Reciprocal Grantmaking
Our grantmaking approach centers community knowledge.
Communities and nonprofits are experts in their own needs and have the ability to create lasting change. We strive to be a trusting and supportive partner, offering multi-year, capacity-building funding to cohorts of nonprofits to use as they see fit over the course of five years.
Magic Cabinet partners with nonprofits who are:
People Focused
Focused on bettering the lives of people in their community.
Locally Engaged
Are situated in or near the communities they serve.
Small to Medium-sized
Operating on yearly budgets between $500k – $2.5m**
Community Trusted
Serving their community and have been for at least three years.
Learning Organization
Open to new ideas, analyze outcomes and adjust accordingly.
Recognized Nonprofits
Granted 501(c)(3) tax determination by the United States’ IRS.
**When we see opportunity, Magic Cabinet adapts our standard model to fit the makeup of the nonprofit community.
Our Cohorts
Our cohort model connects nonprofits within the same community to strengthen their capacity through supported meetings and trainings for up to five years. In cohorts, they share ideas, navigate challenges, and collectively approve proposals for using funds.
Cohorts are composed of people-focused, locally engaged nonprofits in the Bay Area in California and in the Puget Sound region of Washington state.
Introduce Your Nonprofit!
We would love to hear more about your nonprofit and work in community.
Our Engagement Process
All nonprofits who complete our engagement process receive an engagement grant, the results of their iCAT assessment, and become eligible for our funded Cohort grants.
Become a Cohort Advisor
Join us in building stronger communities with our nonprofit partners! Make meaningful impact while connecting with community leaders.
Sometimes, getting to yes means rewriting the rules. When our capacity-building model became too limiting, we trusted the expertise of our partners—seeding an idea that took root among multiple Magic Cabinet cohorts.
Several of our nonprofit partners are redefining what innovation looks like—using multi-year, capacity-building funding from Magic Cabinet to build critical infrastructure within their organizations and explore new revenue streams, setting them on a sustainable path for the future.
We're excited to announce Magic Cabinet's first cohorts of fiscally-sponsored organizations. Ushering in a new evolution of our grantmaking, we're eager to shift power to a new group of nonprofits to help them catalyze impact within the communities they serve.