Section 1
40 Years of Building
The Foundation’s arc — from a $100K endowment gift to $3.9M audited, a $8.9M fundraising year, and a 17-foundation summit.
Endowment Trajectory
2004
Kohler gift establishes the restricted endowment
$100K
2014
Kohler fund balance referenced in public minutes
~$175K
2019
Pre-campaign actual balance
~$530K
2021
After first Schoonmaker contributions
~$1.5M
2024
FY2024 audited endowment balance
$3.9M
Key Milestones
2016
Build USSF restructured as Type I supporting organization. First consolidated audit. Net assets reach $7.4M.
$7.4M
2021
Campaign First Chief Development Officer hired. McKinsey 2,000+ hrs pro bono. Contributions reach $8.3M — when dedicated development leadership was in place, donors responded at $8.9M in a single year.
$11.5M
2022
Campaign Peak fundraising: $10.2M raised through Oct. 17 foundations convened at Sailing Foundation Summit. Consolidated net assets reach $12.2M.
$12.2M
2024
Now $4.5M intercompany balances reconciled. New leadership in place. Endowment grew $1.5M during the hardest year — the donors did not leave. Audited consolidated net assets: +$1.6M.
$1.6M
The signal in the noise: Even through leadership transition, campaign disruption, and $4.5M in intercompany cleanup, the endowment grew from $530K to $3.9M. The donors who gave did not leave. They are waiting for the architecture to return.
Section 2
Where Things Stand
Six strength cards from the audited FY2024 record.
$3.9M
Audited Endowment
Kohler $100K → $3.9M over 20 years
$1.02M
USOPC Continuing Support
Annual Olympic pipeline funding
229%
Donations / Budget
Contribution revenue = 2.3× operating budget
Clean
Audit Opinion
No going-concern language in FY2024 audit
Complete
Intercompany Cleanup
$4.5M reconciled; entity boundaries now clear
New
Leadership in Place
CEO (May 2025), strategic plan renewed
The Foundation is not broken. It is between architectures. The campaign-era infrastructure demonstrated what dedicated development leadership can produce ($8.9M in a single year). The endowment survived the transition. The governance is clean. What is missing is the next architecture — the development function that connects what already exists to the funding landscape that has never been systematically approached.
Section 3
What You Already Have
Appreciative inquiry begins with a different question: not “what’s broken?” but “what remarkable things are already here that we haven’t named yet?”
Latent Capabilities → Active Funder Categories
| What Already Exists | What It Is | Who’s Funding It Elsewhere | Translation Required |
|---|
| Blue space infrastructure |
1,200+ member clubs at the water. Decades of waterfront infrastructure, maintained boats/docks/equipment, community trust, and local permitting. |
RWJF Place-Based Health, Kresge Built Environment, Bloomberg Parks |
Map club locations to health disparity census tracts. One “Blue Space Access Index” unlocks the conversation with every place-based health funder. |
| 14-year youth data |
US Sailing Reach: 600+ programs, 115,000 youth/year, 62% STEM retention. More data depth than most single-issue youth nonprofits raising $10M+/year. |
JPB Foundation, SAMHSA outdoor youth, S.D. Bechtel Jr. Foundation, Bank of America Neighborhood Builders |
Reframe Reach in outcomes language (PERMA, STEM, workforce readiness). Submit one randomized impact evaluation. |
| Certified workforce |
Thousands of trained, credentialed coaches and instructors — a privately funded professional development pipeline most community orgs can’t afford to build. |
NationSwell Workforce Innovation (Autodesk, Google, Lowe’s, Barclays), Lumina Foundation |
Document certification = workforce credential. Propose US Sailing as a registered apprenticeship pathway. |
| Governance infrastructure |
1,200 member club boards — functioning governance with bylaws, officers, audit processes, youth protection, insurance pools. Most community programs spend years building what sailing clubs have had for generations. |
Every foundation requires it. US Sailing clubs are the institutional spine that funders spend millions trying to create from scratch. |
Build a governance capacity report across member clubs. Demonstrate federated infrastructure as a funder asset. |
| Mental health intervention |
Blue space 120-min dose-response proven. Sailing PERMA outcomes validated. Clubs are established third places — the social infrastructure the Surgeon General says the country is missing. |
SAMHSA ($7.5B/yr grants), AARP Foundation, every major health system deploying Schedule H community benefit funds |
Commission a physician referral protocol. Map 5 clubs near major hospital systems. One pilot makes every health funder aware of the model. |
