How much does The Marisla Foundation give?

The Marisla Foundation reported 194 grants totaling $46,678,700 in its FY2024 IRS filing. It funded between 145 and 202 organizations a year over FY2020 to FY2023.

What does The Marisla Foundation fund?

By grant dollars over FY2020 to FY2024, its largest causes are Environment (48%), Philanthropy (28%), International (5%).

Who are The Marisla Foundation's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2020 to FY2024: Oceana Inc ($12M), Resources Legacy Fund ($6.0M), Center for American Progress ($4.8M).

Does The Marisla Foundation fund new organizations?

In FY2023, 5% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Does The Marisla Foundation accept unsolicited applications?

Its most recent filing reports that it accepts unsolicited grant applications.

Which funders back the same organizations as The Marisla Foundation?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Resources Legacy Fund, Patagoniaorg, The Schmidt Family Foundation.

Where is The Marisla Foundation based?

The Marisla Foundation is based in CA.

The Marisla Foundation

The Marisla Foundation at a glance

· Private foundation

The Marisla Foundation

Its FY2024 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.

$47M

Granted FY2024still arriving

194

Grants FY2024still arriving

States reached

$9.9M

Largest

01What it funds

01100% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2020 to 2024.

Environment$98MPhilanthropy$58MInternational$9.8MAnimals$8.1MCivil Rights$7.0MHealth$3.5MEducation$3.3MPublic Benefit$3.0MOther$0

02FY2024 · 194 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2024

$10k–50k50 grants · $1.3M
$50k–250k110 grants · $11M
$250k+34 grants · $34M

$75,000

Median grant

States reached

$21M

Total assets

Largest grants
Recipient	Amount
ORANGE COUNTY COMMUNITY FOUNDATION	$9,890,000
GLOBAL GREENGRANTS FUND	$3,250,000
OCEANA INC	$2,300,000
ROCKEFELLER PHILANTHROPY ADVISORS	$2,135,000
HAWAII COMMUNITY FOUNDATION	$1,208,700
THE NATURE CONSERVANCY	$1,200,000
INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY FOUNDATION	$1,155,000
MYRIAD USA	$1,000,000
NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL	$1,000,000
CENTER FOR CLIMATE INTEGRITY	$1,000,000
RESOURCES LEGACY FUND	$1,000,000
CENTER FOR AMERICAN PROGRESS	$1,000,000
TOXIC-FREE FUTURE	$725,000
COMMONWEAL	$545,000
EARTHJUSTICE	$500,000

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 (FY24–24, $545k) land where the poverty rate runs at 8%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 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 35% of The Marisla Foundation’s grant dollars are earmarked for a different county than the recipient’s own address.

The Marisla Foundationlessmore of its giving

Placed by recipient address

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.

96%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$115M · 207 repeat orgs$4.7M to everyone else

Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +49% since the first grant, against +15% for those funded once.

207 repeat relationships: 163 still active in FY2024, 44 since wound down; 19 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

207

Total granted

$115M

$2.6M

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+49%

+15%

Still filing today

92%

88%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2024, 92% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $2.1M went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

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

EnvironmentAnimalsEducationArts & CultureInternationalScience & TechOther

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

RL
RESOURCES LEGACY FUND
5× · 2020–2024 · $6.0M · revenue +114%
NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL INC
5× · 2020–2024 · $4.0M · revenue +26%
TF
TOXIC-FREE FUTURE F/K/A WASHINGTON TOXICS COALITION
5× · 2020–2024 · $2.6M · revenue +15%

Funded once

IF
INSTITUTE FOR GOVERNANCE & SUSTAIN DEV
one grant, 2020 · $500k
COOPERATIVE FOR ASSISTANCE AND RELIEF EVERYWHERE INC
one grant, 2022 · $400k · revenue -6%
PC
PUBLIC CITIZEN FOUNDATION INCgraduated
one grant, 2020 · $200k · revenue +68%

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.

The Climate Center

The Climate Center is a climate and energy policy nonprofit working to rapidly reduce climate pollution at scale, starting in California.

Education

Sustainable Conservation

Sustainable Conservation advances the collaborative stewardship of Californias land, air, and water for the benefit of nature and people. For over three decades, Sustainable Conservation has built coalitions of people with different…

Environment

Ocean Conservancy

Ocean conservancy unites science, people, and policy to protect our ocean, today and for generations to come.

Environment

Ocean Alliance Project

Protecting and promoting the marine biodiversity of Hawai'i through coral restoration, ecological monitoring, regenerative tourism, and cultural integration

Science & Tech

CarbonPlan

Improving the transparency and scientific integrity of climate solutions through open data and tools.

Environment

Climate Foundation

To research and develop healthy climate solutions comprising global food security, ecosystem regeneration and carbon balance in seas and soils.

Science & Tech

Conservation International Foundation

Ci works to spotlight and secure the critical benefits that nature provides to humanity.

Environment

E3G Third Generation Environmentalism

E3g is a leading international not-for-profit think tank specialising in climate diplomacy harnessing expertise in the politics and economics of climate change.

Environment

California Ocean Science Trust

California ocean science trust (ost) is a non-profit organization dedicated to accelerating progress towards a healthy and productive ocean future for california. created by state legislation, ost bridges the gap between cutting-edge…

Environment

Rainforest Trust

Rainforest trust saves endangered wildlife and protects our planet by creating rainforest reserves through partnerships, community engagement, and donor support.

International

Wildlife Conservation Network Inc

Connect conservationists and supporters, deploy resources to the field, provide conservationists with tools and support they need to succeed.

Animals

Environment Now

—

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Social and Environmental Entrepreneurs (See) Inc; the most unlike its peers is Marine Applied Research and Exploration. 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

246 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. 246 of the 273 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)

246/246

Grantees still filing

184/246

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Environment$77,354,000Philanthropy$60,912,910Other$34,329,625International$9,495,000Animals$8,780,000Civil Rights$5,350,000Arts & Culture$3,410,000

Showing the 200 largest grantees by grant value.

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.

Resources Legacy FundCA107.3× affinity59 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Resources Legacy Fund · Patagoniaorg · The Schmidt Family Foundation · Orange County Community Foundation · Clif Family Foundation · Natural Resources Defense Council Inc · The Rose Foundation for Communities the Environment · Climateworks Foundation · Park Foundation Inc · Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors Inc · United States Energy Foundation · The Overbrook 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 Marisla Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from The Marisla Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

10get no government money at all

54report 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.

05Through Plinth

Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

How do I get to The Marisla Foundation?

Find your warmest path to The Marisla 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.

Play a game based on Marisla’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