Virginia G. Piper Charitable Trust Awards 10,000th Grant in 25th Anniversary Year

Stardust receives milestone grant to enhance Gifts in Kind effort; founder Jerry Bisgrove recognized.

Virginia G. Piper Charitable Trust awarded its 10,000^th grant in its 25^th year of serving Maricopa County nonprofits with grants, capacity building, and partnerships. This milestone grant, presented to Stardust, is part of the $18.5 million in grants awarded by Piper Trust during its 2025 fiscal year. These grants reflect the Trust’s conviction that nonprofits play an essential role in the community’s health, strength, and prosperity. Guided by founder Virginia Galvin Piper’s steadfast belief in philanthropy, the Trust honors the hard work, dedication, and innovation of all nonprofits and community partners serving the people of Maricopa County and remains committed to supporting their ever-changing needs.

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Stardust receives milestone grant to enhance Gifts in Kind effort; Stardust founder Jerry Bisgrove (left) recognized by Steve Zabilski, president and CEO, Virginia G. Piper Charitable Trust.

Milestone Grant

Piper Trust’s 10,000^th grant, for $250,000, will help Stardust (formerly known as Stardust Non-Profit Building Supplies) expand on a collaborative effort that is designed to efficiently receive, store, and distribute high-quality and new donated goods to individuals and families in Maricopa County through nonprofits. Most nonprofits lack the capacity to manage receiving large-scale material donations that are often available—and sometimes directly offered to them—from major retailers and corporations. This type of collaborative effort, such as Stardust’s, where bulk items are donated to communities by large-scale businesses, is known as a “Gifts in Kind program” and/or a “material resource system.”

Stardust, established by Jerry and Debi Bisgrove in 1997, serves the community via its two locations in Glendale and Mesa, where new and gently used building materials are sold to the public at affordable prices. The Bisgroves had a vision to strengthen communities through the reuse and/or redistribution of resources. Today, Stardust’s Gifts in Kind program annually distributes over $50 million in donated materials to nonprofits, serving over 200,000 individuals and families while diverting several thousand tons of usable materials from landfills.

“Stardust received its first Piper Trust grant more than 20 years ago,” Bisgrove said. “It is so meaningful that the Trust is again by our side and supporting us with this special grant as we work to scale this effort.”

In 2021, Stardust’s executive director, Karen Jayne, was selected as a Piper Fellow. Jayne designed her Piper Fellowship around exploring social enterprise opportunities for Stardust’s future, including ways to expand its Gifts in Kind program. Fast forward to 2024, Stardust tested the concept of a “hub-and-spoke” distribution model, similar to how a food bank operates a network distribution system. Stardust’s expanded model, supported by an initial $100,000 grant, powered the delivery of goods valued at $11 million and provided benefit to more than 100,000 individuals and their families. The outcome far exceeded the project’s goal.

“This grant will enable us to further our nonprofit partnerships so that together we can build an effective and efficient material resource system,” Jayne said.

The milestone 10,000^th grant from Piper Trust will enable Stardust and its collaborators to work toward a statewide system distributing $1 billion in usable materials annually. This distribution model could support 2,000 Arizona nonprofits and ultimately provide 1 million individuals/families with basic necessities and household equipment—items often unaffordable for people with limited financial resources (e.g., diapers, hygiene supplies, clothing, children’s books and toys, durable medical equipment, fans, air conditioners).

“This 10,000^th grant occurring in the Trust’s 25^th Anniversary year is so symbolic of Virginia Piper’s approach to philanthropy, which focused on investing in leaders and in creative, collaborative ways to do the most good,” said Steve Zabilski, president and CEO of Virginia G. Piper Charitable Trust. “Jerry Bisgrove’s long-time philanthropic support for this community, along with Karen Jayne’s drive to scale this effort, truly represent the intentions of Virginia’s legacy.”

Fiscal Year 2025 Grant Awards

During fiscal year 2025 (for the period covering April 1, 2024 to March 31, 2025) Piper Trust awarded more than $18.5 million in support of nonprofits and programs in Maricopa County. Following outlines published grantmaking by the Trust’s core areas; access the online Grantmaking History search tool to view grants awarded in 2025 and over the Trust’s 25 years.

TRUST-INITIATED GRANT AWARDS—TOTAL: $9,326,000

Trust-Initiated Grantmaking: grants conceived by the Trust or in partnership with other funders/organizations; these grants are often unique long-term investments that carry broad impact. Following lists the breakdown by core areas and categories.

Arts and Culture—Total: $125,000

Children—Total: $1,355,000

Education—Total: $205,000

Healthcare—Total: $1,560,000

Older Adults—Total: $920,000

Religious Organizations—Total: $50,000

Collaborative/Legacy Funding—Total: $1,440,000

Trust-initiated grants provided for programs/projects working to scale and/or may be in collaboration with other funders, partners, nonprofits; or funds in support of Virginia Piper’s legacy grantmaking.

