William Mcnally Family Foundation

William McNally Family Foundation is a small, family-operated private foundation with no program staff and no independent grants website — the domain on file (williammcnally.com) actually belongs to an unrelated musician, meaning applicants have essentially no digital front door and must rely on direct outreach. The five-person board (Dwight L. McNally, President; Jeffrey W. McNally, Treasurer; Brian D. McNally, Secretary; and trustees Ryan McNally and Meghan Wininger) is entirely family, each drawing a modest $3,000-$5,181 stipend, with total officer compensation of just $24,120 in FY2023. The IRS filing states plainly that 'the foundation does not conduct direct charitable activities or incur expenses relative to charitable activities except in the performance of necessary evaluation of grants' — this is a pure pass-through grantmaker run informally by the family, not an institution with a published strategic plan. Its own application_instructions field reads 'LETTER FORM - NO FORMAL REQUIREMENTS,' with no deadline and no online form, confirming a relationship-driven, low-bureaucracy review process rather than a formal LOI-to-full-proposal pipeline. First-time applicants should not expect a site visit or a published review calendar; decisions likely happen at the board's private annual or semi-annual meeting. The grantee history shows a strong preference for organizations the family already has ties to: YMCA of Saginaw, Camp Restore Detroit, Concordia Seminary, Major Chords for Minors, and Hospital Hospitality House each received grants in 5 separate years, indicating that once a relationship is established, renewed support is common rather than a competitive year-to-year re-application. A distinct faith-based thread runs through the largest gifts — Valley Lutheran High School ($428,570, the single largest grantee), Concordia Seminary ($100,000), Faith Lutheran Church ($60,000), and Lutheran Special Education Ministries ($7,500) — suggesting Lutheran church or school affiliation is a meaningful, if unstated, alignment signal. For a realistic first ask, target the typical range rather than the handful of outlier capital gifts, and frame the request around a specific, visible use of funds in the Saginaw/Bay County area.

Across the 164 grants captured in the top-50 recipient data (cumulative across multiple filing years), total giving is $3,167,334 at an average of $19,313 per grant. In the most recent single tax year of typical-size data, the foundation made 31 grants with a median of $5,167, an average of $15,710, and a range of $1,000 to $142,857 — a useful benchmark for what a 'normal' award looks like versus the historical outliers. FY2023 filings show grants paid of $634,284 against total giving of $689,679 on total assets of $11,586,296 (a roughly 5.9% payout rate, above the 5% IRS minimum distribution requirement). Total giving has declined for three consecutive reported years — $756,903 (2021) to $708,477 (2022) to $689,679 (2023), an approximately 9% drop — tracking a parallel decline in total assets from $12.14 million to $11.59 million over the same window, likely reflecting investment performance rather than a deliberate scale-back. Longer term, giving has grown substantially: from $256,118 in 2011 to roughly $690,000 in 2023 (2.7x), helped by large corpus-building contributions of $4.22 million (2019) and $3.99 million (2013). Grant sizes are bimodal: a small number of flagship capital gifts of $100,000-$428,570 (Valley Lutheran High School building campaign, Covenant Healthcare Foundation building campaign, Children's Zoo at Celebration Square, CMU College of Medicine) sit alongside a much larger volume of $5,000-$35,000 grants typically renewed over 3-5 consecutive years (YMCA of Saginaw, Camp Restore Detroit, Great Lakes Bay Health Center, Hospital Hospitality House). By named purpose in the top-50 data, capital/building projects account for roughly a third of total dollars (~$1.0M of $3.17M), with healthcare (Covenant Healthcare, Great Lakes Bay Health Center, Mayo Clinic and Mayo Clinic Foundation, Hospital Hospitality House) and education/youth programs (CMU College of Medicine, Concordia Seminary, Major Chords for Minors, SVSU Foundation) each representing meaningful secondary shares. Geographically, giving is overwhelmingly Michigan-based: 150 of 164 grants (91%) went to Michigan organizations, concentrated in Saginaw and Bridgeport Township, with small outlier counts in Alaska (4), Minnesota (5, including Mayo Clinic), and Missouri (5).

