Xeric Incorporated

Xeric Incorporated is a small, closely-held family foundation established in 1992 by Peter A. Laird (co-creator of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles), who still serves as President alongside Executive Vice-President Jeannine Atkins and Secretary/Treasurer Christopher B. Milne. With roughly $4.0M-$6.4M in assets and only $250K-$357K in annual giving, this is not a foundation built for a large open applicant pool — it makes about 19-25 grants a year, averaging under $10,000 each. First-time applicants need to understand two competing signals in the record: the foundation's stated public process (a written request, no formal application form, due January 31 for a March 1 board review, capped around $5,000) coexists with its own IRS 990-PF filing checking the box that it "only makes contributions to preselected charitable organizations and doesn't accept unsolicited applications." In practice, this reads as a foundation that renews long-standing relationships first and only lightly entertains unsolicited local letters. The grantee list bears this out: virtually every top recipient (Eric Carle Museum, Portland Museum of Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Cooley Dickinson Hospital, Maine Medical Center, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, ACLU, UMass English Department) appears with grant_count of 2-6 across the observed filings, meaning repeat, multi-year support rather than one-off competitive awards. For a first-time applicant, the realistic path is not a cold, generic LOI — it's a short, personal, specific letter tied to a genuine Western MA/413-area-code connection (or an existing personal or institutional tie to the board), submitted by January 31 for the spring review cycle, that asks for a modest, clearly-scoped amount ($2,000-$10,000). Organizations already embedded in the Northampton/Amherst/Pioneer Valley nonprofit ecosystem — libraries, small arts venues, animal welfare, hospitals, and colleges with a Laird/Atkins/Milne connection — have a materially better shot than an out-of-region cold applicant. Given the foundation's tiny staff (zero paid staff, all board time uncompensated), do not expect a fast reply; plan for a single annual decision point rather than rolling review.

Xeric's giving is modest, steady, and slowly rising. The DB's grantee sample shows 98 total recorded grants worth $1,012,000, averaging $10,327 per grant, though the foundation's own typical_grant_size metadata narrows this to a median of $5,000 (range $1,000-$25,000, average $9,680) — and independent 2025 reporting via CauseIQ shows several outlier awards of $30,000 (Women's Board of Maine Medical Center, Planned Parenthood of Northern New England, Portland Museum of Art), meaning the real range for favored, long-term grantees now runs from roughly $2,000 to $30,000. Historical total giving has climbed steadily: $137,619 in 2011, $151,561 in 2012, $255,000 in 2018, $300,923 in 2020, dipping slightly to $249,936 in 2021, then $276,626 in 2022, with a reported jump to roughly $357,000 in FY2025 on the back of strong investment returns (net investment income alone was $325,916 in 2022 against only $336,402 in total revenue — this foundation runs almost entirely on portfolio gains, with $0 in new contributions received in every filing year on record). Total assets have grown from $2.6M-$2.7M (2011-2012) to $3.5M-$3.8M (2018-2022) to $4.0M-$6.4M as of the 2024-2025 filings. Geographically, the grantee stats show Massachusetts dominates with 56 of 98 recorded grants, followed by Maine (22), New York (8), and small counts (2-4 each) in California, Connecticut, New Hampshire, and New Jersey — a meaningful drift beyond the stated "Western Massachusetts 413 area code" restriction. By purpose, the DB's grantee data is undifferentiated (100% tagged "GENERAL CONTRIBUTION"), but the recipient names sort cleanly into arts/museums (Eric Carle Museum $110,000 across 4 grants, Portland Museum of Art $100,000, Museum of Fine Arts $80,000), health/medical (Cooley Dickinson Hospital $80,000, Maine Medical Center $70,000, Stand Up to Cancer $20,000), reproductive rights/civil liberties (Planned Parenthood Federation of America $100,000, ACLU $60,000), education (UMass English Dept $60,000, Williston Northampton School $40,000, UNH English Dept/Foundation $20,000 combined), and animal welfare (Animal Refuge League of Greater Portland $40,000, Dakin Animal Center $20,000).

