How much does Mary and Oliver Emerson Foundation give?

Mary and Oliver Emerson Foundation reported 1 grants totaling $11,600 in its FY2023 IRS filing. It funded between 1 and 45 organizations a year over FY2018 to FY2023.

What does Mary and Oliver Emerson Foundation fund?

By grant dollars over FY2018 to FY2023, its largest causes are Education (27%), Religion (21%), Philanthropy (18%).

Who are Mary and Oliver Emerson Foundation's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2018 to FY2023: Laurel School ($40k), The Galen Foundation ($9k), The Trustees of the Smith College ($5k).

Does Mary and Oliver Emerson Foundation fund new organizations?

In FY2023, 0% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Does Mary and Oliver Emerson Foundation accept unsolicited applications?

Its most recent filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and does not take unsolicited requests. Check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.

Which funders back the same organizations as Mary and Oliver Emerson Foundation?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include The Cleveland Foundation, The Kelvin & Eleanor Smith Foundation, Jewish Federation of Cleveland.

Where is Mary and Oliver Emerson Foundation based?

Mary and Oliver Emerson Foundation is based in OH.

Mary and Oliver Emerson Foundation

Mary and Oliver Emerson Foundation at a glance

· Private foundation

Mary and Oliver Emerson Foundation

Its FY2023 filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and did not take unsolicited requests; check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.

$12k

Granted FY2023

Grants FY2023

States reached

$12k

Largest

01What it funds

0192% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2018 to 2023.

Education$52kReligion$42kPhilanthropy$36kHealth$11kArts & Culture$9kHuman Services$6kEnvironment$4kYouth Development$4kOther$0

02FY2023 · 1 grant

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

$11,600

Median grant

States reached

Total assets

Largest grants
Recipient	Amount
ST PAUL'S EPISCOPAL CHURCH	$11,600

02The need

Does the money reach high-need areas?

Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.

show:

Its human-services grants (FY18–21, $4k) land where the poverty rate runs at 17%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 100% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount

How this is measured

Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty line in the grantee’s ZIP, averaged from the tracts in that ZIP.

Which US states its grants reach

How this is measured

US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are delivered. Need from public data (U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA), shown as context about the area, never attributed to the funder’s giving.

03Its grantees

repeat funding

Who it funds again

Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.

100%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$196k · 47 repeat orgs$380 to everyone else

47 repeat relationships: 1 still active in FY2023, 46 since wound down.

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$196k

$380

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+37%

+96%

Still filing today

60%

67%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2023, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant

EducationArts & CultureEnvironmentHealthInternationalHuman ServicesOther

How this is measured

First-time means a grantee’s first year in the filing window; renewed means funded in an earlier year too. The renewed share climbs naturally as a portfolio matures, so the signal is a year that bucks it (a wave of new grantees). 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

LS
LAUREL SCHOOL
4× · 2018–2021 · $40k · revenue +30%
TT
THE TRUSTEES OF THE SMITH COLLEGE
4× · 2018–2021 · $5k · revenue +31%
BR
BENJAMIN ROSE INSTITUTE
4× · 2018–2021 · $4k · revenue +1%

Funded once

TG
THE GARDEN CLUB OF CLEVELANDgraduated
one grant, 2019 · $230 · revenue +96%
CF
CLEVE FOOD BANK
one grant, 2018 · $100
LP
Lucky Pup Rescue
one grant, 2019 · $50

How this is measured

Repeat means funded in two or more distinct years. Growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.

04Its field

Closest unfunded matches

The nonprofits that most resemble its grantees but are not funded by it, scored along the direction from the rest of the field toward the portfolio. A resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.

Lehigh University

The university's goal in the coming decade is to advance learning through the integration of teaching, research and service to others. the core of this goal is to prepare graduates to engage with the world and lead lives of meaning. to do…

Education

University of Miami

See Form 990, Part I, Line 1, Description of Organization Mission.

Education

The Ohio Environmental Council

To protect the environment and health of all ohio communities through legal and policy advocacy, decision-maker accountability, and civic engagement.

