you are never alone
4 Oakes Foundation · Tualatin, Oregon
Four generations served — on both sides of the family. This is what came after.
We are new at this and we are figuring it out in public. Right now that means five educational/vocational grants in the local area for 2026.
That’s PaPa Charlie on the left and my dad on the right.
FAQs
wHO ARE YOU?
1
Great question. Not a web developer for sure. So stay tuned.
The photo on the left is my grandfather. On the right is my father. Oakes is a family name, not a misspelling. Our paternal grandmother was Louise Oakes Konze. Her and PaPa Charlie have a hell of a story.
Short version. PaPa Charlie was seventeen and wanted to go to college with no money to do it. A group of Catholics at St. Edward's in Austin decided he was worth paying for. College. Then dental school. They never asked to be paid back. He joined the Army anyway and retired a colonel, and he spent the rest of his life doing it for other people.
That's the whole idea. We are trying to be those people for somebody else.
Oakes goes back further than that. James T. Oakes was Louise's dad. My great grandfather. He came from England to Tennessee at seventeen with nothing. Sharecropped cotton in Texas. Died owning a hundred and sixty acres and nine kids, and four of his sons went to the Second World War.
so that's the Oakes. here's the 4.
Nathan. My dad. My mom Juli. Me.
Not four siblings, not four generations, nothing tidy like that. Four people who got me through it.
And there were others. A lot of others. my bowling team was four too. Fro, Jake, Mikey and me.
that's the thing I keep noticing. it's never one person who shows up. it's four.
my wife and our two dogs Oyster Romero “Tiny Daddy” Konze and Princess Girlfriend “Chooka Chooka” Konze (we expanded to a third when we got back to Tualatin)
more family stuff going up as I get to it.
What do you do?
2
Short answer? Throw money at problems.
Long answer. In 2026 we do one thing. Education. Five Unc Grants, nine thousand dollars each, Portland metro. Board votes and we announce the winners later this year. The money is in your hands by May 2027, and it goes straight to your school or loan servicer.
Applications are open. Everything about it and how it works is here.
Why Unc. Because I'm Unc to about everybody in this community, and it seemed dishonest to call it something fancier than what it is.
Why nine thousand and not ten. Because ten cents of every dollar has to run the place, so ninety cents is what's left to give away. Forty five thousand divided by five is nine. I could have called it ten and quietly funded it out of next year. I'd rather the number be true.
That's it. That's the plan for the year.
We built four funds and only one of them is open. Veterans. Education. Wellness. And a fund for saying yes fast when a local nonprofit needs eight hundred bucks by Friday. Three of them are sitting there waiting. We would rather do one thing all the way than four things halfway, and we would rather tell you that than list four programs and deliver one.
The other thing we are doing this year is getting to know Tualatin. Rotary. Chamber. Finding a couple of local businesses we actually want to be in this with. And learning how to run a nonprofit, which is going about how you'd expect.
why do you do it?
3
My therapist and I are working on that. As my dad says, that’s a process. So until then. I am doing it because my dad is the baddest mammy jammy in the world. Take a look at this interview.
how are you different
4
90 cents of every dollar goes to funding our programs. 10 cents covers operations, which is admin and fundraising. Our books are always open to anybody who asks, and we publish them every December.
We will raise fifty grand this year, all of it local. Forty five goes out as five Unc Grants. Five runs the place. That's the whole budget, there is nothing else in it.
And if we don't raise it, the five students get their money anyway. That's a board resolution, not a nice thing to say. Nobody's education depends on how good I am at asking.
As of August we're officially a 501(c)(3). The letter's dated August 26 and it's retroactive to the day we incorporated. so anything you give us this year is deductible. ask your accountant, not me. I'm not one. Nathan is.
Do you see a donate button on here? There isn't one. We are not chasing a hundred anonymous checks online. We are trying to find a handful of businesses in this town who want to be in it with us, and we'd rather have that conversation face to face.
Board is three people and all three of us are Konzes. Me, my brother Nathan, and Heather. I'm not going to pretend that's an independent board. What I can tell you is what's written into the bylaws. Nathan keeps the records and Heather moves the money, on purpose, because those two jobs shouldn't be the same person. Anything over twenty five hundred takes two of us to sign. Nobody takes a salary. And nobody on this board, or in our families, can ever get a dollar out of this thing. That one is absolute.
We have no idea what we are doing. Five Unc Grants in the PDX metro in 2026. Keeping it simple while we learn. We look forward to growing next year.