Xeric Incorporated sits at the very small end of the private-foundation spectrum — a single-digit-million-dollar asset base with a tightly preselected, relationship-driven grantee list, closer in behavior to a large donor-advised fund than to a program-staffed foundation.

Compared to a true community foundation of similar regional footprint, Xeric is roughly one-tenth the asset size and giving budget, with no program staff, no published RFP cycle, and no competitive scoring process — it operates far more like a family's personal giving vehicle than an institutional grantmaker. Unlike open community foundations, Xeric's board (three individuals, uncompensated) makes all decisions directly, and its grantee list shows far more year-over-year repetition than a typical open-application peer would tolerate.

The most consequential event in this foundation's history remains July 14, 2011, when founder Peter Laird announced the end of the Xeric Foundation's celebrated self-publishing grant program for comic book creators — a program that had distributed over $2.5 million since 1992 and helped launch the careers of Gene Luen Yang, Jeff Lemire, and Raina Telgemeier. The final comics grants were awarded in the cycle ending May 2012, after which the foundation redirected 100% of its charitable capacity to the Western Massachusetts general-charity program that persists today. There is no evidence of leadership change since: Peter A. Laird remains President, Jeannine Atkins Executive Vice-President, and Christopher B. Milne Secretary/Treasurer, per the most recent filing data, and all three continue to serve without compensation. Financially, the most notable recent development is a strong FY2025 investment performance: reported total revenue rose roughly 64% year-over-year (to approximately $514,000), driven by a 36.5% increase in investment income/dividends and an 83.1% jump in realized gains on asset sales, pushing total distributions to a reported ~$357,000 — the highest annual giving figure in the foundation's available multi-year record. No new program announcements, staff hires, or public communications have surfaced; the foundation continues to operate with zero paid staff and no active public-facing grants portal. Notably, the domain historically associated with the foundation (xericfoundation.org) no longer resolves, and a domain sometimes listed for it in third-party databases (xeric.org) actually belongs to an unrelated xeriscape/desert-landscaping organization in Tucson, Arizona — applicants should not rely on that URL.

Because Xeric Incorporated has no functioning public website and its own tax filing checks the "preselected/no unsolicited applications" box, treat this as a relationship-first funder, not a form-first one. Concrete tactics: (1) Confirm eligibility narrowly — the foundation's stated restriction is 501(c)(3) charities physically located in the Western Massachusetts 413 area code, though the actual grantee list shows real reach into Southern Maine (22 of 98 recorded grants) and scattered gifts elsewhere, so a Maine or adjacent-New England nonprofit with a genuine local tie is not automatically disqualified. (2) Submit a short written letter, not a formal grant application packet — no special form exists, and over-formality likely signals a misread of the funder. (3) Target the January 31 submission window for the March 1 board review; there is no indication of a second annual cycle, so missing this date likely means waiting a full year. (4) Keep the ask modest and specific: median award is $5,000, and the historical program language explicitly caps most requests at $5,000, even though a handful of favored, multi-year grantees have received up to $30,000 in the most recent reported fiscal year — a first-time or unconnected applicant should not open with a five-figure ask. (5) Emphasize continuity and community roots over innovation or scale — nearly every top grantee (Eric Carle Museum, Museum of Fine Arts, Portland Museum of Art, Cooley Dickinson Hospital, Maine Medical Center, UMass/UNH English departments, Jones Library, Look Memorial Park) is a long-established Western MA/Pioneer Valley or Maine institution, not a startup or pilot program — align proposal language accordingly ("sustaining our decades-long community role" over "scaling a new initiative"). (6) The single most common mistake would be treating this like a competitive national RFP: there is no scoring rubric, no program officer, and no portal — cold, generic outreach unconnected to the region or to an existing relationship is unlikely to break through the preselected pattern. (7) Because board members are uncompensated and the foundation has zero staff, expect slow or no response to inquiries outside the January 31 window; a phone call to the last-known number (413-585-0671) to confirm current mailing/submission details before sending anything is worthwhile, since the web presence cannot be verified as current.