The Maclellan Family Foundations is a group of grant-makers connected by family history and by a common commitment to fulfilling the Great Commission of Jesus Christ through strategic giving.  The largest and oldest of these, the Maclellan Foundation, Inc., expresses its purpose as “serving national and international organizations committed to furthering the Kingdom of Christ and select local organizations, which foster the spiritual welfare of the community, by providing financial and leadership resources to extend the Kingdom of God to every tribe, nation, people, and tongue.”  

Associated with the Maclellan Foundation are three supporting organizations—the Helen M. Tipton Trust, the Christian Education Charitable Trust, and the Hugh and Charlotte Maclellan Charitable Trust—which independently support a limited list of grant recipients as specified by their charters. Although their respective trustees make decisions on particular grant requests independently, the family of Maclellan-related foundations and trusts now accepts applications for funding only through a common, on-line application. 

The Robert L. and Kathrina H. Maclellan Foundation is a separate grant-maker, sharing family origins and Christian purposes with the Maclellan Foundation but pursuing specific strategies of its own, with particular emphasis on the city of Chattanooga.  Nonetheless, as a part of the Maclellan Family Foundations, the shared on-line application is also the sole conduit for grant applications to the Robert L. and Kathrina H. Maclellan Foundation.