How much does The Steven & Katherine Markel Foundation give?

The Steven & Katherine Markel Foundation reported 8 grants totaling $1,156,997 in its FY2025 IRS filing. It funded between 8 and 20 organizations a year over FY2018 to FY2024.

What does The Steven & Katherine Markel Foundation fund?

By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2025, its largest causes are Education (32%), Arts & Culture (26%), Human Services (16%).

Who are The Steven & Katherine Markel Foundation's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2017 to FY2025: Anna Julia Cooper School ($1.4M), The Valentine Museum ($1.1M), Maymont Foundation ($1.1M).

Does The Steven & Katherine Markel Foundation fund new organizations?

In FY2024, 0% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Does The Steven & Katherine Markel 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 Steven & Katherine Markel Foundation?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include The Community Foundation Inc, Herndon Foundation, The Pauley Family Foundation.

Where is The Steven & Katherine Markel Foundation based?

The Steven & Katherine Markel Foundation is based in VA.

The Steven & Katherine Markel Foundation

The Steven & Katherine Markel Foundation at a glance

· Private foundation

The Steven & Katherine Markel 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.

$1.2M

Granted FY2025still arriving

Grants FY2025still arriving

States reached

$731k

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 2025.

Education$2.9MArts & Culture$2.3MHuman Services$1.4MHealth$728kFood & Nutrition$492kYouth Development$369kRecreation & Sports$287kHousing & Shelter$211kOther$0

02FY2025 · 8 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2025

$10k–50k2 grants · $59k
$50k–250k5 grants · $367k
$250k+1 grant · $731k

$52,398

Median grant

States reached

$8.7M

Total assets

Anchored by a single position: about 97% of reported assets are held in Markel Corp.

Largest grants
Recipient	Amount
ANNA JULIA COOPER EPISCOPAL	$731,209
THE MAYMONT FOUNDATION	$104,797
YWCA	$104,797
VPM	$52,398
THE FIRST TEE OF GREATER RICHMOND	$52,398
THE VIRGINIA HOME FOR BOYS AND GIRLS	$52,398
SPORTS BACKERS	$34,000
PARTNERSHIP FOR THE FUTURE	$25,000

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 (FY17–25, $911k) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 7%. 100% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-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.

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 15% of The Steven & Katherine Markel Foundation’s grant dollars are earmarked for a different county than the recipient’s own address. By recipient address, 96% of the giving stays in VA; by stated purpose, 40%.

The Steven & Katherine Markel Foundationlessmore of its giving

Placed by recipient address · 57% 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.

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

$8.6M · 28 repeat orgs$346k to everyone else

Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +73% since the first grant, against +21% for those funded once.

28 repeat relationships: 7 still active in FY2025, 21 since wound down; 1 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$8.6M

$242k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+73%

+21%

Still filing today

86%

63%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 91% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $105k went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

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

Arts & CultureHuman ServicesEducationHealthHousing & ShelterYouth DevelopmentOther

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

AJ
ANNA JULIA COOPER SCHOOL
3× · 2019–2025 · $1.4M · revenue +73%
TV
THE VALENTINE MUSEUM
7× · 2017–2023 · $1.1M · revenue +176%
MF
MAYMONT FOUNDATION
9× · 2017–2025 · $1.1M · revenue +122%

Funded once

BH
BAPTIST HEALTH FOUNDATION
one grant, 2023 · $103k
JF
Jewish Family Services Inc
one grant, 2023 · $51k · revenue +21%
ET
EXCEL TO EXCELLENCE INC
one grant, 2017 · $45k · revenue -75%

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.

Academy of Richmond County

—

Renew Richmond

Renew Richmond strives to build healthier, more self-empowered communities by involving local youth in agriculture and environmental sustainability. We do this by partnering with local public schools.

Environment

The Richmond Symphony

The richmond symphony performs, teaches and champions music to inspire and unite our communities.

Arts & Culture

Greater Richmond Chamber of Commerce

Chamberrva is the trusted voice for modern business in the richmond virginia region. we are change agents, rallying to do the hard things that will create a more connected, prosperous, health and equitable community.

—

Richmond County Partnership for Children Inc

Richmond County Partnership for Children advances a high-quality, accountable system of care and early education for each child beginning with a healthy birth, and supports families to improve early childhood health and development to…

Education

Nextup Rva

To provide all richmond youth with access to coordinated, high-quality learning experiences beyond the classroom. we believe that when students participate in high-quality out-of-school time (ost) programs, they benefit academically,…

Human Services

Virginia Center for Inclusive Communities

VCIC works with schools, businesses, and communities to achieve success through inclusion.

Civil Rights

Groundwork Rva Inc

Mission: to cultivate the next generation of urban conservationists in richmond, virginia. vision: groundwork rva works with richmond youth to increase environmental, economic, and social well-being in neighborhoods by transforming…

Community Improvement

Greater Richmond Partnership Inc

GRP's mission is to aggressively generate economic opportunities that create quality jobs for residents in the region and increase the tax base for needed community services.

Public Benefit

The Richmond Forum

To present powerful voices so richmond can learn. to empower local voices so richmond can lead.

—

Virginia Center for Public Press

Vcpp operates wrir 97.3 lpfm, a community low power fm radio station serving citizens of the city of richmond, virginia, and surrounding counties. the station covers a listening area of approximately 5-7 miles. wrir broadcasts news, views…

Arts & Culture

Richmond Friends School Inc

Committed to providing a quality educational experience for each child, creating an environment that nurtures individual intellectual, emotional, creative, spiritual, and physical gifts within a community

Education

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Childsavers- Memorial Child Guidance Clinic; the most unlike its peers is Excel to Excellence Inc. 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

31 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. 31 of the 38 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)

30/31

Grantees still filing

22/31

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Arts & Culture$2,300,088Education$1,707,043Other$2,572,856Human Services$910,511Health$619,098Food & Nutrition$492,432Crime & Legal$407,099

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 Community Foundation IncVA44.4× affinity20 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: The Community Foundation Inc · Herndon Foundation · The Pauley Family Foundation · Carmax Foundation · Wilbur Moreland Havens Charitable Foundation · Robins Foundation · Dominion Energy Charitable Foundation · The Mary Morton Parsons Foundation · Estes Foundation Co Matthew Breidenbach Pitcairn · Shelton H Short Jr Trust · Virginia Sargeant Reynolds Foundation · Robert G Cabell III and Maude Morgan Cabell 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 Steven & Katherine Markel Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from The Steven & Katherine Markel Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

1get no government money at all

15report 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 Steven & Katherine Markel Foundation?

Find your warmest path to The Steven & Katherine Markel 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 Steven & Katherine Markel’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