How much does The Jon and Mary Shirley Foundation give?

The Jon and Mary Shirley Foundation reported 50 grants totaling $9,656,920 in its FY2025 IRS filing. It funded between 39 and 52 organizations a year over FY2018 to FY2024.

What does The Jon and Mary Shirley Foundation fund?

By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2025, its largest causes are Arts & Culture (50%), Education (24%), Philanthropy (9%).

Who are The Jon and Mary Shirley Foundation's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2017 to FY2025: Seattle Art Museum ($11M), Calder Foundation ($5.2M), United Way of King County ($2.1M).

Does The Jon and Mary Shirley Foundation fund new organizations?

In FY2024, 7% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Does The Jon and Mary Shirley 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 The Jon and Mary Shirley Foundation?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Seattle Foundation, The Norcliffe Foundation, Artsfund.

Where is The Jon and Mary Shirley Foundation based?

The Jon and Mary Shirley Foundation is based in WA.

The Jon and Mary Shirley Foundation

The Jon and Mary Shirley Foundation at a glance

· Private foundation

The Jon and Mary Shirley 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.

$9.7M

Granted FY2025still arriving

Grants FY2025still arriving

States reached

$4.3M

Largest

01What it funds

0199% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2024.

Arts & Culture$13MEducation$6.3MPhilanthropy$2.3MHealth$777kPublic Benefit$540kInternational$493kEnvironment$256kFood & Nutrition$237kOther$0

02FY2025 · 50 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2025

Under $10k6 grants · $22k
$10k–50k21 grants · $395k
$50k–250k19 grants · $1.2M
$250k+4 grants · $8.1M

$25,000

Median grant

States reached

$32M

Total assets

Largest grants
Recipient	Amount
CALDER FOUNDATION	$4,300,000
SEATTLE ART MUSEUM	$2,850,000
THE HILL SCHOOL OFFICE OF ADVANCEMENT	$600,000
UNITED WAY OF KING COUNTY	$300,000
AMERICARES FOUNDATION	$100,000
Henry Gallery Association Henry Art Gallery	$100,000
WHITNEY MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART	$85,000
Hirshhorn Museum&SculptureGarden	$75,000
THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART	$75,000
National Gallery of Art	$70,000
SEATTLE AQUARIUM	$65,000
Cascade Public Media	$60,000
TATE AMERICAS FOUNDATION	$55,000
DIA ART FOUNDATION	$55,000
CARE USA	$50,000

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 (FY24–25, $20k) land where the poverty rate runs at 9%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 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 The Jon and Mary Shirley Foundation’s grant dollars are earmarked for a different county than the recipient’s own address. By recipient address, 52% of the giving stays in WA; by stated purpose, 44%.

The Jon and Mary Shirley Foundationlessmore of its giving

Placed by recipient address · 6.8% 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.

93%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$33M · 72 repeat orgs$2.4M to everyone else

Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +40% since the first grant, against +10% for those funded once.

72 repeat relationships: 40 still active in FY2025, 32 since wound down; 10 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$33M

$2.0M

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+40%

+10%

Still filing today

76%

64%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 96% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $345k went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

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

Arts & CultureEducationHealthInternationalPhilanthropyAnimalsOther

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

SA
SEATTLE ART MUSEUM
9× · 2017–2025 · $11M · revenue +0%
WM
WHITNEY MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART
9× · 2017–2025 · $910k · revenue +161%
AT
Artist Trust
9× · 2017–2025 · $525k · revenue +30%

Funded once

TH
THE HILL SCHOOLgraduated
one grant, 2017 · $1.1M · revenue +44%
THE BARACK OBAMA FOUNDATION
one grant, 2022 · $500k · revenue -32%
PN
PHILANTHROPY NORTHWEST
one grant, 2020 · $50k · revenue -84%

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.

Museum of Northwest Art

The museum of northwest art collects, preserves, interprets and exhibits art created in the pacific northwest, supports artists, and strives to integrate art into the lives of all people. the museum is free and open to the public seven…

Arts & Culture

Asian Art Museum Foundation of San Francisco

The asian art museum celebrates, preserves, and promotes asian and asian american art and cultures for local and global audiences. we provide a dynamic forum for exchanging ideas, inviting collaboration, and fueling imagination to deepen…

Arts & Culture

Boston Architectural College

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

—

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

See schedule osfmoma believes the art of our time is vital and shares it with passion and purpose, and that art and the creative process can open minds and help build a better world. for that reason, we assemble unparalleled collections,…

Arts & Culture

Museum of Arts and Design

To collect, display and interpret objects in craft art and design.

Arts & Culture

Siff

Siff is a seattle-based 501(c)(3) arts nonprofit dedicated to the creation of vibrant experiences and spaces that champion film discovery and arts education.

Youth Development

The Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences

The mission of the brooklyn institute of arts and sciences, d/b/a brooklyn museum (the "museum") is to bring people together through art and experiences that inspire celebration, compassion, courage, and the will to act. (see schedule o).

Arts & Culture

The Seattle Academy of Arts & Sciences

Seattle academy is a dynamic community that challenges students to question, imagine, and create in order to contribute to a changing world.

Education

Kadist Collection Manager Inc

Arts & Culture

Portland Art Museum

The mission of the portland art museum is to engage diverse communities through art and film of enduring quality, and to collect, preserve and educate for the enrichment of present and future generations.

Arts & Culture

The Sculpture Center Inc

See schedule osculpturecenter leads the conversation on contemporary art by supporting artistic innovation and independent thought highlighting sculpture's specific potential to change the way we engage with the world. positioning artists'…

Arts & Culture

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.

—

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Artsfund; the most unlike its peers is Calder Foundation. 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

91 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2026.

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 2026, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 91 of the 129 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)

90/91

Grantees still filing

63/91

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Arts & Culture$16,432,274Other$12,972,631Philanthropy$2,872,500Education$1,544,000Health$775,500International$580,000Animals$349,583

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.

Seattle FoundationWA42.1× affinity24 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Seattle Foundation · The Norcliffe Foundation · Artsfund · The Conru Foundation · The Bernstein Family Foundation · Gs Donor Advised Philanthropy Fund for Wealth Management Inc · Klorfine Foundation · M J Murdock Charitable Trust · Grousemont Foundation · Glassybaby White Light Fund · The Satterberg Foundation Inc · Puget Sound Energy 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 The Jon and Mary Shirley Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from The Jon and Mary Shirley Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

2get no government money at all

26report 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 Jon and Mary Shirley’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