· Private foundation
The Marcus Foundation
Its FY2024 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 FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k11 grants · $21k
- $10k–50k1 grant · $10k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| DENVER BOTANIC GARDENS | $10,000 |
| DENVER URBAN GARDENS | $5,000 |
| CERES INC | $5,000 |
| SMILE FARMS INC | $3,000 |
| FOOD FOR THOUGHT | $1,500 |
| IMPACT100 METRO DENVER | $1,150 |
| SUN VALLEY KITCHEN & COMMUNITY CENT | $1,000 |
| RE VISION | $1,000 |
| CLAYTON EARLY LEARNING | $1,000 |
| COMMUNITY FOOD ADVOCATES | $1,000 |
| AG & FOOD LAB | $1,000 |
| GREEN BRONX MACHINE | $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.
Your human-services grants (FY21–22, $3k) land where the poverty rate runs at 8%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 0% of those 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.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +69% since the first grant, against +47% for the ones you funded once.
22 repeat relationships — 11 still active in FY2024, 11 since wound down; 1 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (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 FY2024, 95% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $2k 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
- DUDENVER URBAN GARDENS6× · 2017–2024 · $59k · revenue +99%
- DBDENVER BOTANIC GARDENS INC7× · 2017–2024 · $56k · revenue +20%
- CICERES INC8× · 2017–2024 · $46k · revenue +129%
Funded once
- TSTemple Sinaione grant, 2019 · $6k
- OCOUR CHILDREN'S TRUSTone grant, 2018 · $5k · revenue -81%
- NYNATIONAL YOUNG FARMERS COALITION INCgraduatedone grant, 2019 · $5k · revenue +144%
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.
DC Greens advances health equity by building a just and resilient food system.
We Dont Waste increases food access and protects the planet by rescuing and repurposing food, while educating and advocating to increase food security and decrease food waste.
Common future is a network of pioneering leaders across the u.s. and canada who work deeply within their communities to create alternative approaches to business, philanthropy, and investing. we envision an economy that has transitioned…
Provide opportunities for all to thrive by offering free food resources to communities.
Development in Gardening is improving the nutrition and livelihoods of some of the world's most uniquely marginalized people by teaching them to plant regenerative gardens that grow health, wealth, and a sense of belonging.
Food & water watch conducts extensive research and public education to ensure the food and water we consume is safe, accessible and sustainably produced. so we can all enjoy and trust in what we eat and drink, we help people take charge of…
Environment next supports individuals, nonprofits and businesses around the world on solutions to complex climate issues. we provide leadership, outreach and communication support, grants, and investments to empower leaders and their ideas…
New Roots Institute is a nonprofit empowering the next generation with knowledge and training to end factory farming.
EFIs mission is to transform the produce industry and the lives of farmworkers by facilitating collaboration among workers, agricultural employers, retail buyers and consumer advocates.
To establish and promote programs to protect the global climate, forests, wildlife and the natural environment, through research, advocacy, and investigation.
To provide meaningful access to high quality, civil legal services in the pursuit of justice for as many low income persons and members of vulnerable populations throughout colorado as possible.
Grow food, farms and community in support of a sustainable, healthy and local food system.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Smile Farms Inc and the most unlike its peers is Mary's Center Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
For each theme you fund, this compares how the sector’s money is shifting with how your own giving is shifting.
Sector change and giving change are each shown relative to their own range, growing (right) or shrinking (left); both normalized, so inflation isn’t mistaken for growth.
Your grantees are a median of 20 years old; the field is 14. 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.
23 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. 23 of the 39 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 DENVER URBAN GARDENS ↗
- Who funds DENVER BOTANIC GARDENS INC ↗
- Who funds CERES INC ↗
- Who funds HIGH LINE CANAL CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds Community Food Advocates Inc ↗
- Who funds GREEN BRONX MACHINE INTERNATIONAL INC ↗
- Who funds EARTHLINKS INC ↗
- Who funds METRO CARING ↗
- Who funds SMILE FARMS INC ↗
- Who funds WINDWARD FUND ↗
- Who funds OUR CHILDREN'S TRUST ↗
- Who funds New Era Colorado Foundation ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL YOUNG FARMERS COALITION INC ↗
- Who funds Mary's Center Inc ↗
- Who funds Virginia Civic Engagement Table ↗
- Who funds SOUTHWEST GA PROJECT FOR COMMUNITY EDUCATION INC ↗
- Who funds HUNGER FREE COLORADO ↗
- Who funds WHOLESOME WAVE INC ↗
- Who funds WIKIMEDIA FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds IMPACT 100 METRO DENVER ↗
- Who funds REVISION ↗
- Who funds DENVER MOUNTAIN PARKS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds PUBLIC BROADCASTING OF COLORADO 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: The Denver Foundation · Colorado Gives Foundation · Impactassetsinc · The Colorado Health Foundation · Xcel Energy Foundation · The Marigold Project · Schlessman Foundation Inc · Rose Community Foundation · The Anschutz Foundation · The Janus Henderson Foundation · Natural Resources Defense Council Inc · Anschutz Family 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 Marcus 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.
- Ceres Inc — 0% of income from government
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.