Westlawn Foundation

Westlawn Foundation (EIN 20-4057446) is a small, closely-held private family foundation run entirely by members of the Landau family of Boro Park, Brooklyn (zip 11219) — David Landau (President), Moshe Landau (Treasurer-Secretary), and Goldy and Ephraim Landau (Directors), all serving with zero reported compensation. With $9.66M in assets and no paid staff, it operates less like an institutional grantmaker and more like a family tzedakah (charity) vehicle channeling its own contributions ($805K received in FY2023, $950K-$973K in several prior years) back out to a fixed circle of Orthodox Jewish institutions. The stated mission on its IRS filing is simply 'Education Subsidies,' with a secondary program of 'Aid for the Destitute,' but the actual grant register shows a broader religious-communal footprint: congregations (shuls), yeshivos, kollels, and welfare/chesed organizations, almost entirely in New York (159 of 164 tracked grants) with a handful in New Jersey (5). Multiple top recipients — American Friends of Mosdot Gur, Gerer Yeshiva & Mesivta Bais Yisroel, Cong Pnei Menachem, Bais Yaakov D'Chassidei Gur, Kupat Ramban Kollel Poilen, Cong Avreichem Chassidei Gur — are explicitly Gerer Hasidic institutions, indicating the foundation's giving is anchored in a specific Hasidic community network rather than open competitive grantmaking. For any organization outside that network, the realistic path in is not a cold application but an actual relationship: a rabbi, board member, or communal contact who can make a direct introduction to the Landau family. First-time, unsolicited applicants from outside this community should expect no response — multiple third-party grant databases independently confirm the foundation 'only makes contributions to preselected charitable organizations.' There is no LOI-to-full-proposal-to-site-visit pipeline in the conventional sense; funding relationships appear to be renewed year over year with existing grantees (Gerer Yeshiva & Mesivta Bais Yisroel and American Friends of Mosdot Gur both received grants in 4 separate years each) rather than cultivated through a formal review process.

Per-grant size varies enormously by recipient tier. The foundation's own reported typical-grant statistics (56 grants sampled) show a median of just $2,300, a mean of $10,468, and a range from $100 to $110,000 — reflecting a large volume of small, recurring gifts to shuls and kollels. But aggregated multi-year totals per recipient tell a different story at the top: Cong Bobov 45 and Cong Of Echo Ridge each received $500,000 across 2 grants, Friends Of Arad Inc received $250,000 across 3 grants, and Freinds Of Chosen Yeshias Inc received $211,000 across 4 grants — meaning a small number of anchor institutions absorb the bulk of major dollars while dozens of smaller congregations and kollels split four- and five-figure gifts. Across the tracked snapshot of 164 grants totaling $2,826,596 (average $17,235), the purpose breakdown skews heavily toward Congregation/Shul support and Yeshiva/Education funding, with a smaller Welfare category (Friends Of Arad, Kupath Eizer Nisuin, various 501(c)(3) 'under $360' gifts). Annual total giving has swung widely: $2,355 in grants paid in FY2019 (a near-total pause), rising to $365,215 (FY2020), $586,195 (FY2021), $901,249 (FY2022, the peak year), and $658,883 (FY2023). Total revenue is driven primarily by contributions from the Landau family/related entities ($950K-$973K in FY2018-2020, $805K in FY2023) plus net investment income ($52K-$583K depending on market conditions), not by external fundraising. Total assets have hovered in a narrow $6M-$11.8M band since 2012, growing from $6.03M (FY2012) to a peak of $11.82M (FY2023) before settling at $9.66M (FY2024) — consistent with a foundation that is funded episodically by family contributions rather than compounding a large permanent endowment.

Westlawn sits in a cluster of similarly-sized ($9.6M-$9.7M asset) 'Philanthropy & Grantmaking' category private foundations, though most of its true peers (by both asset size and closed, family-directed giving style) are geographically and thematically distinct.

All six foundations sit within roughly $5,000 of each other in total assets — a near-identical peer band by size — but Westlawn is distinguished by having a fully public, itemized grant register (164 recipients) revealing a tight communal/religious giving pattern, whereas peer foundations in this dataset show no comparably detailed public grantee data. Unlike Cottonwood Spring, which maintains a public-facing website, Westlawn has no discoverable web presence of its own, reinforcing that it operates as a private family conduit rather than a foundation seeking outside applicants.

No foundation-specific news coverage, press releases, or announcements for 2025-2026 were found in web searches — Westlawn Foundation does not appear to issue public communications, consistent with its profile as an unstaffed family foundation with no website or media presence. The domain publicly associated with it in some records, westlawn.edu, is unrelated (it belongs to the Westlawn Institute of Marine Technology, a yacht-design school), so no 'foundation site' updates exist to track. The most concrete recent data point is financial: total assets fell from $11.82M at the end of FY2023 to $9.66M in the FY2024 filing, while FY2024 grants-paid/total-giving figures have not yet been reported or indexed, making it unclear whether 2024-2025 distributions kept pace with the $658,883 paid out in FY2023 or the $901,249 peak in FY2022. Leadership has been stable and family-held throughout the available record: David Landau as President, Moshe Landau as Treasurer-Secretary, and Ephraim and Goldy Landau as Directors, with the foundation correspondence address routed 'c/o Ephraim Landau' at 5223 15th Ave, Brooklyn. No board changes, new program announcements, or major single-year grants beyond the historical top recipients (Cong Bobov 45 and Cong Of Echo Ridge at $500,000 aggregate each) were identifiable. Absent public activity, the most reliable signal of the foundation's current direction remains its own historical filings rather than any 2025-2026 news.

There is no formal solicitation process to optimize — Westlawn Foundation's own 990 filings and independent grant-database listings state its instructions as a bare 'letter application' with no portal, deadline, or published form, and multiple sources (CauseIQ, Grantable, Grantmakers.io) independently note it funds preselected organizations only and does not accept unsolicited requests. For an organization already inside or adjacent to the Landau family's communal network (Boro Park/Brooklyn Orthodox Jewish institutions, particularly those connected to the Gerer Hasidic community), the practical approach is a direct, personal letter of request addressed to Ephraim Landau at 5223 15th Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11219-3908, or a call to (718) 851-5333 — not a generic grant-portal submission. Because the foundation's giving is overwhelmingly relationship-based (repeat multi-year support to the same congregations and yeshivos — several recipients appear in 3-4 separate grant years), the strongest positioning for any request is an existing or introduced connection to the family or to one of their already-funded institutions, rather than cold outreach. For organizations outside this network, the honest assessment is that application effort here has a very low expected return: this is not a competitive grants program, and generic nonprofit grant-seeking language, budgets, or LOI templates are unlikely to matter as much as who is making the ask. If pursuing contact anyway, keep any letter short, specific about the exact use of funds (tuition subsidy, building/maintenance need, a specific welfare case), and framed in the same terms used by the foundation's own program descriptions — 'education subsidies' and 'aid for the destitute' — since those are the two categories the foundation itself claims on its filings. Avoid multi-page proposals, glossy materials, or online-application-style submissions; the register shows funding to small, plainly-named organizations (e.g., 'Cong Bais Brocha,' 'Talmid Torah Ohel Yochanan') that clearly are not submitting formal grant applications. Given the total absence of a public website or published guidelines, do not trust third-party 'application form' links claiming to represent Westlawn — verify any contact only through the phone number and address on file.