William McNally sits in the middle of this Saginaw-area peer set by both asset size and annual giving — comparable to Nickless in scale but far more concentrated geographically than Morley, and orders of magnitude smaller than the region's dominant funder, the Dow Foundation. Unlike Morley, which explicitly accepts the standardized Council of Michigan Foundations application, McNally has no standardized form at all, placing it closer to an informal, relationship-based funder than either of its similarly sized local peers.

No independent news coverage, press releases, or grant announcements for the William McNally Family Foundation were found in this research pass — a notable data point in itself, underscoring that this is a low-profile, non-communicating private foundation. The domain listed as its website in IRS-linked records, williammcnally.com, resolves instead to the personal site of a concert pianist of the same name, meaning the foundation has no functioning public web presence to monitor for updates. The most concrete recent activity identified is the Form 990-PF for tax year 2024, filed August 25, 2025, per third-party 990 aggregators (Instrumentl, ProPublica). The foundation is also listed as a 'Tier 4 Investor' economic development partner of Saginaw Future Inc., with a Bridgeport, MI P.O. Box contact — a secondary address distinct from the 5825 Dixie Hwy, Saginaw address on file with the IRS. No leadership changes were detected; the same core McNally family board (Dwight L., Jeffrey W., and Brian D. McNally, plus trustees Ryan McNally and Meghan Wininger) has served across the filing years reviewed, with compensation levels rising only gradually (from $0 in 2011-2012 to $3,000-$5,181 most recently). Given the absence of any public communications channel, grant seekers should not expect to find application deadlines, new initiative announcements, or annual reports online — the IRS Form 990-PF series is effectively the only public record of this funder's activity.

Because the foundation has no online portal, no published deadline, and no formal application form, treat this as a direct-mail relationship prospect rather than a competitive RFP process. The IRS filing itself instructs that the process is 'letter form, no formal requirements' — so lead with a concise (1-2 page) letter of inquiry addressed to Dwight L. McNally (President) or Jeffrey W. McNally (Treasurer), rather than a lengthy proposal packet; there is no program staff to review extensive attachments. Before sending anything, call (989) 777-2361 to confirm the current mailing address, since the IRS filing address (5825 Dixie Hwy, Saginaw, MI 48601) and the address listed in the Saginaw Future partner directory (P.O. Box 121, Bridgeport, MI 48722) do not match. Anchor the request in a specific, visible use of funds — the foundation's largest gifts (Valley Lutheran High School, Covenant Healthcare Foundation, Friends of Hoyt Park) were all named capital or building campaigns, not undesignated general support, so a defined project narrative is more likely to land than an open-ended ask. Size the request appropriately: the typical single grant is $1,000-$35,000 (median $5,167 in the most recent year of data), and requests above $100,000 should only be attempted with a full capital-campaign case, ideally with matching commitments already in place, mirroring the pattern behind the foundation's few six-figure gifts. A common mistake would be treating this as a national or generalist funder — 91% of grants by count stay within Michigan, heavily concentrated in Saginaw and Bridgeport Township, so out-of-region applicants without a clear local tie are unlikely to be competitive. If your organization has any Lutheran church, school, or ministry affiliation, name it directly — Valley Lutheran High School, Concordia Seminary, Faith Lutheran Church, and Lutheran Special Education Ministries collectively represent some of the foundation's largest and most consistent gifts. Once funded, cultivate the relationship for renewal rather than re-applying cold each year — several recipients (YMCA of Saginaw, Camp Restore Detroit, Major Chords for Minors, Hospital Hospitality House) received support in 5 separate years, suggesting loyalty to established grantees is a stronger predictor of continued funding than fresh competitive proposals.