Maor Foundation

Maor Foundation (EIN 42-1645906) is a small, family-directed private foundation based in Clayton, Missouri, with roughly $12.3 million in assets and no professional program staff — trustees Avigail Goldgraber, Cheryl Ann Fox, Naomi Goldbraber, and Miryam Goldgraber run it directly, all uncompensated. Its own IRS filing instructions state applicants should simply 'contact Maor at email address for specifics' and be prepared to explain the purpose of the organization, intended use of funds, and how the project will be evaluated — there is no portal, published RFP, or formal LOI template. That structure, combined with a grantee list dominated by repeat, multi-year relationships (Pef Israel Endowment Funds, American Friends of the Heschel Center, American Friends of Leket Israel each received four separate grants), signals this is a relationship-first funder: trustees direct dollars to organizations they or their network already know, rather than running a competitive review process. IMPORTANT CAVEAT: the website on file for this foundation, maorfoundation.com, actually resolves to an unrelated Ohio nonprofit (the Braunstein family's Ma'Or Foundation in Maumee, OH) — a name collision, not the Clayton, MO grantmaker profiled here. Do not rely on that site's content when preparing an approach; use the IRS/990 record and direct contact instead. First-time applicants should note two structural realities: (1) nearly every non-institutional grantee is a US 'Friends of' intermediary for an Israeli or Jewish-identity cause, so alignment with Jewish communal, educational, or Israel-focused missions is close to a prerequisite for consideration; (2) the foundation also makes a handful of large institutional gifts (Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, $1,000,000 across two grants; University of Chicago, $460,000 across three grants) that look more like major-donor relationships than open grant awards. Given the accepting_applications flag is technically marked true but no application_form_url or deadline exists, the realistic path in is a warm introduction — through the Jewish Funders Network (itself a two-time grantee at $47,626) or a shared institutional connection — followed by a short, direct written outreach to the trustees rather than a formal proposal package.

Across the 35 grants captured in the foundation's top-recipient history, total disbursement is $3,129,226 at an average of $89,406 per grant, but the distribution is heavily skewed by a handful of large institutional gifts: the single largest relationship, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, accounts for $1,000,000 (32% of the total) across just two grants. By contrast, the most recent single filing year reports a typical grant size with a median of $40,000, a mean of $82,444, and a range of $2,000 to $240,000 across 9 grants — a more realistic benchmark for a new applicant than the inflated multi-year average. By program area, education-tagged giving dominates: Dana-Farber ($1,000,000), Pef Israel Endowment Funds ($629,000), University of Chicago ($460,000), American Friends of the Heschel Center ($305,000), Jewish Funders Network ($47,626), the Jewish Institute of Pitigliano Italy ($25,600), Washington University ($20,000), American Friends of Kidum ($10,000), and Dog Tag Inc ($5,000) sum to roughly $2.5 million, about 80% of total giving. Food security is the second priority — American Friends of Leket Israel ($290,000), Global Foodbanking Network ($20,000), and Miriam's Kitchen ($20,000) total $330,000 (10.5%). The remainder (~9.5%) is spread across Jewish communal and economic-empowerment causes: American Friends of Ogen ($125,000, financial education/microfinance), the American Friends of the Israel Free Loan Association ($50,000), Kesher Israel Congregation in Georgetown ($40,000), and Friends of Chabad on Campus ($60,000 across two grants). Geographically, giving clusters around grantee headquarters in NY (7 grants), DC and MO (5 each), and IL, NJ, PA (4 each) — reflecting where the intermediary 'Friends of' organizations and universities are incorporated rather than a defined regional mandate; the foundation's own stated geographic_focus spans DC, MO, NY, NJ, PA, and IL. Annual total giving climbed from $290,000 (2018) to a peak of $1,211,546 (2023), then declined an estimated 21% to roughly $957,000 in 2024, tracking a foundation whose grantmaking budget rises and falls with periodic family contributions to the corpus ($2,641,530 added in 2021; $1,000,000 in 2019) rather than a fixed payout formula.

