Zoma Foundation

Zoma Foundation operates as a preselected-only private grantmaker — one of the most consequential facts any prospective partner needs to understand upfront. The foundation's own records indicate application instructions of 'none,' meaning there is no RFP, no open portal, and no formal submission pathway. All grantmaking flows through relationships cultivated by foundation leadership: Co-Presidents Benjamin S. Walton (a grandson of Walmart founder Sam Walton) and Lucy Ana A. Walton (a child psychologist originally from Chile).

The foundation sits inside ZomaLab, a family office that deliberately integrates philanthropy with mission-aligned investing via Zoma Capital. This integration is philosophically central: the Waltons view grants and investments as distinct but complementary tools for systems change. Organizations that can articulate how their work enables scalable, market-based transformation — not just program outputs — are far better positioned to attract attention.

Four program pillars define Zoma's current portfolio: early childhood and maternal mental health (especially in Colorado), workforce development and community economic development (including community colleges and apprenticeship models), environmental conservation (Colorado clean energy + landscape-scale global conservation), and increasingly housing affordability. A fifth thread runs beneath all of these: Chile and Latin America, driven by Lucy Ana Walton's heritage and the foundation's sustained funding of Chilean organizations.

For first-time approaches, the realistic pathway is relationship-first. Attend events hosted by Philanthropy Colorado, where Zoma is an active member. Build genuine connections with organizations already in the grantee network — CareerWise, Western Resource Advocates, Illuminate Colorado, and the Colorado Perinatal Care Quality Collaborative have each received multi-year, multi-grant support, making their leadership valuable intermediaries. Conservation organizations seeking entry should look to the WWF and Tompkins Conservation relationships as templates: both received large, multi-year investments tied to landscape-scale goals, not programmatic outputs.

Zoma Foundation's giving reflects a concentrated, high-conviction style: 155 documented grants totaling $33.6 million, with an average grant of $216,845 and a median of $50,000. The range is dramatic — from $12,100 at the floor to $5 million (Tompkins Conservation, Cape Froward) — and the top end skews the mean significantly. The World Wildlife Fund received $8.3 million across four grants, making it the single largest grantee by a wide margin.

Conservation and environment captures the plurality of dollars. WWF ($8.3M), Tompkins Conservation ($5M), Fundacion Viento Sur ($4.7M), Fundacion Chile ($588K), Western Resource Advocates ($950K), and Environmental Defense Fund ($141K) together account for roughly $19.7 million — approximately 59% of total documented giving. This concentration in landscape-scale conservation is amplified by the November 2025 $100 million climate debt swap commitment, signaling a continued acceleration of environmental capital deployment.

Workforce development and community economic development is the second major pillar. CareerWise received $1.06 million across four grants; Youthpower365 received $485K; Education Design Labs received $409K. Community college pathway work (Arapahoe Community College Foundation $2M, Colorado Community College system grantees) totals another $700K+.

Early childhood and maternal mental health spans roughly 12-15 active grantees, with typical awards of $75,000–$450,000 per year. The Colorado Perinatal Care Quality Collaborative received $691K across six grants; Illuminate Colorado received $440K across five.

Grants paid trended from $19.9M (2020) to $12.9M (2021) to $10.4M (2022) to $10.3M (2023), suggesting a deliberate portfolio concentration — fewer, larger bets — rather than reduced philanthropic commitment. The 2021 $307.2 million one-time endowment contribution transformed the foundation's asset base from $228M to $533M, funding the current scale of operations.

Zoma Foundation occupies the upper tier of Colorado-rooted private foundations by asset size, alongside national peers in the $500M–$540M range. Below is a comparison across five asset-peer foundations:

Among these asset peers, Zoma Foundation stands out for its distinctive geographic duality — simultaneously funding Colorado-focused social infrastructure and global landscape conservation — while also integrating a mission-aligned investment arm (Zoma Capital) that most peer foundations lack. The Stuart Foundation represents the closest programmatic analog: both fund education systems change through Colorado and Western community colleges, and both operate by invitation only. The Cohen Foundation gives at roughly 3x the scale of Zoma's documented grants-paid figures but concentrates in the Northeast. Zoma's environmental giving (especially the $100M climate commitment) now places it in conversation with conservation-focused foundations well beyond this assets peer group.

The most significant recent development is Zoma Foundation's $100 million climate debt swap commitment announced in approximately November 2025. Through Enosis Capital's Private Credit Enhancement Facility, the investment is designed to combine with funds from other impact investors and philanthropies to provide $1 billion in debt guarantees for nature-positive projects across Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The Debt for Nature Coalition, Enosis's partner organization, estimates this will unlock $3 billion in related funding by 2030 — a landmark blended finance transaction that substantially escalates Zoma's conservation ambitions beyond even its large WWF and Tompkins grants.

Prior to the 2025 climate commitment, the foundation's notable recent activity included the Outcomes Finance Accelerator Fund (late 2022) — a $10 million fund launched with Maycomb Capital to deploy outcomes-based capital to Colorado nonprofits and for-profits in social and environmental sectors. This vehicle remains active and represents Zoma's most accessible adjacent entry point for organizations that cannot access direct grants.

The foundation also financed Landed, a housing affordability platform for public school educators, reflecting the explicit addition of teacher housing as a community economic development priority. ProPublica's 2024 filing (published November 2025) shows assets at $529.5 million and charitable disbursements of $26.8 million — the highest disbursement figure in recent years — confirming that despite declining grants-paid figures, total capital deployment has increased through blended instruments. No leadership changes have been publicly announced; Benjamin and Lucy Ana Walton remain Co-Presidents.

The fundamental reality: Zoma Foundation does not accept unsolicited applications. The IRS filing confirms 'preselected only' status. No amount of grant-writing craft will create an application pathway that does not exist. The tips below are therefore about relationship cultivation and positioning, not proposal mechanics.

1. Enter through the ZomaLab ecosystem. ZomaLab integrates Zoma Foundation with Zoma Capital (impact investing). Organizations that can engage on both tracks — as grantees and as potential investment targets for Zoma Capital — have a stronger value proposition. If your organization uses pay-for-success contracts, social impact bonds, or outcomes-based financing, lead with that when speaking to anyone in the ZomaLab orbit.

2. Build relationships through current grantees. CareerWise, Western Resource Advocates, Illuminate Colorado, Colorado Community Health Network, and the Colorado Perinatal Care Quality Collaborative are all multi-year grantees. Their executive directors and development staff interact directly with Zoma Foundation program staff. Genuine collaborative partnerships — not networking for its own sake — with these organizations are the most credible introduction pathway.

3. Engage Philanthropy Colorado. Zoma Foundation is listed as an active member of Philanthropy Colorado. This organization's convenings, working groups, and rural philanthropy networks are arenas where foundation staff participate. Presence and credibility in this community matters.

4. Align with all four pillars, not just one. Proposals (if invited) that span multiple Zoma focus areas — e.g., a workforce training program that also addresses maternal mental health outcomes, or a community development initiative with an environmental component — resonate more than single-issue asks. The foundation's grantee portfolio consistently reflects multi-issue organizations.

5. Frame around systems change, not programs. Zoma explicitly describes itself as seeking 'systemic, scalable solutions.' Describe your theory of change in terms of policy influence, infrastructure building, and field-level impact — not headcount served or individual outcomes alone.

6. For conservation organizations: go big or go elsewhere. Zoma's conservation grants are measured in millions, not thousands, and focus on landscape-scale protection and biodiversity. Small-scale or local conservation projects do not fit the portfolio profile.