Mai Family Foundation

OVERVIEW: The Mai Family Foundation largely focuses on poverty alleviation, social entrepreneurship, civic participation and democracy, refugees, education and other giving areas.

IP TAKE: Mai Foundation is not transparent or accessible, but it gives big. It restricts information about itself and doesn’t have a paid staff, so approaching them is going to be challenging. Grantseekers will have to do some extra work in order to attract this foundation's funding attentions.  It supports organizations both in the United States and abroad.

This funder also tends to support its grantees for multiple grant cycles, making this a crowded and competitive grant space. Most of it’s grantees are larger, established and well-known, so if you’re a grassroots or smaller outfit, you’ll have a harder time here. But don’t give up, since they do make room for new organizations.

While this funder gives globally, note that most of its grantees are located in or around New York City, where the Mai Family Foundation is headquartered, but this is not a hard and fast rule.

PROFILE: Established in 1996, the Mai Family Foundation was founded by South African businessman Vincent Mai, who is also the founder and chairman of the private equity firm Cranemere, Inc. The foundation supports development organizations both in the United States and abroad. It prioritizes poverty alleviation and social entrepreneurship in its giving. As occurs with grantmaking organizations that do not maintain a web presence and have a nearly non-existent public profile, further information is hard to come by. However, we’ve found some patterns below after studying this foundation’s tax filings.

Grants for Global Development

Even the foundation’s most recent and past tax filings do not offer much useful data on which global development programs and projects Mai supports. However, Mai makes grants, while also offering program-related investments (PRIs). It only awards PRIs but every few years; however, the PRIs it does make are often substantial, generally hitting the $1 million mark.

Grants for Civic Participation, Democracy and Media

The Mai Family Foundation gives consistently to a number of established social justice and media organizations that work to defend civil rights and freedom of speech. Giving for media appears to overlap with this funder’s giving for upholding democracy. Civil participation and democracy grantees include the Brennan Center for Justice, Media Matters, the Tobin Project, and the Voter Participation Center. The foundation also gives to several liberal-leaning think-tanks in this space, such as the Center for American Progress and People for the American Way, that work towards policy work in this focus area. This overlapped giving spaces appears, from tax filings, to suggest a major interest in issues of democracy, media and governmental accountability. This funder might consider smaller, but established organizations in this space if their work centers on social science research and policy.

Grants for Refugees

While not a publicly stated priority, grants for refugees are among some of the foundation’s largest. The Mai Family Foundation largely gives to the International Rescue Committee in this space. Given the large size of these related grants, giving may ramp up in this area of funding. However, if you do work in this space, note that this funder invests in larger, established organizations that can scale.

Grants for Early Childhood Education and K-12 Education

The Mai Family Foundation doesn’t have a publicly stated grant strategy for giving to early childhood and K-12 groups, preferring to give broadly in order to service a wider range of organizations; however, it has given some of it’s largest grants to Sesame Takalani, which is the South African version of Sesame Street. The foundation also appears to give to a mix of public and private grantees.

Grants for New York City

Vincent Mai once chaired the board of trustees of Sesame Workshop, and strongly supports the organization. His wife, Anne, meanwhile, is a trained social worker and has been a board member of Fountain House since the late 1990s.

In a recent fiscal year, grants ranged from $5,000 to $350,000 to Sesame Workshop. NYC grantees have included Sesame Workshop, New Visions for Public Schools, Juilliard School (Vincent Mai is a trustee), International Center for Transitional Justice, Council on Foreign Relations, and The Nation Institute.

Important Grant Details:

Mai's grantmaking is a bit more widespread than its PRIs, with around 50 to 75 grants awarded each year. Award amounts typically range from $50,000 to $100,000. A handful range from $150,000 to 1 million.

Mai certainly offers rather generous support to its grantees, but it does not accept unsolicited grant proposals or requests for funding. While it awards multi-year grants to several grantees, it appears to support new organizations as well. It just may take newer applicants a little more time and effort to get noticed and funded.

PEOPLE:

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CONTACT:

CONTACT:

The Mai Family Foundation
c/o Cranemere
135 E. 57th Street, 31st Floor
New York, New York 10022