· Private foundation
The Mark E and Mary a Davis 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.
Read this first · the figures below need context
98% of The Mark E and Mary a Davis Foundation’s FY2024 grant dollars went to National Philanthropic Trust, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2024 names 61 organizations directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it. Everything below is therefore FY2023, the last year The Mark E and Mary a Davis Foundation named its own grantees at scale: 61 organizations, $959k. 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 FY2020–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2023
- Under $10k80 grants · $104k
- $10k–50k13 grants · $245k
- $50k–250k4 grants · $210k
- $250k+1 grant · $400k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| MAYO | $400,000 |
| JUNIOR ACHIEVEMENT OF THE UPPER MIDWEST | $60,000 |
| FEDERATED FOUNDATION | $50,000 |
| GEORGE W BUSH FOUNDATION | $50,000 |
| HORATIO ALGER ASSOCIATION | $50,000 |
| MINNESOTANS' MILITARY APPRECIATION FUND | $25,000 |
| MINNESOTA STATE UNIVERSITY MANKATO COLLEGE OF BUSINESS | $25,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $25,000 |
| MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY (NORTH STAR CIRCLE MEMBERSHIP) | $25,000 |
| NATIONAL REVIEW INSTITUTE | $25,000 |
| SOUTHERN MINNESOTA INITIATIVE FOUNDATION | $20,000 |
| NICOLLET COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY | $15,000 |
| SHRINERS HEALTHCARE HOSPITAL FOR CHILDREN | $15,000 |
| CHURCH OF SAINT PETER | $15,000 |
| ST JUDE CHILDREN'S RESEARCH HOSPITAL | $15,000 |
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 (FY20–24, $21k) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 100% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of your grants land in higher-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 +38% since the first grant, against +36% for the ones you funded once.
108 repeat relationships — 92 still active in FY2023, 16 since wound down; 7 grantees were first funded in FY2023 (too recent to call). Read against FY2023, 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
Median revenue growth · since first grant
Still filing today
New vs renewed · share of each year
In FY2024, 93% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $32k 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
- HAHORATIO ALGER ASSN OF DISTINGUISHED AMERICANS INC3× · 2020–2024 · $400k · revenue +12%
- JAJUNIOR ACHIEVEMENT NORTH4× · 2020–2023 · $240k · revenue +91%
- MMMINNESOTANS' MILITARY APPRECIATION FUND5× · 2020–2024 · $125k · revenue +48%
Funded once
- TSTHE SALVATION ARMY - ADULT REHABILITATION CENTER BUILDING REMODELone grant, 2022 · $1.5M
- MMMINNESOTA MILITARY AND VETERANS MUSEUMgraduatedone grant, 2022 · $1.0M · revenue +62%
- TATHE ANNEXSTAD FAMILY FOUNDATIONgraduatedone grant, 2021 · $250k · revenue +29%
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.
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.
To be the leading voice of medicine to make minnesota the healthiest state and the best place to practice.
The fsmb serves as the voice for state medical boards, supporting them through education, assessment, research and advocacy while providing services and initiatives that promote patient safety, quality health care and regulatory best…
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…
MCF is a vibrant philanthropic community connecting, strengthening and mobilizing the power of philanthropy to advance prosperity and equity.
The minnesota chamber of commerce proactively leads the business community statewide to: advance pro-business, responsible minnesota public policy that creates jobs and grows the econony; provde member services to address evolving business…
To provide the highest level of stewardship for university donors through professional management and oversight of the university of minnesota foundation's assets by creating a focused investment environment with clarity of purpose,…
The peterson institute for international economics (piie) is an independent nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization dedicated to strengthening prosperity and human welfare in the global economy through expert analysis and practical…
The University of New Haven is a student-centered comprehensive university with an emphasis on excellence in liberal arts and professional education. Our mission is to prepare our students to lead purposeful and fulfilling lives in a…
National public radio, inc. ("npr") works collaboratively with member public radio station licensees ("member stations") to create a more informed public, one that is challenged and invigorated by a deeper understanding and appreciation of…
The minnesota business partnership's mission is to maintain a high quality of life for all minnesotans by ensuring that the state's economy remains strong, globally competitive and its prospects for growth bright by working with elected…
The american enterprise institute is a community of scholars and supporters committed to expanding liberty, increasing individual opportunity, and strengthening free enterprise. aei pursues these ideals through independent thinking and the…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The Heritage Foundation and the most unlike its peers is Jon Denzer Bear Hug Foundation. 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 39 years old; the field is 19. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 18% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 1% lost their exemption, against 9% 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.
81 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. 81 of the 134 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 NATIONAL PHILANTHROPIC TRUST ↗
- Who funds MAYO CLINIC ↗
- Who funds MINNESOTA MILITARY AND VETERANS MUSEUM ↗
- Who funds HORATIO ALGER ASSN OF DISTINGUISHED AMERICANS INC ↗
- Who funds THE ANNEXSTAD FAMILY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds JUNIOR ACHIEVEMENT NORTH ↗
- Who funds THE GEORGE W BUSH FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds MINNESOTANS' MILITARY APPRECIATION FUND ↗
- Who funds SOUTHERN MINNESOTA INITIATIVE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Center of the American Experiment ↗
- Who funds CATO INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL REVIEW INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds ST JUDE CHILDREN'S RESEARCH HOSPITAL INC ↗
- Who funds NICOLLET COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds TWIN CITIES PUBLIC TELEVISION INC ↗
- Who funds SOUTH CENTRAL COLLEGE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds MINNESOTA STATE FAIR FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Federated Insurance Foundation Inc ↗
- Who funds MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds Bolder Options ↗
- Who funds HILLSDALE COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds UPPER MIDWEST LAW CENTER ↗
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 Minneapolis Foundation · Xcel Energy Foundation · Saint Paul & Minnesota Foundation · Donors Trust Inc · Ronald and Janet Schutz Family Foundation · Bradley Impact Fund Inc · Pine Rock Foundation Inc · Glen a Taylor Foundation · Sit Investment Associates Foundation · The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation Inc · Mightycause Charitable Foundation · Minnesota Community 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 Mark E and Mary a Davis 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.
- Wounded Warrior Project 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.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to The Mark E and Mary a Davis Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Mark E and Mary a Davis 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.