Maor Foundation sits in a cluster of similarly sized independent family foundations, all classified under the Philanthropy & Grantmaking NTEE category and holding almost identical asset bases near $12.3 million — likely a coincidence of how this peer set was matched by asset size rather than shared mission, so treat the comparison as a scale benchmark, not a strategic one.

The underlying data bundle does not include grantee-level or website detail for these five peers, so no assumptions can be made about their focus areas or whether they run an open process — Foundation Directory Online or each foundation's own Form 990-PF would be needed to verify. What is clear from the shared NTEE classification and near-identical asset size is that this tier of family foundation (roughly $12M in assets, generally under $1.5M in annual giving) typically operates with no paid staff and a trustee-run, relationship-based grantmaking model, consistent with what Maor Foundation's own filings show.

The most recent verifiable filing is Maor Foundation's Form 990-PF for fiscal year 2024, filed November 15, 2025, showing $12,307,378 in total assets (down from $13,232,767 at the 2022 peak reported in earlier filings) and estimated charitable disbursements of $957,000, a roughly 21% pullback from the $1,211,546 distributed in FY2023. Revenue for FY2024 was $1,373,896, driven by dividend income ($474,057) and asset sales ($899,839); the foundation received no new outside contributions that year, consistent with its pattern of being replenished episodically by the family rather than annually. No press coverage, leadership announcements, or new program launches specific to this Maor Foundation were found in 2025-2026 web search results — the only 2025-2026 news matching the name 'Maor' belongs to Maor Investments, an unrelated Israeli-focused venture capital fund (e.g., its portfolio company OneLayer closing a $28 million Series A in October 2025), which should not be confused with this grantmaking foundation. Trustee records show slight variation between filings: the underlying data bundle lists Cheryl Ann Fox and Avigail Goldgraber as trustees, while ProPublica's summary of the FY2024 filing lists Avigail Goldgraber, Naomi Goldbraber, and Miryam Goldgraber — likely reflecting a board update between filing years rather than a data error, but worth confirming directly before an outreach letter is addressed to a specific individual. Given the foundation's small size, lack of communications staff, and absence of a functioning public website (the maorfoundation.com domain on file belongs to a different, unrelated Ohio nonprofit), grant seekers should not expect any public announcement of funding priorities or awards — the Form 990-PF filed each fall remains the only reliable source of recent activity.

There is no formal proposal portal, published deadline, or downloadable application for Maor Foundation — its own Form 990-PF instructs prospective grantees to contact the foundation directly and be ready to address three things: the purpose of the requesting organization, the specific use of grant funds, and how the project's results will be evaluated. Lead with that structure rather than a generic cover letter. Because the foundation is run entirely by uncompensated family trustees (Avigail Goldgraber and colleagues) with no program officer, initial outreach should go directly to the trustees rather than a generic info@ address, and should be concise — a one-to-two-page letter, not a full grant application, is the appropriate first move. Alignment matters more than polish here: virtually every grantee outside of a few marquee university and hospital gifts is a US-based 'Friends of' organization supporting Israeli or Jewish communal causes (education, food security, microfinance, congregational life), so an organization without a clear tie to Jewish identity, Israel, or Jewish education faces a materially harder path, regardless of program quality. A warm introduction is the highest-leverage entry point — the foundation is itself a two-time funder of the Jewish Funders Network ($47,626 across two grants), suggesting trustees are plugged into that network and may be more receptive to introductions that come through it. Expect an evaluation-first ask: because the foundation explicitly asks how the project will be evaluated, come with concrete, measurable outcomes (meals distributed, students served, loans issued) rather than aspirational mission language. Common mistakes to avoid: submitting an unsolicited full proposal or budget before establishing contact (there is no channel for it to be reviewed); assuming this is the same organization as the Ma'Or Foundation website found in search results (a Maumee, Ohio nonprofit with an unrelated volunteer-only program); and treating the $1,000,000 Dana-Farber or $460,000 University of Chicago gifts as representative of a typical ask — the median grant in the most recent filing year was $40,000, and a first ask in the $10,000-$40,000 range is far more realistic than a six-figure request. Given the FY2024 giving pullback (down ~21% from FY2023), timing an ask for later in the foundation's fiscal year, after a fresh family contribution to the corpus, may improve odds, though there is no public signal of exactly when that occurs.