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.
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 nonprofit’s 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.
Selecting communities and organizations to fund is a critical process for Magic Cabinet, a philanthropic organization focused on long-term capacity-building grants for nonprofits in underresourced communities.
In this blog series, we’ll dive into each of the engagement phases described above our continuous learnings, and how Magic Cabinet works tirelessly to ensure and improve our process so that communities are the loudest voice in shaping their own future.
When you see an iceberg, the portion visible above water is only a tiny part of a larger whole. You can think of nonprofits in the same way. Deep below the waterline of every nonprofit lies an enormous, invisible infrastructure keeping its organization afloat.