An Update from the Bunbury Fund

An update from the Bunbury Fund Advisors (10/2024)

The Bunbury Fund Advisors have identified 11 organizations that will receive an initial round of Sunset Grants this year and early next year. Including a pledge to the Community Foundation, the initial sunset grant awards total $12,750,000.

2024 sunset grants will be awarded to:

Boys & Girls Clubs of Mercer County
Capital City Community Foundation dba I Am Trenton
NonProfitConnect
Outdoor Equity Alliance
The Father Center of New Jersey
Trenton Museum Society

The initial round of 2025 sunset grants will be awarded to:

Anchor House
HomeFront
Community Action Service Center dba RISE
The Rescue Mission of Trenton
Trenton Area Soup Kitchen

The Bunbury Fund plans to distribute another, final round of sunset grants in 2025. Fund Advisors will notify nonprofits under consideration for those grants early next year.

The Bunbury Fund is a donor advised fund which was opened at the Princeton Area Community Foundation in 2015. The Fund originated from the assets of The Bunbury Company, a longstanding regional private foundation with over 65 years of philanthropic service.

Sunset Announcement from the Bunbury Fund, June 2024

Earlier this year, the advisors of The Bunbury Fund agreed to sunset, or spend down, the Bunbury Fund remaining balance as we mark our 10-year anniversary as a donor advised fund (DAF) at the Princeton Area Community Foundation. The Bunbury Fund Advisors began this discussion two years ago as part of evaluating our impact, mission and long-term intent. The Bunbury Fund had a prior 50+ year life as an independent private foundation, The Bunbury Company. When the Foundation dissolved to become a DAF, there was always an intention to sunset the Fund at some point in the future.

Our focus on nonprofit capacity building has been rewarded with the good work that has been the fruit of our investments these last 10 years. Half of the $7,000,000 in grants we have made over the past decade went into a multitude of strategic plans, systems upgrades, communications strategies, governance review and strengthening. About one-third of our grants went toward multi-year projects to enhance overall nonprofit performance. As we approach the 10-year mark, we see an opportunity to have an even greater impact on the communities being served by our nonprofit sector.

Our sunset grantmaking focuses on making a series of larger scale transformational grants that can significantly enhance a nonprofit’s ability to deliver its mission, effectively and with confidence. We anticipate the bulk of these Sunset Grants will be made to nonprofits we have funded in recent years.

Our goal has always been to produce the best results our grantmaking could achieve for the communities in our region. Through our experience as Bunbury Fund Advisors, we have learned much from you and other nonprofit leaders about the organizations in our region and the impact of our grantmaking. We have also learned that our current levels of grantmaking have not been sufficient to address the scale of the challenges facing our communities. We believe the return on our scaled-up investment will be a far greater community benefit.

Please see our set of questions and answers developed to provide more information about the sunsetting process. These will be posted to the Bunbury Fund webpage and will be updated as we go through this process. We ask that you reach out to Danny Freund at dfreund@pacf.org with any questions.

Please note, the Bunbury Fund has one competitive grant cycle open currently and plans to have another one in the spring of 2025. These are wholly distinct from the Sunset Grants.

With deep appreciation and gratitude for your commitment to our communities,

The Bunbury Fund Advisors
Nancy Kieling, Shannon Mason, Meredith Moore, Carolyn Sanderson, Jamie Kyte Sapoch, John Thurber, Jay Watson