Westridge Foundation

Westridge Foundation is a closely held Rachleff family foundation based in Portola Valley, CA — not an open grantmaker in any conventional sense. Its own record states it "only makes contributions to preselected charitable organizations and does not accept unsolicited requests for funds," and the DB confirms there is no public `application_form_url`, `grants_page_url`, or `application_deadline`. Every dollar traced in the grantee data flows either to institutions with a documented personal tie to trustees Andrew Rachleff (CFO/Secretary, the Wealthfront/Benchmark investor) and Debra S. Rachleff (President/Chairman) — Stanford University, Stanford's Graduate School of Business, Cornell, UCSF — or to San Francisco-area cultural and human-services organizations (SFMOMA, California College of the Arts' Wattis Institute, Meals on Wheels of San Francisco, San Francisco Film Society). Several gifts are explicitly named funds (the "Debra and Andrew Rachleff Undergraduate Scholarship Fund," the "Damon Runyon Rachleff Innovation Award"), underscoring that this is relationship- and identity-driven giving, not competitive grantmaking. First-time applicants with no existing tie to the family, to Stanford/UCSF/Cornell, or to the SF Bay Area arts and social-services scene should not expect a direct path in. The one historical exception — the SFFILM Westridge Grant, a biannual $100K narrative-filmmaking award run through an intermediary nonprofit (SFFILM) rather than direct application — shows the foundation is willing to fund by proxy through a trusted partner organization; that program ended after its Fall 2020 cycle with no announced successor. The realistic strategy for an unconnected organization is indirect: build visibility with the institutions the family already funds (UCSF's Multiple Sclerosis and Neuroinflammation Center under Dr. Ari Green and Jonah Chan, PhD, is the single largest recipient at $3.5M across 6 grants), pursue warm introductions through Stanford GSB or Bay Area arts/film networks, or position as a fiscal-sponsor/intermediary partner the way SFFILM once did, rather than submitting a cold LOI.

Across the top-50 grantee dataset (146 total grants, $9,184,500 cumulative, averaging $62,908 per grantee relationship), giving is heavily concentrated: the top recipient, University of California San Francisco Foundation, alone accounts for $3.5M across 6 grants (38% of tracked giving), funding remyelination/MS research and the Young Adult and Family Clinic. The next four recipients — Meals on Wheels of San Francisco ($804,000/8 grants), Stanford Graduate School of Business ($600,000/3 grants), Damon Runyon Cancer Research Fund ($555,000/4 grants, plus another $210,000 to a related entity), and Cornell University ($500,000/2 grants) — bring the top-5 concentration to roughly 63% of all tracked dollars. By contrast, the long tail is thin: 20+ grantees received $5,000-$25,000 one-off or annual gifts (Southern Poverty Law Center, ACLU Foundation of Georgia, First Generation Investors, Downtown Streets, Peninsula Humane Society). Geographically, California dominates with 95 of 146 grants, followed by New York (18), DC (6), Louisiana (5, tied to post-Hurricane Ida relief via Krewe of Red Beans), Massachusetts (4), Oregon (3), and Pennsylvania (3). The foundation's own reported typical-grant-size metric for its most recent filing year shows 40 grants ranging $1,000-$200,000 with a median of $15,500 and average of $41,500 — notably smaller than the historical top-50 average, since that figure is pulled down by the many small ($5,000 or less) general-operating gifts outside the top relationships. Total annual giving has climbed steadily even as the asset base has shrunk: $1.64M paid in 2019 versus $3.74M in 2023, while total assets fell from $11.65M to $5.0M over the same window — a spend-down trajectory that raises real questions about how much runway remains at current payout levels unless the Rachleffs make fresh contributions (they added $1.2M in 2023 and $1.5M in 2019, but $0 in 2020-2022).

Westridge sits in a cluster of very small, non-operating family foundations that IRS/NTEE data groups under "Philanthropy & Grantmaking" — but the comparison is limited because none of the identified peers maintain a public website, meaning their specific focus areas and application processes cannot be independently verified beyond IRS filings.

