· Private foundation
Jay & Shirley Marks Foundation
Its FY2025 filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and did not take unsolicited requests; check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k3 grants · $14k
- $10k–50k2 grants · $28k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| CONTEMPORY ART MUSEUM | $15,000 |
| HOUSTON FOOD BANK | $13,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF HOUSTON | $5,000 |
| HOLOCAUST MUSEUM | $5,000 |
| RIVER OAKS BAPTIST SCHOOL | $3,500 |
Do your dollars go where the need is?
Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, then read against the area’s typical level.
Your human-services grants (FY17–24, $148k) land where the poverty rate runs at 16%, against an area that typically sits at 12%. 100% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of your grants land in higher-need ZIPs.
Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty linein the grantee’s ZIP, averaged from the tracts in that ZIP; grantee ZIP can differ from where services are delivered.
US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are actually delivered. Need from public data — U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA — shown as context about the area, never attributed to your giving.
Who you back again
Which organizations you funded more than once, and which you funded a single time. Each grantee is matched to its own filings.
10 repeat relationships — 5 still active in FY2025, 5 since wound down.
How the two cohorts compare
Organizations
Total granted
Median revenue growth · since first grant
Still filing today
New vs renewed · share of each year
In FY2025, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 went to new ones.
Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant
First-time = a grantee’s first year in your filing window; renewed = funded in an earlier year too. As a portfolio matures the renewed share naturally climbs — once funded, an org stays “renewable” — so the signal is the years that buck it (a new-grantee intake wave). The earliest year is left-censored: relationships that predate the data read as “new.” Theme is the grantee’s IRS cause.
Backed again, and grew
- JFJEWISH FAMILY SERVICE5× · 2017–2023 · $147k · revenue +15%
- BSBOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA INC4× · 2017–2023 · $60k · revenue +38%
- HSHouston Symphony Society3× · 2018–2021 · $31k · revenue +55%
Funded once
- HSHOUSTON SMYPHONY SOCIETYone grant, 2017 · $12k
- UJUH JS SCHOLARSHIP ENDone grant, 2021 · $10k
- CBCONGREGATION BETH ISREAL INCone grant, 2017 · $9k
Repeat = funded in two or more distinct years; growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.
The map has a center of gravity: the average direction from the rest of the sector toward the organizations the foundation funds — the shape of its giving. Scoring every nonprofit along that direction surfaces the ones that look most like the portfolio. These are the closest matchesthat aren’t grantees — a resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.
Chartered by a unanimous act of congress, the museum is america's national institution for the documentation, study, interpretation, and education of holocaust history and serves as our country's memorial to the victims of the holocaust.…
The museum's mission statement is: "to discover, interpret, and disseminate - through scientific research and education - knowledge about human cultures, the natural world, and the universe."
The weitzman national museum of american jewish history, on independence mall in philadelphia, presents educational programs and experiences that preserve, explore, and celebrate the history of jews in america. its purpose is to connect…
Organization's mission statement true to the ambitious vision of its founder and her spirit of creative risk-taking, the mission of the isabella stewart gardner museum is: - to bring to life and preserve the rich historic collection; - to…
The metropolitan museum of art collects, studies, conserves, and presents significant works of art across all times and cultures in order to connect people to creativity, knowledge, and ideas.
For over 150 years, the 92nd street y, new york has been serving its communities and the larger world by bringing people together (continued on schedule o)and providing exceptional, groundbreaking programs in the performing and visual…
*increase and diffusion of knowledge* is the mission set forth by james smithson. the smithsonian endeavors to shape the future by preserving our heritage, discovering new knowledge, and sharing our resources with the world.
The Cleveland Orchestra inspires and enriches lives by creating extraordinary musical experiences at the highest level of artistic excellence.
Deeply rooted in our local beverly hills community and influenced by cultural change, the wallis annenberg center for the performing arts, a public-private partnership with the city of beverly hills, strives to be a site for the…
Across the fields of performing arts, visual arts, education and outreach, business & policy, astc provides insight, generates ideas, and promotes collaboration to address present challenges and create a shared future. astc operates as a…
The san francisco jazz organization (the organization) is a recognized international leader in jazz creation, presentation, and education. the organization explores the full spectrum of jazz, from the music's origins in the african…
Harmonia Stellarum is an ensemble of professional vocalists and instrumentalists specialized in historically informed performance practice who seek to inspire, entertain, and enlighten audiences with meaningful, historically informed…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Jewish Family Service and the most unlike its peers is The Innocence Project Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
11 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.
Each one resolved to its own IRS returns and tracked year by year — your grant beside their revenue from every source. Association, dated; never a causal claim.
Counted here: distinct organizations you funded across 2017–2025, not grant rows in a single year — so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 11 of the 36 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile; the rest are funded organizations whose filings we could not track year by year.
Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee
Each org by its size and your share of it — top-left is where you’re load-bearing
Go grantee by grantee — a decade per org, and how each moved after you funded them
A decade per grantee — revenue shaded, your grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.
- Who funds JEWISH FAMILY SERVICE ↗
- Who funds BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA INC ↗
- Who funds Houston Symphony Society ↗
- Who funds The Houston Food Bank ↗
- Who funds JEWISH COMMUNITY CENTER OF DALLAS ↗
- Who funds BARRINGTON STAGE COMPANY INC ↗
- Who funds THE INNOCENCE PROJECT INC ↗
- Who funds EDITH WHARTON RESTORATION INC ↗
- Who funds ANTI-DEFAMATION LEAGUE ↗
- Who funds THE MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS HOUSTON ↗
- Who funds TEXAS JEWISH HISTORICAL SOCIETY INC ↗
The grantmakers whose grantees overlap with yours far more than size alone predicts. Each orbits closer the stronger the alignment; the arcs between them show where they also fund each other. Here it reads as a set of overlaps that mostly run through you, not between each other.
Open a dossier: Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund
Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. A research starting point: overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.
Government reliance of your grantees
Every dot is one organization Jay & Shirley Marks Foundation funds. Left–right is the share of its income from government; up–down is the share from you. Bigger dots raise more. Filter to federal, a single department, or state — and drag the year to watch it move.
- Edith Wharton Restoration Inc — 1% of income from government
- Boston Symphony Orchestra Inc — 0% of income from government
Government income is each org’s traced federal awards (USASpending — grants and contracts) plus state payments (open checkbooks) as a share of its total revenue (IRS Form 990); the self-reported government-grant line (990 line 1e) is carried for cross-check: a grantee that reports government grants we could not trace to a source is left off the chart rather than shown as receiving none. An association, not a claim that your grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first — a floor, not a census; state records exist for 9 states, so a grantee outside them shows no state figure (dimmed) rather than a false zero. Federal award amounts are obligations, which can span years, so a single-year share is indicative. 990 filings lag 12–24 months.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to Jay & Shirley Marks Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Jay & Shirley Marks Foundation through trustees and officers whose names appear on both boards. Search for your organization and Plinth traces the shortest route it can evidence.
Each link is a name appearing on two organizations’ public IRS 990 filings, matched on that name and, where the filings support it, on location. A same-state match has geographic support, which is a second matching feature rather than confirmation that the two are one person; a cross-state one is the likeliest to be two people who share a name. Every hop shows its tier, low-confidence and distant paths are held back rather than guessed, and it is worth confirming the person before you use the introduction.