Willary Foundation

Willary Foundation is a small, all-volunteer family foundation run entirely by members of the Scranton family — Joseph C. Scranton (Board Chair), Julien Scranton (Vice Chair), William W. Scranton III (Treasurer), S. Caitlin Scranton (Secretary), plus trustees Susan Scranton Dawson, Peter K. Scranton, and Elizabeth S. Valosek — all serving without compensation. There is no professional program staff and no listed program officers, so applicants are dealing directly with a family board rather than a screening bureaucracy. The foundation's own language is unusually specific: it seeks projects that are "interesting, creative and imaginative" and benefit communities in Northeastern Pennsylvania, favoring groups with unique, innovative, or unusual approaches over conventional service delivery. Its grantee list bears this out — recurring support to organizations like the Greater Scranton YMCA ($150,000 across 2 grants), the Black Scranton Project ($143,283 across 3 grants), and the Women's Resource Center ($75,000 across 3 grants) shows the foundation builds multi-year relationships with organizations once they've proven fit, rather than funding one-off projects broadly. Nearly every grant in the recorded top 50 is tagged GENERAL OPERATING or GENERAL SUPPORT — this is a general-support funder, not a narrow project-restricted one. First-time applicants should not mistake Willary for an institutional funder: with $9.75M in assets against neighboring NEPA funders like Moses Taylor Foundation ($72.5M) or the Scranton Area Community Foundation ($73.5M+), Willary operates at roughly one-eighth to one-tenth their scale, and its typical award size (median $20,500, range $5,000-$77,085) reflects that. The relationship progression is straightforward and non-tiered: there is no separate LOI phase documented — organizations submit the full "Willary Foundation Grant Application Form" directly through the foundation's CyberGrants portal (hosted by PNC Private Bank) ahead of the April 1 or October 1 deadline. Given 73 of 84 recorded grants (87%) went to Pennsylvania organizations, out-of-state applicants should expect to be the exception, not the norm, unless they are a nationally recognized organization like The Nature Conservancy, which has received PA-adjacent multi-state funding from Willary.

Willary's most recent tracked cohort of 20 grants ranges from $5,000 to $77,085, with a median of $20,500 and an average of $24,329 — a tight, predictable band for planning an ask. The broader historical sample of 84 recorded grants totals $2,310,560 at a slightly higher average of $27,507, reflecting a mix of smaller one-time awards and larger repeat commitments. Geographically, Pennsylvania dominates with 73 of 84 grants (87%); the remainder is scattered — Missouri (3), Alabama and Virginia (2 each), and California, DC, New York, and Ohio (1 each) — almost certainly driven by national or multi-region organizations such as The Nature Conservancy ($107,085 across 2 grants) rather than a deliberate expansion beyond NEPA. On dollar concentration, the top 10 recorded grantees alone account for roughly $945,000 of the $2.31M sample (about 41%), led by the Greater Scranton YMCA ($150,000), Black Scranton Project Inc ($143,283), The Nature Conservancy ($107,085), Indraloka Animal Sanctuary ($100,000), and Scranton Lackawanna Human Development Agency ($90,000). Annual giving has held in a fairly narrow $550K-$750K band for the past five reported fiscal years: $598,140 (2019), $579,168 (2020, pandemic-affected), $748,185 (2021 peak), $673,778 (2022), and $698,181 (2023), with third-party sources showing $548,990 for 2024. Grants paid tracks close behind total giving each year — $543,050 (2019) through $599,792 (2023) — with the difference reflecting overhead and modest excise-tax reserves. The foundation's asset base grew from $3.46M in 2015 to $9.5M-$9.75M by 2019 and has held roughly steady since, implying a significant capital infusion (likely a bequest or transfer) between 2016 and 2018 that is not captured in the fiscal-year rows available here but is reflected in the continuous run of 990-PF filings the foundation has posted for 2016-2024. Notably, the foundation receives $0 in outside contributions in every reported year — it is funded entirely by its own investment returns, which in 2023 generated $768,925, comfortably covering that year's $599,792 in grants paid.

