How much does Mary Jane Wahl Gearns Foundation give?

Mary Jane Wahl Gearns Foundation reported 23 grants totaling $785,433 in its FY2025 IRS filing. It funded between 22 and 31 organizations a year over FY2020 to FY2024.

What does Mary Jane Wahl Gearns Foundation fund?

By grant dollars over FY2020 to FY2025, its largest causes are International (25%), Public Safety & Disaster (16%), Education (14%).

Who are Mary Jane Wahl Gearns Foundation's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2020 to FY2025: Catholic Relief Services ($675k), Cornell University ($588k), The Interfaith Nutrition Network Inc ($300k).

Does Mary Jane Wahl Gearns Foundation fund new organizations?

In FY2024, 5% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Does Mary Jane Wahl Gearns 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 Jane Wahl Gearns Foundation?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Jpmorgan Chase Foundation, Ge Aerospace Foundation, Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc.

Where is Mary Jane Wahl Gearns Foundation based?

Mary Jane Wahl Gearns Foundation is based in NY.

Mary Jane Wahl Gearns Foundation

Mary Jane Wahl Gearns Foundation at a glance

· Private foundation

Mary Jane Wahl Gearns 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.

$785k

Granted FY2025still arriving

Grants FY2025still arriving

States reached

$189k

Largest

01What it funds

01100% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2020 to 2025.

International$1.1MPublic Safety & Disaster$720kEducation$633kFood & Nutrition$460kEnvironment$382kCivil Rights$373kHealth$253kArts & Culture$229kOther$0

02FY2025 · 23 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2025

Under $10k3 grants · $15k
$10k–50k15 grants · $346k
$50k–250k5 grants · $424k

$25,000

Median grant

States reached

$12M

Total assets

Largest grants
Recipient	Amount
CORNELL UNIVERSITY	$189,000
LOWCOUNTRY FOOD BANK	$75,000
LEGAL MOMENTUM	$60,000
THE INTERFAITH NUTRITION NETWORK	$50,000
CATHOLIC RELIEF SERVICES	$50,000
BOTH ENDS BELIEVING	$32,500
CHANCES FOR CHILDREN	$32,500
CARNEGIE HALL	$25,000
RETHINKNYC	$25,000
COASTAL CONSERVATION LEAGUE	$25,000
ST JUDE CHILDREN'S RESEARCH HOSPITAL	$25,000
WATER MISSION	$25,000
THE SHARING FOUNDATION	$25,000
DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS	$25,000
AMERICARES	$25,000

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 (FY20–25, $442k) land where the poverty rate runs at 5%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 0% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Its grants skew toward lower-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.

Where the work is directed

The same grants placed two ways: where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose sends the money.

About 5% of Mary Jane Wahl Gearns Foundation’s grant dollars are earmarked for a different county than the recipient’s own address.

Mary Jane Wahl Gearns Foundationlessmore of its giving

Placed by recipient address · 5.0% directed abroad (not shown)

How this is measured

Recipient view: each grant at its grantee’s ZIP, mapped to a county. Directed view: each grant at the county its stated purpose names, falling back to the recipient’s county when the purpose names no place; US grants only. A county shows only if it carries the top 95% of that view’s dollars. Purposes are read from the funder’s own 990 grant descriptions.

03Its grantees

repeat funding

Who it funds again

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

98%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$4.4M · 32 repeat orgs$89k to everyone else

Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +47% since the first grant, against -39% for those funded once.

32 repeat relationships: 22 still active in FY2025, 10 since wound down; 1 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$4.4M

$14k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+47%

-39%

Still filing today

84%

50%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 90% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $75k went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

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

InternationalArts & CultureHuman ServicesEducationCrime & LegalEnvironmentOther

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

Cornell University
6× · 2020–2025 · $588k · revenue +46%
TI
THE INTERFAITH NUTRITION NETWORK INC
6× · 2020–2025 · $300k · revenue +79%
LM
LEGAL MOMENTUM
6× · 2020–2025 · $253k · revenue +47%

Funded once

PC
PONDEROSA CENTER
one grant, 2022 · $10k · revenue -39%
NT
NYRR TEAM FOR KIDS
one grant, 2023 · $4k

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.

World Resources Institute

Wri is committed to creating change that improves people's lives and ensures the natural world can thrive. (see schedule o)wri's bold vision requires a formula for success we call "count it. change it. scale it.":- count it: our work is…

International

The Union of Concerned Scientists Inc

The union of concerned scientists puts rigorous, independent science into action, developing solutions and advocating for a healthy, safe, and just future.

International

Waterorg

Water.org's goal is to bring safe water and sanitation to the world through access to small, affordable loans.

International

The Water Research Foundation

The purpose of the water research foundation (wrf) is a definitive research organization to advance the science of all things water to better meet the evolving needs of its subscribers and the water sector. to engage exclusively in…

Environment

Open Markets Institute

The open markets institute works to help people relearn how to use competition policy to build stronger democracies, more just and equitable societies, more innovative and sustainable economies, and a more secure and peaceful world.

Education

Actionaid Usa

Actionaid is an international network building a just, equitable, and sustainable world in solidarity with communities on the frontlines of poverty and injustice. actionaid usa is the u.s. branch of actionaid international, which works in…

Social Science

United States Naval Institute

Provide an independent forum for those who dare to read, think, speak, and write to advance the professional, literary, and scientific understanding of sea power and other issues critical to global security.

—

Asociacion Interamericana Para La Defensa Del Ambiente

To strenghten people's ability to guarantee their individual and collective right to a healthy environment, via the development, implementation, and effective enforcement of national and international law.

Crime & Legal

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The mission of mit is to advance knowledge and educate students in science, technology, and other areas of scholarship that will best serve the nation and the world in the 21st century.

Education

The Rand Corporation

Help improve policy and decision making through research and analysis.

Public Benefit

International Biomedical Research Alliance

Our mission is to invest in and accelerate the development of the most promising future leaders in biomedical research with global impact.

Health

American Association for the Advancement of Science

Advance science, engineering, and innovation throughout the world for the benefit of all. the world's largest multidisciplinary scientific society and a leading publisher of cutting-edge research through its science family of journals,…

Science & Tech

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Both Ends Believing Inc; the most unlike its peers is Ponderosa Center. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.

05the grantee network

29 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. 29 of the 35 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)

29/29

Grantees still filing

24/29

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Other$1,850,870International$891,500Education$633,250Human Services$441,500Food & Nutrition$300,000Arts & Culture$228,533Health$150,000

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.

Jpmorgan Chase FoundationNY11.8× affinity6 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Jpmorgan Chase Foundation · Ge Aerospace Foundation · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · National Philanthropic Trust · The Pfizer Foundation Inc · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · Network for Good · Raymond James Charitable Endowment Fund · The Blackbaud Giving Fund · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund

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 Jane Wahl Gearns Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Mary Jane Wahl Gearns Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

3get no government money at all

6report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)

0rely on government for over half their income

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.

Play a game based on Mary Jane Wahl Gearns’ 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