Attorney and philanthropist. With his wife Martha, three children, and five grandchildren — a half-century partnership supporting nonprofits from Greater Chicago to the Grand Traverse region of Northern Michigan.
A Chicago lawyer who built a six-hundred-person firm — and then, alongside his wife Martha, quietly turned that success into one of the city's most respected family foundations.
Denis Pierce graduated from Loyola University Chicago School of Law in 1969 and founded Pierce & Associates in downtown Chicago in 1975. Over the next forty-one years he built it into one of the country's largest mortgage law firms, growing to six hundred employees at its peak. In 2016 he merged the firm with Atlanta-based McCalla Raymer to form what is now McCalla Raymer Leibert Pierce, LLP.
The firm was the engine. The mission, for Denis and Martha, was always something else.
Martha ran a small Chicago nonprofit and lived the funding gaps every day: the leaking roof, the donor database that never quite worked, the staffer whose salary had to stretch a little further. Denis served on the boards of Chicago nonprofits alongside her. Those conversations — and a now-famous one on the front deck of a friend's cottage in Northern Michigan — became the seed of what would later be the Pierce Family Foundation, which launched at a gathering of friends and family at the Newberry Library in 2008.
Above everything else, family is the center of Denis's life. He and Martha have been married for more than fifty years; together they raised three children and now share their lives with five grandchildren. Every philanthropic decision, every board seat, every late-night conversation about a struggling agency starts from a question they have asked at their own kitchen table — what kind of community do we want our family, and other families, to grow up in?
For more than forty summers, that family has gathered at a cottage on Glen Lake, in Leelanau County. The grandchildren know the water the way locals do. That place — and a deep commitment to the people, water, and land around Traverse City and the Grand Traverse region — is the second pole of Denis and Martha's giving.
The Pierce Family Foundation, founded by Denis and Martha in 2007, operated for fifteen years — and deliberately spent itself out at the end of 2023.
A philosophy of giving that began at Martha's nonprofit kitchen table — and grew into a body of work recognized across the field.
The foundation became known for an idea that should not have been radical, but somehow was: that if you want nonprofits to do good work, you have to fund their real costs — the rent, the salaries, the technology, the back office. Not just the programs.
Denis and Martha believed in unrestricted, multi-year general operating grants. They kept paperwork minimal. They funded the things other funders avoided — IT infrastructure, leadership development, HR consulting, a new boiler when a shelter's old one gave out. They called it support beyond the grant, and over fifteen years it earned them twenty-nine separate awards from the very organizations they funded.
Their foundation was a founding partner in AMPT: Advancing Nonprofits, a capacity-building hub for BIPOC-led organizations on Chicago's West and South Sides. They were founding members of Chicago Funders Together to End Homelessness, and early seed funders of the Chicago Racial Justice Pooled Fund. They launched the Chicago Youth Storage Initiative, which installed 700 storage lockers at 25 program sites for young people experiencing homelessness. They created Peer Skill Share, which paired more than 1,200 nonprofit staffers from 500 organizations for free advice and mentorship.
They helped La Casa Norte build its Humboldt Park community center — the 25 units of supportive housing there are collectively known as Pierce House.
When the time came to wind down, they did the unusual thing: they spent the foundation out on purpose, finished what they had started, and made sure the work continued. Today Denis and Martha continue to support dozens of nonprofits every year as individual donors.
In its final year, the foundation published "Small But Mighty" — a record of what fifteen years of trust-based grantmaking had taught Denis, Martha, and their staff. A selection:
Programs cannot be delivered effectively without stable organizations. PFF championed the need to support "the real costs" of nonprofits — and the importance of doing so only grew over time.
You can't get the meal without the kitchen, and most certainly not without the cooks. PFF invested in HR support, salary research, and a leadership development program — the Top Talent Institute — that ran for eleven years.
Nonprofit leaders often have ideas they'd like to test. Take the leap with them — even when outcomes can't be predicted. Don't shy away from funding smaller organizations whose names are lesser known but whose work is more immediately vital.
Foundations working alone reach further when they work together. PFF was a founding or seed partner in AMPT, Chicago Funders Together to End Homelessness, the Chicago Racial Justice Pooled Fund, and the Cuore e Mani partnership.
Trust starts from the first impression. What materials are requested from grantees, and why? Whose workload is being eased — the foundation's, or the nonprofit's? Whose voices are being listened to?
Ask Denis why they sunset, and he will say, "Well, we ran out of money." From the start, holding to a 5% payout never concerned them. The idea of perpetuity was never top of mind. Spending down is not a failure — it's a choice.
From the foundation's longtime grantee partners — the people who knew Denis and Martha's giving from the inside.
I appreciate PFF's friendship and camaraderie. I could tell you what was really happening, and not do a dog-and-pony show. You really got it. You understood why we needed to pay the light bill with that grant.A Core Grantee
PFF was our first multi-year foundation grant, our first general operating grant, our first capacity-building grant. We were so small — and it really was a catalyst.A Core Grantee
You've led groundbreaking philanthropy, and really trusted us to know what we needed to do to meet our mission — and then given us the capacity we needed to pull it off.A Core Grantee
I think I am more excited about the computer lab updates than the Christmas I got my Easy Bake Oven. Having supporters who understand the day-to-day work of nonprofits is crucial.A Core Grantee
Denis and Martha's giving has always been geographically rooted — Greater Chicago, where they built their lives and the firm, and the Grand Traverse region of Northern Michigan, where they've summered for four decades.
The agencies meeting people where they are — and the field-level work that helps every Chicago nonprofit do its job better.
From the family cottage on Glen Lake — four decades of giving to the people, water, and land of the Grand Traverse region.
Over their fifteen years of foundation work, Denis and Martha received twenty-nine awards from the very organizations they supported. A selection:
Denis reads everything that comes through this form personally. A few words about who you are and why you're writing is the best way to start a conversation.
Note: the Pierce Family Foundation closed at the end of 2023 and no longer accepts grant applications. Denis and Martha continue to give as individuals.