Marcus Foundation Grants

Marcus Foundation Grants

Status: ACTIVE
Funder: Marcus Foundation
Last Updated: November 28, 2025

Summary

The Marcus Foundation focuses on addressing critical needs and systemic challenges, primarily in hunger alleviation and sustainable practices. They seek partnerships with organizations that promote innovative food resources and sustainability. Their funding strategy emphasizes collaboration to amplify resources and enhance impact while fostering immediate solutions to hunger issues. The Foundation believes in long-term stewardship and the importance of sustainability for future generations, aiming to create systemic change alongside immediate support.

Overview

Note: The Foundation is not currently accepting unsolicited proposals. Written inquiries regarding matching grants and partnerships in our stated areas of interest are welcome.  It may not be possible for us to respond every request. Values and Strategy Our funding and partnering approach focuses on meeting short-term critical needs and addressing underlying system-wide challenges. In both cases The Marcus Foundation seeks partners and grantees – organizations and foundations – that are looking for opportunities to explore new ventures, and bringing creative thinking to their work. Specifically, we work with organizations committed to developing innovative approaches to sustainability and community food resources. Our values include: Change and Support: We value efforts that further systemic change and those that provide immediate responses to critical needs in our communitiesCommunication and Collaboration: We believe in the effective and timely exchange of information and the usefulness of collaboration that is both efficient and creativeListening and Partnership: We value the sharing of ideas, resources and initiatives, and we seek partnerships that leverage the assets and skills of all participants Our focus on hunger stems from the fundamental reality that hungry people aren’t able to focus on anything else until this basic human need is satisfied. Unmet, this need undermines our communities and deprives our children of the ability to learn while at school. It forces our older citizens to choose between heat, medicine and food. This was clearly articulated in the 19th century by Ballington Booth, the founder of Volunteers of America in his statement: “You cannot talk to a man about God (or we believe, anything else) when he is hungry..." In 1943 Abraham Maslow captured this truth as part of the “Hierarchy of Needs” asserting that the basic needs of food and shelter must be met before humans can move towards the higher goals of education, family, employment and “self-actualization." Our emphasis on sustainability is rooted in the awareness that we are all stewards of a world that will soon be passed on to the next generation, as a prior generation passed on to us our world. While the definition of sustainability has evolved over the decades since being introduced in 1987, by the UN World Commission on Environment and Development in the Bruntland Report, at its core it remains a principle of intergenerational equity. Sustainability is the imperative that we consider long-term consequences of our actions and behavior. Distilled to its essence, sustainability requires us to “meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” Strategically, we believe immediate and critical needs must be addressed, while also working to change the fundamental incentives and dynamics that cause these problems. Whether in business practices, environmental advocacy, or agricultural methods, sustainability is a prism that can generate new perspectives. It can be and must be the driving force that challenges us to live responsibly. Partnerships The Marcus Foundation funds primarily in two areas: Assisting organizations that work to increase awareness of hunger as a critical problem and/or deliver food resources to meet critical short-term needs; andSupporting efforts to change underlying structural obstacles and incentives that hinder efforts to bring sustainable practices into the mainstream. Strategically, the Foundation now serves not only as a financial supporter of organizations, but also as a partner in order to enhance impact and reduce fundraising and operating expenses. We collaborate with other funding organizations to multiply the resources available to grantees.The Foundation serves as a broker between organizations and qualified vendors when this can advance the mission of grantees.We offer the experience of Foundation officers on short-term assignments to tackle specific problems or seize timely opportunities when a grantee needs immediate help and we have the internal capacity to respond.

Eligibility

You can learn more about this opportunity by visiting the funder's website.