· Private foundation
Michael J 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 $10k39 grants · $180k
- $10k–50k6 grants · $80k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| University of Hawaii Foundation | $25,000 |
| Maui Food Bank | $12,500 |
| HUGS | $12,500 |
| Kahumana Organic Farm & Cafe | $10,000 |
| Hawaii Foodbank Inc | $10,000 |
| We Are Oceania | $10,000 |
| Never Quit Dreaming | $6,000 |
| Family Promise Hawaii | $5,000 |
| Palama Settlement | $5,000 |
| The Institute of Human Services | $5,000 |
| Hale Kipa Inc | $5,000 |
| Aloha Medical Mission | $5,000 |
| Parents and Children Together | $5,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $5,000 |
| Ballet Hawaii | $5,000 |
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 (FY20–25, $107k) land where the poverty rate runs at 9%, against an area that typically sits at 7%. 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.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +11% since the first grant, against -9% for the ones you funded once.
53 repeat relationships — 41 still active in FY2025, 12 since wound down; 4 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).
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, 91% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $23k 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
- UOUNIVERSITY OF HAWAII FOUNDATION5× · 2020–2025 · $213k · revenue +132%
- BHBALLET HAWAII5× · 2020–2025 · $65k · revenue +29%
MAUI FOOD BANK INC5× · 2021–2025 · $45k · revenue +27%
Funded once
- JCJEWISH COMM CENTERone grant, 2021 · $10k
- AMAloha Med Missionone grant, 2023 · $8k
- PHPEARL HARBOR AVIATION MUSEUMone grant, 2022 · $5k · revenue -9%
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.
To re-establish the systems that sustain our community through educational initiatives and land-based practices that cultivate abundance, regenerate responsibilities, and promote collective health and well being.
Papahana kuaola's mission is to create quality educational programs focused on environmental restoration and economic sustainability fully integrated with hawaiian knowledge in order to exemplify a lifestyle respectful of kanaka, `aina,…
Kapi'olani medical specialists (dba hawai'i pacific health medical group) is a multispecialty provider group dedicated to providing world-class care for adults and children across hawai'i and the pacific region working in partnership with…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Hale Kipa Inc and the most unlike its peers is Death Ride Tour Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
Your grantees are a median of 32 years old; the field is 16. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 23% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 13% of the field you don’t fund.
Age = years since IRS exemption (a founding proxy). “Closed” = auto-revocation for 3 years of non-filing — a floor on closure, not proof, and bigger established orgs lapse least. Association, not causation.
42 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. 42 of the 65 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 UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds BALLET HAWAII ↗
- Who funds MAUI FOOD BANK INC ↗
- Who funds HAWAII FOODBANK INC ↗
- Who funds SPRYE INC ↗
- Who funds KOKUA KALIHI VALLEY COMPREHENSIVE FAMILY SERVICES ↗
- Who funds FAMILY PROMISE OF HAWAII ↗
- Who funds KALIHI-PALAMA HEALTH CENTER (HALE HO'OLA HOU) ↗
- Who funds WAIANAE DISTR COMPREHENSIVE HEALTH & ↗
- Who funds HALE KIPA INC ↗
- Who funds PALAMA SETTLEMENT ↗
- Who funds Kapi'olani Health Foundation ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF THE WAIKIKI AQUARIUM ↗
- Who funds PROJECT VISION HAWAII ↗
- Who funds HAWAII CONSERVATION ALLIANCE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF HONOLULU BOTANICAL GARDENS ↗
- Who funds THE PANTRY ↗
- Who funds HALE MAHAOLU ↗
- Who funds LAWAKUA CHARITABLE FUND ↗
- Who funds FAMILY PROGRAMS HAWAII ↗
- Who funds ALOHA HARVEST ↗
- Who funds THE MEDIATION CENTER OF THE PACIFIC INC ↗
- Who funds RESIDENTIAL YOUTH SERVICES & EMPOWERMENT ↗
- Who funds HAWAII LITERACY INC ↗
- Who funds WE ARE OCEANIA ↗
- Who funds ALOHA MEDICAL MISSION ↗
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 tightly interlocked camp — most of these funders back each other's grantees too.
Open a dossier: J Watumull Fund · Bank of Hawaii Charitable Fdn · Aloha United Way Inc · Atherton Family Foundation · Tradewind Group Foundation · The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation Inc · Central Pacific Bank Foundation · Harold Kl Castle Foundation · First Hawaiian Bank Foundation · The Cades Foundation · The Clarence Tc Ching Foundation · The Queen's Medical Center
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 Michael J 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 or a single department — and drag the year to watch it move.
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 Michael J Marks Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Michael J 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.