Homelessness Prevention—Total: $1,100,000

Trust-initiated grants provided in collaboration with other funders and partners focused on homelessness prevention; the Trust awards grants to organizations engaged in eviction prevention and housing stability efforts targeting the workers earning low-incomes and older adults with fixed incomes. To optimize the use of housing and homelessness resources in the community and support family stability, Piper Trust seeks to decrease the rate of people becoming homeless due to an immediate financial hardship.

Holiday Grants Program—Total: $1,266,000

Trust-initiated grants to large and small organizations that provide robust holiday programs serving a broad spectrum of people in need or offer high-touch, sustained services to specific populations such as youth experiencing homelessness, older adults, and people with disabilities.

Immediate Community Need Grantmaking—Total: $625,000

Trust-initiated grants that respond to time-sensitive needs often due to humanitarian crises or natural disasters. Examples for this timeframe include supporting emergency aid for communities affected by hurricanes Helene and Milton and supporting heat relief efforts for people in Maricopa County.

Piper Fellows Program—Total: $680,000

A Trust-initiated program, the 2024 Class of Piper Fellows is comprised of eight nonprofit leaders with each organization awarded $30,000 to support the Fellows’ respective self-designed, professional development plan; each organization is also awarded $10,000 to support related board/staff development. Upon completion of their Piper Fellowships, Fellows’ organizations are eligible to apply for a $50,000 Organizational Enhancement Grant. The 2024 Piper Fellows are: Tami Bohannon, president and CEO, Foundation for Senior Living; Ellen Conn, general manager, Childsplay; Kim Graham, CEO, Arizona Educational Foundation; Christopher Hamby, executive director, TheaterWorks; Kayla Kolar, president and CEO, House of Refuge; Tracy Lindbergh, chief of staff, Sonoran University of Health Sciences; and Jennifer O’Connell, executive director, Down Syndrome Network.

RESPONSIVE GRANT AWARDS—TOTAL: $6,045,210

Responsive Grantmaking: application-based grants proposed by a nonprofit working in partnership with a Trust program officer; these are grants to support nonprofit programs, capital campaigns, or capital projects that align with the Trust’s defined grantmaking. Following lists a breakdown by core funding area.

Arts and Culture—Total: $1,775,000

Arizona Theatre Company ($225,000) • Musical Instrument Museum ($375,000) • Phoenix Art Museum ($500,000) • Western Spirit: Scottsdale’s Museum of the West ($675,000)

Children—Total: $1,524,210

Maggie’s Place ($240,000) • Southwest Autism Research & Resource Center ($750,000) • Televerde Foundation ($88,210) • The Roman Catholic Diocese of Phoenix ($35,000) • Touchstone Health Services ($161,000) • UMOM New Day Centers ($250,000)

Healthcare—Total: $996,000

Arizona Lions Vision and Hearing Foundation ($246,000) • Banner Health Foundation ($200,000) • Barrow Neurological Foundation ($100,000) • Oral Educational Opportunities for the Hearing Impaired ($75,000) • Valley of the Sun YMCA ($175,000) • Valleywise Health Foundation ($200,000)

Older Adults—Total: $1,250,000

Arizona Pet Project ($75,000) • Aster Aging, Inc. ($200,000) • Foothills Caring Corps, Inc. ($200,000) • Gompers ($100,000) • Justa Center, Inc. ($75,000) • Rehoboth Community Development Corporation ($200,000) • Tempe Community Action Agency, Inc. ($400,000)

Religious Organizations—Total: $500,000

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Phoenix ($500,000)

Financial Report 2024

Piper Trust’s Annual Financial Report includes full, audited financials and grant award totals for the Trust’s 2024 fiscal year (April 1, 2023 – March 31, 2024). On a cash basis, grants and Direct Charitable Activities (DCAs) were more than $31 million, and totaled more than $72 million over the two-year period. These outsized grantmaking payouts reflect the Trust’s deep commitment to supporting the community with “extra” during the pandemic and post-pandemic environments. DCAs are programs/projects initiated by Piper Trust that often support long-term investments, collaborations, or targeted efforts focused on solving specific challenges.

This press release is dedicated to the memory of one of the Trust’s founding Trustees, Laura Grafman, who reminded us always to “never lose sight of the Trustees’ promise to Virginia Piper to be careful, creative, and compassionate stewards of her legacy.”

About Virginia G. Piper Charitable Trust:

Virginia G. Piper Charitable Trust supports organizations that enrich health, well-being, and opportunity for the people of Maricopa County, Arizona. Since it began awarding grants in 2000, Piper Trust has invested more than $745 million in local nonprofits and programs. Piper Trust grantmaking areas are healthcare and medical research, children, older adults, arts and culture, education, and religious organizations. For more information, visit pipertrust.org | X | Facebook | LinkedIn.

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"This 10,000th grant occurring in Piper Trust’s 25th Anniversary year is symbolic of Virginia Piper’s approach to philanthropy, which focused on investing in leaders and in collaborative ways to do the most good," said Steve Zabilski, president and CEO.