| Volunteer capital |
Tens of thousands of trained, background-checked volunteers managing youth programs. Estimated value: $33.49/hr (IndependentSector 2023) × total hours = hundreds of millions in program delivery value. |
AmeriCorps, Points of Light, local United Ways — paying to create volunteer infrastructure that US Sailing already has. |
Calculate volunteer hour equivalent annually across Reach programs. One calculation transforms the narrative from “we need funding” to “we deliver 10:1 on investment.” |
| Dual 501(c)(3)/(7) structure |
Many clubs operate both a 501(c)(7) (private club) and 501(c)(3) (charitable programs). This is the YMCA model — privately capitalized community anchor with a public-benefit arm, built organically over decades. |
Hospital community benefit, government service contracts, state recreation departments — every public funding stream requires the 501(c)(3) structure clubs already hold. |
Map which clubs have operational 501(c)(3) arms. Build a “civic club capacity registry” to surface the 200–300 clubs already structured for public benefit funding. |
| Equity access premium |
OIA 2025: all net growth in outdoor recreation is driven by people of color (Black +11.4%, Hispanic +5.7%). The growth market IS the demographic that historically has had the least access to sailing. The clubs are at the water. The growth is coming to the water. |
RWJF Collective Wealth, McKnight, JPMorgan Chase PRO Neighborhoods, Ford Foundation equity in place-based infrastructure |
Produce one “Access Gap Analysis” showing club proximity to fastest-growing demographic pools. Becomes the prospectus for 5 regional foundation conversations simultaneously. |
The gap is not programmatic. It is translational. No one has translated what already exists into language funders recognize, and no one has built the infrastructure to make the network findable at scale. These eight capabilities map directly to funder categories that are actively distributing. The translation layer — the documentation, measurement, and relationship infrastructure — is the gap. Not the programs.
NationSwell Collaborative Funder Alignment — Existing Programs → Active Funding Priorities
| US Sailing Program | Evidence | NationSwell Match | Funder Opportunity |
|---|
| Reach Initiative |
115,000 youth/yr, 600+ programs, 14 years, 62% STEM retention |
Workforce Innovation |
Autodesk, Google.org, Barclays, JPB Foundation, Lowe’s |
| Adaptive Sailing / Para |
Clagett, Para Worlds, autism programs, instructor pathway |
Health in Action |
Sanofi, J&J, SAMHSA, VA adaptive sports |
| Siebel Sailors |
$3M Siebel gift, Black youth program pipeline |
Collective Wealth |
RWJF, MacArthur, Kresge place-based work |
| Community Sailing Centers |
115K youth/yr water access. Blue space dose-response validated. |
Health in Action |
RWJF, Kresge, Houston Endowment, SAMHSA |
The Schmidt Portfolio: 11th Hour Racing + N² — The Relationship That Already Exists
Charlie Enright has been US Sailing’s CEO since May 2025. He was the skipper of 11th Hour Racing Team — the first American team to win The Ocean Race, in the 2022–23 edition. That team was explicitly a Wendy Schmidt / Schmidt Family Foundation initiative. The CEO’s origin story IS the relationship.
What most sailors don’t see is the other arm of the same portfolio: N² (the 11th Hour Project) — which funds organizations working to close the Nature Gap for underserved youth through place-based outdoor access. Its stated priorities: place-based change, Nature Gap, water and land connection, youth leadership. US Sailing’s 1,200-club network — serving 115,000 youth/year, embedded in local communities — is N²’s target grantee profile.
| 11th Hour Grantee (Active 2025) | Location | What This Confirms |
|---|
| Courageous Sailing | Boston, MA | Direct US Sailing affiliate. Receiving Schmidt funding independently. |
| Conanicut Island SF | Jamestown, RI | 15 minutes from US Sailing HQ. |
| SoundWaters | Stamford, CT | Waterfront STEM + sailing education. Exact model Reach delivers nationally. |
| Lost Boyz | Chicago, IL | Urban youth blue space access. |
Three of the CEO’s own member clubs are already receiving Schmidt grants independently. The opportunity is to extend the competitive relationship into the community and health intervention world where N² funds the same clubs, for the same youth, under a different frame.
Section 4
Five Funders Looking for You
These five foundations collectively hold $25B+ in assets and distribute $1.2B+ annually. Each one has an active program area that aligns with what US Sailing’s network already delivers. The gap is not competition for their dollars — it is organizational visibility.