All five peers sit within $1,600 of Westridge's $5,086,288 in assets — an artifact of how this comparison set was built (foundations of near-identical size in the same NTEE category) rather than evidence of similar giving behavior. What distinguishes Westridge from this peer set is transparency and traceability: it has a visible grant history (146 tracked grants, a named program manager, a documented past public program via SFFILM) where the peers leave no public footprint at all. For a grant seeker, Westridge is actually the more "knowable" of this group, even though all six operate on a closed, non-competitive basis.

There is no evidence of new public-facing grant programs, leadership changes, or press activity from Westridge Foundation in 2025 or 2026. The foundation's most recent Form 990-PF was filed October 16, 2025, covering a fiscal year in which total assets stood at $5,086,288 and total revenue was $2,628,453 — continuing a multi-year decline from $11.65M in assets in 2019. The leadership team is unchanged: Debra S. Rachleff (Executive Director, President, Chairman), Andrew Rachleff (CFO, Director, Secretary), Shelby E. Rachleff (Director, functioning as Program Manager per outside reporting), and Robert Guenley (Director). The most significant identifiable program activity in the foundation's history — its partnership with SFFILM to fund narrative-feature screenwriters on social-justice themes via the biannual $100,000 SFFILM/Westridge Grant — concluded after its Fall 2020 cycle, described by Filmmaker Magazine as the "final edition," and no successor program has been announced since. The largest ongoing commitment traceable in the data is continued, apparently multi-year support for UCSF's Multiple Sclerosis and Neuroinflammation Center (Dr. Ari Green, Jonah Chan, PhD) and its remyelination/repair research program, which alone represents $3.5M of the $9.18M in tracked cumulative giving. Absent new public announcements, the safest read is that the foundation continues quiet, relationship-based giving to its existing roster (UCSF, Stanford, Stanford GSB, Cornell, Damon Runyon, Bay Area arts institutions, Meals on Wheels SF) rather than expanding into new public programs.

Because Westridge Foundation does not accept unsolicited proposals and has no LOI process, application-form URL, or stated deadline in its own records, conventional grant-writing advice does not apply here — the leverage points are relational, not proposal-based. First, recognize the funding logic: nearly every major grantee (UCSF's MS/Neuroinflammation Center, Stanford, Stanford GSB, Cornell, Damon Runyon Cancer Research, California College of the Arts' Wattis Institute) is a named-fund or long-tenure relationship tied to trustees Andrew and Debra Rachleff, not a competitively selected grantee. Organizations with an existing development-office relationship to Stanford, Stanford GSB, Cornell, or UCSF should ask their advancement teams whether Westridge-affiliated donors are already known contacts — that is a far more productive entry point than direct outreach to the foundation. Second, geography and sector matter: San Francisco Bay Area arts and human-services organizations (film, museums, food security, youth education) represent a real, recurring secondary funding lane distinct from the family's academic ties — 95 of 146 tracked grants went to California recipients. Third, watch for the foundation to revive an intermediary-partner model: its one channel historically open to outside applicants, the SFFILM Westridge Grant for narrative filmmakers on social-justice themes, operated through SFFILM as fiscal sponsor and program administrator rather than a direct foundation application — organizations positioned as trusted program partners or fiscal sponsors for a niche cause (medical research, documentary/narrative film, Bay Area social services) have historically had the best odds of being brought into the funding circle. Fourth, avoid the common mistake of treating the listed website (westridgefoundation.com) as authoritative — it currently resolves to an unrelated Kenya-based nonprofit, so mailed or emailed inquiries should go to the address of record (1125 Westridge Dr, Portola Valley, CA 94028, c/o Foundation Source) rather than a web contact form. Finally, given the foundation's declining asset base (down 56% since 2019) alongside rising annual payout, timing outreach around the family's own liquidity events or major contribution years (they added $1.2M in 2023 and $1.5M in 2019, but nothing in 2020-2022) may correlate with periods of greater giving capacity, though this cannot be confirmed without direct contact.