· Private foundation
The Ethel Cox Marden Charitable 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.
Read this first · the figures below need context
83% of The Ethel Cox Marden Charitable Foundation’s FY2023 grant dollars went to Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2023 names 1 organization directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it. Everything below is therefore FY2021, the last year The Ethel Cox Marden Charitable Foundation named its own grantees at scale: 12 organizations, $135k. It is dated, not current.
Organizations named directly on the return
Amber years are those where most dollars went to a sponsor.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2019–2023.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2021
- Under $10k14 grants · $45k
- $10k–50k4 grants · $90k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Parks Foundation of Pender County Inc | $35,000 |
| Inova Health Foundation | $30,000 |
| Washington National Cathedral | $15,000 |
| Mount Vernon Ladies' Assoc | $10,000 |
| ALSAC St Jude's Children's | $5,000 |
| WETA | $5,000 |
| Smithsonian Institution | $5,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $5,000 |
| Tintagel Charitable Foundation | $4,000 |
| The Montpelier Foundation | $2,500 |
| Frank Lloyd Wright Bldg Conservancy | $2,500 |
| Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation | $2,500 |
| National Gallery of Art | $2,500 |
| Kennedy Center | $2,500 |
| Smithsonian American Art Museum | $2,500 |
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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY19–23) land where the poverty rate runs at 9%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 31% of your dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants skew toward lower-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.
Which US states your grants reach
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.
16 repeat relationships — 15 still active in FY2021, 1 since wound down; 2 grantees were first funded in FY2021 (too recent to call). Read against FY2021, the last year this funder named its own grantees directly; its giving has since run through a sponsor, which reports no donor behind each grant.
How the two cohorts compare
Organizations
Total granted
Still filing today
New vs renewed · share of each year
In FY2023, 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
- IHINOVA HEALTH SYSTEM FOUNDATION3× · 2019–2021 · $90k · revenue +8%
- TCTintagel Charitable Foundation3× · 2021–2023 · $33k · revenue +190% · 73% of their budget
- NGNational Gallery of Art3× · 2019–2021 · $23k · revenue +40%
Funded once
- PEPROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CATHEDRAL FOUNDATION OF THE D OF Cone grant, 2021 · $15k
- PPPlanned Parenthoodone grant, 2021 · $3k
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.
Tudor place historic house & garden preserves the stories of six generations of descendants of martha washington and the enslaved and free people who lived and worked at this georgetown landmark for nearly two centuries. by examining their…
To collect, display and interpret objects in craft art and design.
The Morgan Library & Museum celebrates and shares the history and process of human creativity from antiquity to the present day through the preservation, study, and interpretation of a dynamic and growing collection.
Elevating awareness of the transformative power of architecture and design.
Finance impacts everyone. as a socially relevant organization, the museum of american finance seeks to improve understanding of the influence of financial institutions and capital markets on the u.s. and global economies, and on…
The Trust will be a leading force in the preservation of America's architectural heritage. The Trust accepts donations of historic preservation easements to protect buildings.
The purpose of the organization is to maintain in the city of alexandria, virginia, a suitable memorial temple to george washington, the mason, which expresses in durability and beauty, the exalted and undying esteem of the freemasons of…
The npr foundation ("foundation") is organized and operated exclusively for the benefit of its sole supported organization, national public radio, inc. ("npr inc."). the foundation supports npr inc. through various activities such as…
The Museum of Modern Art is a private, non-profit institution chartered by the State of New York Department of Education in 1929 to foster public awareness of modern and contemporary art. (Continued in Schedule O)
The mission of the Montgomery County Community Foundation (MCCF) is to provide leadership in Montgomery County by directing sustainable financial resources that strengthen our community and improve the quality of life for current and…
To support, in perpetuity, the preservation and conservation of the public rooms of the white house and its collection of fine and decorative arts.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation and the most unlike its peers is Tintagel Charitable Foundation. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
13 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. 13 of the 19 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 VANGUARD CHARITABLE ENDOWMENT PROGRAM ↗
- Who funds INOVA HEALTH SYSTEM FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds PARKS FOUNDATION OF PENDER COUNTY ↗
- Who funds Tintagel Charitable Foundation ↗
- Who funds National Gallery of Art ↗
- Who funds SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION ↗
- Who funds GREATER WASHINGTON EDUCATIONAL TELECOMMUNICATIONS ASSOCIATION INC ↗
- Who funds MONTPELIER FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT BUILDING CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds METROPOLITAN CLUB PRESERVATION FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds MCLEAN VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPT 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 tightly interlocked camp — most of these funders back each other's grantees too.
Open a dossier: National Philanthropic Trust · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Amazonsmile Foundation
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 The Ethel Cox Marden Charitable 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 The Ethel Cox Marden Charitable Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Ethel Cox Marden Charitable 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.