How much does The Marcus Foundation give?

The Marcus Foundation reported 12 grants totaling $31,150 in its FY2024 IRS filing. It funded between 8 and 13 organizations a year over FY2017 to FY2023.

What does The Marcus Foundation fund?

By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2024, its largest causes are Environment (38%), Food & Nutrition (33%), Youth Development (4%).

Who are The Marcus Foundation's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2017 to FY2024: Denver Urban Gardens ($59k), Denver Botanic Gardens Inc ($56k), Ceres Inc ($46k).

Does The Marcus Foundation fund new organizations?

In FY2023, 38% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Does The Marcus 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 Marcus Foundation?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include The Denver Foundation, Colorado Gives Foundation, Impactassetsinc.

Where is The Marcus Foundation based?

The Marcus Foundation is based in CO.

The Marcus Foundation

The Marcus Foundation at a glance

· 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.

$31k

Granted FY2024still arriving

Grants FY2024still arriving

States reached

$10k

Largest

01What it funds

0189% classified

What it funded, over time

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

Environment$135kFood & Nutrition$115kYouth Development$14kPhilanthropy$9kHousing & Shelter$9kPublic Benefit$8kReligion$6kEmployment$6kOther$0

02FY2024 · 12 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2024

Under $10k11 grants · $21k
$10k–50k1 grant · $10k

$1,150

Median grant

States reached

$1.2M

Total assets

Largest grants
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

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 (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. 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.

03Its grantees

repeat funding

Who it funds again

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

87%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$305k · 22 repeat orgs$44k to everyone else

Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +51% since the first grant, against +47% for those 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

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$305k

$43k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+51%

+47%

Still filing today

59%

60%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2024, 95% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $2k went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

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

EnvironmentFood & NutritionCivil RightsRecreation & SportsYouth DevelopmentEducationOther

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

DU
DENVER URBAN GARDENS
6× · 2017–2024 · $59k · revenue +99%
DB
DENVER BOTANIC GARDENS INC
7× · 2017–2024 · $56k · revenue +51%
CI
CERES INC
8× · 2017–2024 · $46k · revenue +88%

Funded once

TS
Temple Sinai
one grant, 2019 · $6k
NY
NATIONAL YOUNG FARMERS COALITION INCgraduated
one grant, 2019 · $5k · revenue +161%
CF
Chesapeake Food SummitWindward Fund
one grant, 2019 · $5k

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.

Dc Greens Inc

DC Greens advances health equity by building a just and resilient food system.

Community Improvement

Wedontwaste Inc

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.

Food & Nutrition

Common Future

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…

Community Improvement

Colorado Food Cluster Inc

Provide opportunities for all to thrive by offering free food resources to communities.

Food & Nutrition

Development in Gardening

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.

Community Improvement

Food & Water Watch

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…

Food & Nutrition

Environment Next Inc

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…

Environment

New Roots Institute

New Roots Institute is a nonprofit empowering the next generation with knowledge and training to end factory farming.

Food & Nutrition

Equitable Food Initiative

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.

Human Services

Environmental Investigation Agency

To establish and promote programs to protect the global climate, forests, wildlife and the natural environment, through research, advocacy, and investigation.

International

Colorado Legal Services

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.

Crime & Legal

Cultivate Kansas City Inc

Grow food, farms and community in support of a sustainable, healthy and local food system.

Food & Nutrition

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Smile Farms Inc; 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.

04the grantee network

23 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. 23 of the 39 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)

23/23

Grantees still filing

19/23

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Environment$175,600Other$117,250Food & Nutrition$25,000Youth Development$14,000Community Improvement$8,500Civil Rights$8,000Employment$6,000

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.

The Denver FoundationCO20.2× affinity8 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

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

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 Marcus Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from The Marcus Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

2get no government money at all

5report 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 Marcus’ 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