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
Princeton, NJ
Health equity, community development, public health, community-based outdoor activities. Blue space dose-response (White et al. 2019) is RWJF-citable evidence. Reach outcomes language (PERMA, STEM retention, self-efficacy) maps directly to RWJF priorities.
Highest fit. Most important single funder relationship to build.
$14.5B
$725M/yr floor
$75K–$5M grants
11th Hour Racing
Newport, RI — Schmidt Family Foundation
Ocean Literacy & Stewardship, Clean Technologies, Ecosystem Restoration. 347 grantees since 2013. Three US Sailing-adjacent clubs actively funded (Oct–Nov 2025). CEO Charlie Enright’s origin story IS the relationship.
Open application. The relationship exists. The national coordination does not.
347
grantees funded
$40K–$150K avg $75K
Annie E. Casey Foundation
Baltimore, MD
Children + youth (0–24), family strengthening, economic opportunity, community connections. 700+ current grantees. 200 staff. Evidence-based programs required — Reach’s 14-year data + PERMA framework is exactly the language Casey requires.
Strong fit. Reach serves Casey’s exact age range.
$3B+
$150M/yr floor
$50K–$500K
Houston Endowment
Houston, TX
Greenspaces program (confirmed April 2026): “We believe shared natural spaces connect neighbors and cultivate a sense of belonging in the community while also improving residents’ health and quality of life.” 800+ grantees over past decade. $120M+ in 2022.
Verbatim blue space thesis. Invited applicants only — relationship development required.
$2.42B
$121M/yr floor
Regional grants
Kresge Foundation
Troy, MI
American Cities, Health, Environment. Water sector resilience and equity explicitly funded. Senior program officer confirmed “elevating the voice of marginalized people” as water sector priority (active strategy through 2026).
Strong fit. Water sector equity + community resilience + underserved urban populations.
$3.6B
$180M/yr floor
$100K–$1M
The 5% mandate (IRC §4942): Private foundations must distribute at least 5% of assets annually. The mean payout rate is 8.7%. These five foundations alone must distribute $1.2B+ per year whether or not US Sailing is in the room. Total US foundation giving in 2024: $109.8B. US Sailing’s share: 0.003%. The constraint is not competition. It is visibility.
Section 5
The Development Opportunity
What a resourced development function opens — not “fundraising,” but the translation infrastructure that converts existing programs into language the philanthropic economy is designed to fund.
Revenue Opportunity — Current vs. 3-Year Target
| Revenue Stream | Current | 3-Year Target | Requires |
|---|
| Foundation grants (health / equity / youth) |
~$500K |
$3–5M |
Grant documentation + funder map + 3 applications/quarter |
| 11th Hour + ocean literacy funders |
~$0 national |
$500K–1M |
One national partnership + club referral program |
| Hospital community benefit (Schedule H) |
$0 |
$500K–2M |
One pilot club + physician referral protocol + outcomes documentation |
| Major donor retention + DAF growth |
Incomplete |
+$2–3M |
Systematic stewardship program; NPS-style touchpoint calendar |
| Data-enabled grants (post-pilot) |
$150K pending |
$1–3M |
TAF approval + 2-year data instrumentation build |
| Total |
~$3.1M |
$8–14M+ |
One well-resourced development & stewardship function |
The constraint is not the programs.
It is the translation layer between what you already deliver
and the funders who are actively distributing.
$109 billion in annual foundation giving. $251.5B in DAF assets. An $84 trillion intergenerational wealth transfer underway. 1,200 clubs at the water. 115,000 youth served per year. 14 years of data. A CEO whose origin story IS the relationship with the largest ocean philanthropy in the world. A clean audit. A $3.9M endowment that survived the hardest year.
The architecture is ready to be rebuilt. The window is now.
Section 6
Donor Intelligence — The Funder Side
Schedule B (who gives to US Sailing) is redacted on public filings. But Schedule I and 990-PF grant schedules are public on the funder side. Reading both directions creates the picture the organization cannot build from its own books.
Method: Donor-side 990-PF filings and Schedule I grant lists were processed for every identified foundation that has given to USSA or USSF (TY2018–2024). Seven years of identified donor-side data, reconstructed from the funder’s public record.
Schoonmaker Foundation — Anchor Donor Trajectory
2020
$50K to USSF. 16.3% of Schoonmaker total giving. US Sailing ranks #2.
$50K
2022
$1,000,000 to USSF. 87% of total giving. US Sailing ranks #1. Peak campaign year — dedicated development leadership was in place.