Willary sits at the small end of the Northeastern Pennsylvania private-philanthropy landscape — its assets are roughly one-eighth those of Moses Taylor Foundation or the Scranton Area Community Foundation, and its annual giving is a fraction of theirs. What it lacks in scale it offsets with simplicity: no professional staff, no multi-stage LOI-to-full-proposal pipeline, and a strong preference for unrestricted general support, making it comparatively fast and low-friction for small and mid-sized NEPA nonprofits relative to the larger, more process-heavy institutional funders in the same market. The Robert H. Spitz Foundation is the closest scale peer, though its focus (poverty, veterans, animal welfare, Jewish community) is narrower and it is externally administered by the Scranton Area Community Foundation rather than a family board.

Willary Foundation maintains a low public profile — its website carries a "©2020" copyright notice and has no news or press section, even though the foundation has continued filing Form 990-PF annually through fiscal year 2024 and remains listed as actively accepting applications. Third-party 990 aggregators (Grantmakers.io, Instrumentl) show the foundation distributed $548,990 in grants during calendar 2024, in line with its established $550K-$750K annual range since 2019, with data last refreshed May 25, 2026. Instrumentl lists one currently live grant opportunity with a deadline around April 1, 2026, consistent with the foundation's own published biannual schedule of April 1 and October 1 deadlines. Board leadership shows no reported turnover: Joseph C. Scranton continues as Board Chair, Julien Scranton as Vice Chair, William W. Scranton III as Treasurer, and S. Caitlin Scranton as Secretary, alongside trustees Susan Scranton Dawson, Peter K. Scranton, and Elizabeth S. Valosek — the same all-family roster reflected across the foundation's recent tax filings. No major new initiative, large single grant, or leadership announcement surfaced in web research covering the past 12-18 months. The pattern that does emerge is one of quiet consistency: steady general-operating support to a recurring roster of NEPA nonprofits (the Greater Scranton YMCA, Black Scranton Project, Women's Resource Center, and others have each received multiple grants in recent cycles) rather than headline-driving new program launches.

Target the foundation's two fixed deadlines — April 1 and October 1 — since there is no rolling review documented and the board evaluates biannually. Applications go through the CyberGrants portal hosted by PNC Private Bank (cybergrants.com/pncprivatebank/willary_foundation); there is no separate letter-of-inquiry stage on record, so organizations submit the full "Willary Foundation Grant Application Form" directly. Because the foundation explicitly seeks projects that are "interesting, creative and imaginative," lead the proposal with what is distinctive about the program design rather than opening with generic need statements — this specific framing is repeated across the foundation's own site and third-party profiles, so it reads as a genuine screening criterion, not boilerplate. Request general operating or unrestricted support where possible: virtually every grant in the recorded top 50 carries a GENERAL OPERATING or GENERAL SUPPORT purpose tag, so a tightly restricted capital or equipment-only ask runs against the foundation's clear historical pattern. Size the request realistically — the median tracked award is $20,500 and the largest is $77,085, so proposals in the $10,000-$40,000 range align best with typical grant-making, while six-figure asks are outliers even for the foundation's largest cumulative relationships (built over multiple years, not single grants). Emphasize direct, local NEPA impact: 87% of recorded grants (73 of 84) went to Pennsylvania organizations, so applicants based outside the Scranton/Lackawanna County region should expect a materially harder case unless their program has a clear, direct NEPA nexus. Because the board is all-volunteer Scranton family trustees with no program staff, there is no cold-call relationship-building path available before applying — a brief, direct phone call to 570-614-0088 or email to info@willary.org to confirm eligibility and fit before submitting is the appropriate level of pre-application contact. A common mistake is treating this like a larger institutional funder (e.g., neighboring Moses Taylor Foundation) and over-engineering the proposal with restricted logic models and outcome frameworks the board's own materials don't ask for. Finally, the foundation's pattern of funding several organizations 2-3 times in the recorded history (YMCA, Black Scranton Project, Women's Resource Center) suggests that after a first award, reapplying in a subsequent April/October cycle is a legitimate strategy for sustained support rather than a one-and-done relationship.