About

Marillac Mission Fund, formerly the Daughters of Charity Foundation of St. Louis, is in its 28th year of investing in area nonprofits serving those experiencing poverty and vulnerability.  Marillac Mission Fund (MMF) is a St. Louis-based charitable foundation that supports and partners in efforts to care for and encourage the wellbeing and dignity of people experiencing poverty through funding grants, community engagements, research and advocacy. 

Since its inception, the Fund has focused on primary and preventive health care and social services. Today, MMF supports a broad range of initiatives to serve those experiencing poverty, focusing on Older Adults Living Independently, Immigrants & Refugees, Veterans, Human Trafficking Prevention, Advocacy & Coalition-Building, and Capacity Building for grantee organizations. We serve the metropolitan area of St. Louis including 15 counties in Missouri and Illinois, and have funded more than $45 million in grants.

We periodically conduct environmental scans and literature reviews to identify critical issues in the region, and the Executive Council reviews the focus areas for Responsive Grants.

MMF is a philanthropic program of Ascension.  Ascension is one of the nation’s leading non-profit and Catholic health systems, with a mission of delivering compassionate, personalized care to all with special attention to persons living in poverty and those most vulnerable. In FY2022, Ascension provided $2.3 billion in care of persons living in poverty and other community benefit programs. Ascension includes approximately 140,000 associates and 36,000 aligned providers and operates more than 2,600 sites of care including 139 hospitals in 19 states.