$1M
2023
$750K to USSF. But $3.25M to Bella Mente Quantum Racing Association — a new entity absorbing the majority of Schoonmaker’s giving. US Sailing ranks #2.
$750K
2024
$250K to USSF. $4.25M to Bella Mente. US Sailing’s share of Schoonmaker giving: 3.3%. Foundation distributable amount grew to $8.8M.
$250K
The displacement: Schoonmaker’s total distributable amount grew 25× between 2020 and 2024 — from $351K to $8.8M. The foundation is getting richer and giving more total. US Sailing’s share dropped from 16.3% to 3.3%. The money did not disappear. It went somewhere specific.
$1.41M
Peak Identified Giving
TY2022 — 4 identified donors
$271K
Most Recent (TY2024)
4 identified donors — 81% decline from peak
7 yrs
Donor Data Reconstructed
TY2018–2024, funder-side filings
What the data says about stewardship: The donors who gave structurally did not disappear. Generalist DAFs (NPT, AOGF) are pass-through transactions — not relationships. The private foundations with sailing-specific missions (Schoonmaker, Lotz, Burnham, Siebel) gave because their principals have a personal thesis about the sport. The stewardship opportunity is not acquiring new names. It is rebuilding confidence and structure around the relationships that already exist — and preventing the next displacement.
Section 7
$74.9M Already Flowing — Not to Sailing
Four national funders were analyzed across 42 IRS 990 filings spanning 12 years. These organizations fund youth access, outdoor equity, waterfront stewardship, and adaptive recreation — the same work sailing clubs deliver. None of it reaches sailing.
$74.9M
Total Grants (12 Years)
4 funders · 2,257 recipients
$38M
Relevant to Sailing / LSOs
1,018 recipients scored ≥3
$0
Reaching Sailing Orgs
Zero grants to any sailing entity
| Funder | Years | Total Grants | Recipients | Relevant | What They Fund |
|---|
| REI Cooperative Action Fund |
TY2021–2024 |
$23.8M |
667 |
261 |
Outdoor access, equity, conservation, youth |
| NRPA |
TY2013–2024 |
$37.3M |
1,025 |
530 |
Parks, recreation, community health |
| The Outdoor Foundation |
TY2013–2024 |
$9.5M |
357 |
155 |
Youth outdoor participation, stewardship |
| RBFF |
TY2013–2025 |
$4.2M |
208 |
72 |
Boating, fishing, water recreation access |
The sample: REI alone directed $8.49M in TY2024 to 304 organizations — including Save the Harbor/Save the Bay (Boston), Coastal Watershed Council (Santa Cruz), Austin Youth River Watch, and Paddle4Tomorrow (Atlanta). These organizations do the same work that community sailing centers, yacht club foundations, and maritime education programs already do. The gap is not programmatic capability. It is visibility, translation, and organizational structure.
What this means for development: A development function equipped with grant landscape intelligence — not generic prospecting, but named-recipient, dollar-amount, multi-year data — can identify where mission-aligned dollars are already flowing and build the translation that connects sailing programs to those funding streams. This is not speculative. It is a map of where the money goes.
Section 8
Fiscal Sponsorship — First-Mover Territory
Among established National Governing Bodies, no organization has built a fiscal sponsorship program as a development tool. One emerging-sport NGB has proved the architecture. The field supporting it is a $2.6 billion ecosystem that has tripled in scale since 2000.
$2.6B
Field Size
12,184 projects · 100 sponsors surveyed
73%
Formed Post-2000
3× growth rate vs. prior 40 years
86%
Turn Away Projects
897 projects rejected — demand exceeds capacity
USA Parkour: The First NGB Fiscal Sponsorship Program (2024)
USA Parkour (USPK) — EIN 83-2619231, USOPC-recognized emerging-sport NGB — launched the first documented fiscal sponsorship program in the US NGB sector in 2024. The program sponsors non-competitive parkour community events under USPK’s 501(c)(3) umbrella: Art of Retreat, Obsidian Gathering, Women’s Parkour Movement Gathering.
$3,575
FS Revenue (FY2024)
$36,781
Total USPK Revenue
The scale is micro. USPK’s total organizational revenue is $36,781. The fiscal sponsorship program generated $3,575 in its first year across three projects. But the architecture works. The legal pathway is clear. The governance model — NGB as backbone sponsor for community-led projects — is validated. This is an evolving case study. As parkour’s community grows and more projects enter the pipeline, the numbers will grow with it. The 2023 Fiscal Sponsor Field Scan confirms the trajectory: the field tripled since 2000, demand consistently exceeds capacity, and 86% of sponsors turn away projects. What USPK built at micro-scale, a 45,000-member NGB with 150+ accredited community sailing centers could build at a fundamentally different order of magnitude.
