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.

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.

Organizations may only apply once per grant cycle. Once awarded a grant, an organization must sit out for 12 months. Planning grant recipients may request to move forward sooner. These requests will be considered at the discretion of the Fund Advisors.

Download a complete copy of the 2020 Bunbury Fund guidelines.

Seating for our in-person March 2, 2020 grant information session is at capacity, but we’re also offering web-based access to the meeting. To register, email Pamela Mason. 

To view slides from our September 2019 grant information session, click here.

If you have any questions, please email us at bunburyfund@pacf.org

To begin the online application process, please click here.

To download a list of the 2019 Grantees click here.

The Bunbury Fund sponsored a seminar for board and executive leaders on The Power Good Governance. To learn more about that event, read 12 Takeaways from our Good Governance Seminar.