Environment

Lewis & Clark College

Lewis & clark is a premier private higher education institution offering an exceptional education in an inclusive environment. by fostering critical thinking, innovation, creativity, civic engagement, and leadership, both inside and…

Education

Boston Architectural College

The bac is committed to provide excellence in design education grounded in practice and accessible to diverse communities.

—

Cleveland Institute of Music

The cleveland institute of music's mission is to empower the world's most talented classical music students to fulfill their dreams and potential.

Education

The Central European University

Ceu is committed to promoting the values of open society and self-reflective critical thinking. it aims at excellence in the mastery of established knowledge, courage to pursue the creation of new knowledge in the humanities, the social…

International

Conservation International Foundation

Ci works to spotlight and secure the critical benefits that nature provides to humanity.

Environment

Point Park University

Provides innovative education in a dynamic urban setting. dedicated to academic excellence and community engagement,we prepare students of diverse backgrounds with the knowledge, skill,and experience to lead meaningful lives as informed…

—

Case Western Reserve University

Case Western Reserve University is an independent, research-oriented university with broadly based strengths in health, including medicine, nursing and dentistry; in engineering; in the arts and sciences; and in law, management and social…

Education

Drexel University

Drexel university fulfills its founder's vision of preparing each new generation of students for productive professional and civic lives while also focusing its collective expertise on solving society's greatest problems. drexel is an…

Education

DePauw University

Depauw university develops leaders the world needs through an uncommon commitment to the liberal arts. depauw's diverse and inclusive learning and living experience, distinctive in its rigorous intellectual engagement and its global and…

Education

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Urban Community School; the most unlike its peers is The Galen Foundation. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.

04the grantee network

32 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.

Each grant beside the grantee’s revenue from every source, year by year.

How this is measured

Counted here: distinct organizations funded across 2017 to 2025, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 32 of the 51 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile.

Each grantee is resolved to its own IRS returns. Association, dated; never a causal claim.

Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)

Early backer (in before they grew)

31/32

Grantees still filing

27/32

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Other$118,840Education$54,100Health$11,000Arts & Culture$4,530Human Services$4,000Environment$2,830International$1,000

Each grantee by its size and the funder’s share of it; top left is load-bearing

Grantee by grantee: a decade per organization, before and after funding

A decade per grantee: revenue shaded, grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.

Co-funders

Grantmakers whose grantees overlap with this funder’s far more than size alone predicts. Closer means stronger alignment; arcs show where they also fund each other. Here they form a tightly interlocked group: most of these funders back each other's grantees too.

The Cleveland FoundationOH25.3× affinity10 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: The Cleveland Foundation · The Kelvin & Eleanor Smith Foundation · Jewish Federation of Cleveland · Jane and Jon Outcalt Foundation · Emma R Fox Char Trust Mut Fds · The George Gund Foundation · Helen C Cole Charitable Trust · Woodruff Foundation · The O'Neill Brothers Foundation · The Sk Wellman Foundation · Sullivan Family Fund · John P Murphy Foundation

How this is measured

Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. Overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.

How much its grantees rely on government

Each dot is one organization Mary and Oliver Emerson Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Mary and Oliver Emerson Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

0get no government money at all

11report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)

0rely on government for over half their income

⤢ axis zoomed · 0–25%

typical government reliance, FY20–25

How this is measured

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 a grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first, a floor rather than 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 to 24 months.

05Through Plinth

Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

How do I get to Mary and Oliver Emerson Foundation?

Find your warmest path to Mary and Oliver Emerson 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.

Play a game based on Mary and Oliver Emerson’s filings →

More from the funding graph

The unnamed billions

grants reported with no recipient in the public record

The regranting layer

51% of grant dollars land in the regranting layer

The DAF merry-go-round

$9.7B circulates between donor-advised funds

The endowment market

who holds foundation money, and what just moved

The camps

funders cluster by geography, not ideology

By state

where grant money is based, and what stays home