, GrantExec). Leadership has been stable, with Robert F Wright serving as President (having previously served as Treasurer) and Maryanne Kaplan continuing as Secretary; Tony Rimac appears as a more recently listed Treasurer, alongside long-standing board members Doris Seyranian, Eleanor Manuel, Jeanne Richards, Matt Haley, and Megan Nakahara. The foundation's asset base grew from $5.9M (2022) to $8.33M (2024), consistent with continued reinvestment rather than any announced capital campaign or merger. Most importantly for prospective applicants, the foundation's own website continues to state that new grantee requests are not being accepted, and there is no indication in any 2025-2026 source that this policy has changed or has an announced end date — organizations without an existing relationship should not expect this door to open in the near term.

Because the foundation is explicitly closed to organizations without an existing relationship, the single most important "tip" is relational, not procedural: do not submit a cold Grant Request through the online form unless a board member, a current grantee, or another trusted contact has already introduced your organization. The grantee list shows the board renews relationships with the same Oakland-area direct-service groups repeatedly (Operation Dignity, Dorothy Day House, St Mary's Center, and others each show 2-3 grants over the recent window), so organizations should treat an initial small grant as the start of a multi-year relationship rather than a one-off ask, and should proactively report back on outcomes to earn renewal. Geographic eligibility is a hard filter: the foundation limits support to organizations with an active operating location in Alameda County or West Contra Costa County — a national or statewide organization headquartered elsewhere needs a documented local program site to qualify (this is how a DC-based group like World Central Kitchen and a Wisconsin-based grantee likely qualified, via a local response or chapter). Requests should be framed around a specific, budgeted project — the foundation's process language and grant pattern both point to funding discrete activities, not general operating support. Typical successful requests fall in the $2,500-$15,000 range for new-to-portfolio organizations; asking for amounts far outside this band (without the kind of unusual circumstance that produced the 2025 $290,273 grant) is likely to be scaled down or declined. Timing matters: submissions are reviewed on a strict quarterly cycle tied to board meetings — February 15, May 15, August 15, and November 15 — so a request should be submitted several weeks ahead of the relevant deadline to allow board review, and organizations should not expect off-cycle responses. Common mistakes to avoid: applying without any prior contact with the board or a current grantee; requesting multi-year operating support instead of a defined project; and failing to confirm that program activity actually takes place within Alameda or West Contra Costa County.