What Fiscal Sponsorship Opens for US Sailing’s Network
| Practitioner | Applies For | Under Whose 501(c)(3) | Funder Category |
|---|
| Adaptive sailing coach |
Disability rights foundation grant |
USSF |
VA, Woodruff, Sinise |
| Maritime education startup |
STEM education funding |
USSF |
NSF, S.D. Bechtel Jr., Autodesk |
| Blue-space health researcher |
Community health grant |
USSF |
RWJF, SAMHSA, CDC |
| Community sailing center |
Youth access / outdoor equity |
USSF |
REI, Outdoor Foundation, 11th Hour |
| Sailing-for-veterans program |
Veteran wellness grant |
USSF |
Bob Woodruff Fdn, Gary Sinise Fdn |
None of these grants would appear on the NGB’s radar through traditional development. The Development Director would not write these proposals. The Foundation board would not identify these funders. The practitioners see them — because they are in those communities. They cannot access the money without 501(c)(3) status. The admin fee (5–8%) generates unrestricted revenue that grows as the network grows. It does not depend on any single donor. It does not collapse when a board member departs.
Conservative Revenue Model (USSF Model C Pilot)
| Year 1 | Year 3 | Year 5 |
|---|
| Sponsored projects | 5 | 15 | 25–30 |
| Avg. project revenue | $40–80K | $60–120K | $75–150K |
| Total funds through USSF | $200–400K | $900K–1.8M | $1.9–4.5M |
| Admin fee revenue (7%) | $14–28K | $63–126K | $133–315K |
| New funder relationships | 5–10 | 15–30 | 25–50+ |
The critical metric is not admin fee revenue. It is the new institutional funder relationships — the foundations, government agencies, and corporate philanthropy programs that sponsored projects access through the platform that the NGB would never pursue independently. Each is a permanent expansion of the organization’s grant surface area.
2023 Fiscal Sponsor Field Scan (NNFS / Social Impact Commons): 100 sponsors surveyed nationally steward $2.6B in project funds, $576M in government funding, and 18,602 employees and contractors. Median portfolio: 29 projects. Fee range: 5–12% of revenue. 78% recover full costs. 86% turn away projects — demand exceeds capacity. 73% of all sponsorship programs were formed after 2000. The field is growing because the need is structural: community-based organizations with programmatic legitimacy need 501(c)(3) infrastructure to access institutional funding. US Sailing’s 150+ accredited community sailing centers are exactly that profile.
Sources: IRS 990 e-files via GivingTuesday S3 Data Lake (TY2013–2025, 42 filings for partnership orgs + NGB comparative set); donor-side 990-PF and Schedule I filings (TY2018–2024) for Schoonmaker, Lotz, Burnham, Siebel, NPT, AOGF, AGF; FY2024 consolidated audit + amended returns; public USSF board minutes through March 13, 2023; US Sailing Reach Impact Report 2025; NationSwell Collaboratives (nationswell.com, April 2026); 11th Hour Racing grantee database (11thhourracing.org, April 2026); RWJF (rwjf.org); Houston Endowment (houstonendowment.org — Greenspaces program quote verbatim); Annie E. Casey (aecf.org); Kresge (kresge.org); Giving USA 2025; National Philanthropic Trust Charitable Giving Statistics (Feb 2026); Cerulli Associates “Great Wealth Transfer” 2024; IndependentSector Annual Health Report (Dec 2024); REI Cooperative Action Fund 990s (TY2021–2024, EIN 854299419); NRPA 990s (TY2013–2024, EIN 135563001); The Outdoor Foundation 990s (TY2013–2024, EIN 841549065); RBFF 990s (TY2013–2025, EIN 541915490); USA Parkour FY2024 Annual Report + uspk.org; 2023 Fiscal Sponsor Field Scan (NNFS / Social Impact Commons, Nov 2023); Greg Colvin,
Fiscal Sponsorship: 6 Ways to Do It Right; White et al. 2019
Sci Rep; Frumkin et al. 2017 (PMC5744722); OIA 2025 Participation Trends. Analysis:
Harbor Commons /
Full Harbor.