OVERVIEW: The Van Sloun Foundation is a low-profile family foundation based in Marion, Massachusetts, with grantmaking interests spanning education, environmental and animal causes, health and human services.
IP TAKE: The Van Sloun Foundation is a quiet family funder without a website, professionalized application portal or publicly articulated grantmaking strategy, but it is more accessible than many similarly low-profile foundations. Its latest tax filing explicitly provides instructions for requesting funding and lists no deadline or restrictions. That makes a well-targeted mailed request worth considering.
Education, conservation and horticulture, animal and veterinary causes, health and human services are the strongest recurring themes in Van Sloun’s grant history. Recent giving ranges from small community grants to six-figure university support, with a 2024 median of $10,000. Organizations in Massachusetts and Minnesota have particularly strong representation, but the foundation funds beyond those states. Grantseekers with a strong fit should emphasize the specific use of funds, keep an initial approach concise and, where possible, look for a credible connection through Van Sloun’s established grantee and regional philanthropic networks.
PROFILE: The Van Sloun Foundation was established in 1991 by the late Neil Van Sloun. IRS records indicate that it received tax-exempt status in June 1992. Neil Van Sloun, who died in 2023, cofounded and owned Sylvan Nursery in Westport, Massachusetts, and was active in regional nursery-industry associations. Based in Marion, Massachusetts, the foundation is now led by Van Sloun’s nephew, Joseph Van Sloun. This funder maintains a low profile and does not have a website or articulate its aims or initiatives. Tax filings suggest that the foundation’s grants are directed toward organizations working in the areas of education, health, human services, and environmental issues.
Massachusetts and Minnesota are important centers of Van Sloun grantmaking, and serve as the foundation’s geographic priorities but the foundation’s latest tax filing lists no geographic restrictions, and grants also reach organizations in other states. The foundation does not maintain a public website or publish formal funding programs or strategies, so the funding areas below reflect patterns in its grants rather than foundation-defined programs.
Grants for K-12 and Higher Education
Education is one of Van Sloun’s most prominent grantmaking interests, although the foundation does not publish funding allocations by issue area.
- Recent grants underscore its interest in higher education. In 2024, Van Sloun awarded $175,000 in unrestricted support to the University of Pennsylvania, $56,800 to the University of Minnesota Foundation and $55,000 to Alice Lloyd College.
- At the K-12 level, recent and recurring grantees include independent schools and organizations serving students with disabilities or expanding educational access. The Perkins School for the Blind, for example, lists Van Sloun among its 2025 supporters, and IRS-derived records indicate that Perkins received Van Sloun funding in each year from 2020 through 2024. Our Sisters’ School in New Bedford also lists the Van Sloun Foundation among recent supporters.
- Scholarships are part of this funder’s education giving, but they should not be presented as the primary use of its higher-education funding. Recent university grants include substantial unrestricted support.
- Van Sloun also has a named scholarship fund administered by the SouthCoast Community Foundation. The Van Sloun Foundation Scholarship has supported graduating seniors from Dartmouth and Westport High Schools in Massachusetts. SouthCoast Community Foundation manages the scholarship application process; this opportunity is for individual students rather than nonprofit organizations. The most recently indexed 2025-2026 scholarship listing included students pursuing professional certificates, associate degrees or bachelor’s degrees.
Grants for Environment and Wildlife Conservation
Conservation and animal causes are another longstanding area of Van Sloun giving. The foundation’s environmental portfolio includes horticulture, urban forestry, watershed and conservation work, while its animal-related giving includes veterinary medicine, wildlife and service-animal organizations.
- Great River Greening currently identifies Van Sloun as a funder of its Cooling Minnesota Communities work, which expands urban tree canopy in Minnesota communities. The foundation also has longstanding ties to horticulture: Neil Van Sloun built his career in the nursery industry, and the Horticultural Research Institute maintains a Sylvan Nursery-Sylvia and Neil Van Sloun Fund supporting horticultural research and scholarships.
- Animal-related grantmaking has included America’s VetDogs and veterinary and animal-health institutions. This interest is consistent with a much longer history of support for veterinary medicine and animal-health research.
- Grantseekers should treat these organizations as examples of the foundation’s historical and recent interests rather than as evidence of a formal conservation program. Van Sloun publishes no environmental guidelines or stated subpriorities.
Grants for Health and Human Services
Van Sloun’s grant history more clearly supports describing this portfolio as health and human services; available evidence is not strong enough to characterize housing or community development as major standalone funding priorities.
- The foundation has supported organizations involved in medical research, healthcare access, food security and services for people with disabilities or other community needs. Care Ring, a Charlotte nonprofit that expands access to healthcare, received Van Sloun funding in each year from 2020 through 2024, according to IRS-derived grant records.
- Van Sloun has also supported medical and research institutions, including Brigham and Women’s Hospital, as well as community-based human-service organizations.
- Giving in this area can overlap with the foundation’s education and disability interests. As elsewhere in Van Sloun’s portfolio, many grants are unrestricted rather than tied to a narrowly defined foundation initiative.
Important Grant Details:
Its latest available 2024 Form 990-PF data report about $28.9 million in year-end assets and $1.25 million in charitable disbursements.
Its 2024 grants ranged from $250 to $175,000, with a median grant of $10,000. Grantmakers should note that the foundation’s largest grants can be considerably higher than its typical award: its 2024 grant to the University of Pennsylvania was $175,000.
- The Van Sloun Foundation appears open to unsolicited written funding requests, although it does not use a formal online application or publish detailed proposal guidelines. Most importantly, its latest Form 990-PF does not check the box indicating that it limits giving to preselected organizations. Instead, the filing instructs applicants to send a “letter requesting funds with intended use.” It lists no application deadline and no restrictions.
- Requests should be sent to: Joseph Van Sloun, 3527 Jidana Lane, Minnetonka, MN 55345, (952) 938-6088
PEOPLE:
Search for staff contact info and bios in PeopleFinder (paid subscribers only).