From Intention to First Grant in Ninety Days
Most families spend longer deciding how to give than they ever intended. The Launch Path is one engagement, one agreement, and one team: the thinking, the formation, and the launch, with every professional boundary stated plainly in the document you sign.
The Giving Blueprint
Before anything is formed, the thinking is done. Meridian works with you to articulate what the giving is for, then walks the vehicle landscape at educational altitude — private foundation, donor-advised fund, direct giving, or a combination — comparing control, privacy, cost, and permanence. You leave with a written blueprint: the recommended structure, the governance design, and the plan for the first year of giving. The blueprint is yours to act on with us or without us.
Formation and tax exemption
Clemenza Law Group, our affiliated law firm, forms the entity, drafts the governing documents and policies, prepares and files the Form 1023 (most funded foundations do not qualify for the shorter EZ form), and handles state charitable registration where required. Formation outside New York is performed only through locally admitted counsel, coordinated by the Firm and billed at cost. This happens inside the same agreement you sign with Meridian, so there is nothing separate to sign, one point of contact, and one invoice. The agreement identifies these steps as legal services and confirms that you may use your family’s own lawyer for them instead; the path is the same either way.
Clemenza Law Group is a law firm owned by Meridian's founder. The legal steps of the Launch Path are legal services provided by the law firm; the other steps are not. Your agreement states which is which and your right to choose independent counsel for the legal steps.
The Launch Concierge
The determination letter is where most advisors stop and where most families stall. The Launch Concierge is Meridian's onboarding: your portal goes live with the foundation's records in order from day one; the governance kit — bylaws calendar, policy suite, minute templates — is installed; the compliance calendar is built around your actual filing dates; and the first grant docket is prepared for your board's first real meeting. When a Meridian retainer begins within sixty days of formation, the onboarding fee is waived.
The Launch Path is one flat fee, published on the engagements page, plus government filing fees: the IRS charges $600 for Form 1023, and state fees vary. It includes the Giving Blueprint and the Launch Concierge.
See the feeThree moments when a foundation stops being an idea
After a Liquidity Event
A sale, an exit, or an IPO has created both the means and the tax moment. The window for deliberate structure is now — before default decisions harden into permanent ones.
An Estate Plan Taking Effect
The documents call for a foundation, and the family now has to build the institution the plan assumed. We turn a paragraph in a trust into a working grantmaker.
Formalizing a Family's Giving
The checks have been generous but ad hoc for years. The family is ready for structure: shared purpose on paper, a governance rhythm, and giving the next generation can inherit.
Asked, Answered
Can we use our own lawyer for formation?
Yes. The Blueprint and the Launch Concierge are the same either way, and we coordinate the calendar with whoever does the legal work. Most families keep everything under one agreement with us because it is simpler.
Do we have to form a private foundation?
No, and the Blueprint does not assume one. For some families a donor-advised fund, direct giving, or a combination serves the intention better. The Blueprint compares the vehicles honestly at educational altitude, and its recommendation follows your goals — not a product.
Is ninety days realistic?
Ninety days is the working plan from engagement to first grant docket, and each step above shows where the weeks go. The one timeline no one controls is the IRS's processing of the exemption application — so the plan is built to make everything else ready the moment the determination letter arrives, and we tell you plainly when government timing, not preparation, is the constraint.
What does Meridian actually do versus the lawyers?
Our team does the thinking before formation and the building after it, and coordinates the whole path. The legal steps in the middle are performed by Clemenza Law Group inside the same agreement. The seam is written into that agreement, not into separate paperwork.
Ninety days starts with one conversation
Tell us where the intention stands — a liquidity event on the horizon, an estate plan in motion, or a family ready to formalize — and we will map the path from there.
Begin the Launch Path