The Bunbury Fund supports non-profit organizations making significant impacts across central New Jersey, and most specifically Mercer County, to strengthen their capacity to effectively advance their missions toward sustainable, organizational maturity.

Fall 2020 Update

The Bunbury Fund has revised its timing and approach for the second cycle of funding in 2020.  Our fall grantmaking will be part of a collaborative of funds supporting the Community Foundation’s COVID-19 Relief and Recovery Phase II.  Bunbury Fund applications can be submitted on a rolling basis beginning in late August with advisors reviewing requests monthly through the fall.  Revised Bunbury Fund Guidelines can be found here.  Please check back here for any new postings.

The Bunbury Legacy

In 1952, longtime Princeton resident Dean Mathey created The Bunbury Company as a private, grant-making foundation to further his charitable intentions. With a touch of humor, he named the foundation after Uncle Bunbury in Oscar Wilde’s play, The Importance of Being Ernest. For years when an important project needed funding, and friends came seeking Dean’s support, he would routinely defer the decision until he could make a consultation with his valued advisors at Bunbury.

Mathey died in 1972, but his philanthropic legacy lived on through The Bunbury Company’s grantmaking. Over the next 40 years, the foundation awarded more than $75 million to central New Jersey non-profits working on important social, environmental and educational projects. . In 2015, The Bunbury Company started a new chapter as a donor-advised fund (DAF) at the Princeton Area Community Foundation. The Bunbury Fund at the Community Foundation continues original foundation’s legacy of dedication to supporting the nonprofit sector, now with a focus on capacity-building.

Photo by Tyler Tooker.

We recently celebrated the retirement of Sam Lambert, a Bunbury Fund Advisor. Sam, thank you for your countless hours of volunteer service to our community!