· Private foundation
Brent Taylor Perpetual Char Trust Mercantile Bank Trustee
Its FY2019 filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and did not take unsolicited requests; check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| ROCKFORD UNIVERSITY | $1,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS | $1,000 |
| MOBERLY AREA COMMUNITY COLLEGE | $1,000 |
| SETON HALL UNIVERSITY | $1,000 |
| WESTERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY | $1,000 |
| JOHN WOOD COMMUNITY COLLEGE | $1,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF IOWA | $1,000 |
| NORTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY | $1,000 |
| IOWA STATE UNIVERSITY | $1,000 |
| CULVER-STOCKTON COLLEGE | $1,000 |
| HANNIBAL LAGRANGE UNIVERSITY | $1,000 |
| JOHN WOOD COMMUNITY COLLEGE | $1,000 |
| METHODIST COLLEGE | $1,000 |
| IOWA STATE UNIVERSITY | $1,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN - PLATTEVIL | $1,000 |
Do your dollars go where the need is?
Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, then read against the area’s typical level.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY17–17) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 84% of your dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of your grants land in higher-need ZIPs.
Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty linein the grantee’s ZIP, averaged from the tracts in that ZIP; grantee ZIP can differ from where services are delivered.
Which US states your grants reach
US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are actually delivered. Need from public data — U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA — shown as context about the area, never attributed to your giving.
Where the work is directed
The same grants, placed two ways — where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose earmarks the money.
About 13% of Brent Taylor Perpetual Char Trust Mercantile Bank Trustee’s grant dollars are earmarked, by their stated purpose, for a different county than the recipient’s own address — money that lands at a nonprofit in one place but is meant to do its work in another. Read by recipient address, 39% of the giving stays in IL; read by stated purpose it is 35% — less of the work is directed home than the recipients' locations suggest.
Recipient view: each grant at its grantee’s ZIP, mapped to a county. Directed view: each grant at the county its stated purpose names, falling back to the recipient’s county when the purpose names no place; US grants only. A county shows only if it carries the top 95% of that view’s dollars. Purposes are read from the foundation’s own 990 grant descriptions.
The map has a center of gravity: the average direction from the rest of the sector toward the organizations the foundation funds — the shape of its giving. Scoring every nonprofit along that direction surfaces the ones that look most like the portfolio. These are the closest matchesthat aren’t grantees — a resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.
Union college is a seventh-day adventist community of higher education, inspired by jesus christ, and dedicated to empowering students to learn, serve, and lead.
Inspired by lutheran scholarly tradition and the liberal arts, augustana provides an education of enduring worth that challenges the intellect, fosters integrity and integrates faith with learning and service in a diverse world.
The university's goal in the coming decade is to advance learning through the integration of teaching, research and service to others. the core of this goal is to prepare graduates to engage with the world and lead lives of meaning. to do…
Xavier is a jesuit catholic university rooted in the liberal arts tradition. our mission is to educate each student intellectually, morally, and spiritually. we create learning opportunities through rigorous academic and professional…
Cornell college offers an innovative and rigorous learning community where faculty and staff collaborate with students to develop the intellectual curiosity, creativity and moral courage necessary for a lifetime of learning and engaged…
Hilbert college is an independent institution of higher learning that embraces its catholic franciscan heritage and values. students from diverse backgrounds are educated in liberal arts and professional programs to become informed…
The organization's mission is to educate students for creative occupations in diverse fields of arts and media.
Rooted in the liberal arts & sciences & lutheran expression of the christian faith, & is committed to offering a challenging education that develops qualities of mind, spirit, & body necessary for a rewarding life of leadership & service…
The mission of the university is to educate leaders for a global society who are strong in character and judgment, confident in their identity and vocation, and committed to service and justice.
Capital university transforms lives by empowering an inclusive community of learners through engaging academic, co-curricular, and professional experiences.
Education - lagrange college challenges the minds and inspires the souls of its students. founded in 1831 and committed to its relationship with the united methodist church and its wesleyan and liberal arts traditions, the college supports…
We are a Catholic, co-educational, liberal arts university founded in 1843 by the Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Dubuque, Iowa. Clarke educates students at the post-secondary level in the liberal arts and sciences, the…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Columbia College and the most unlike its peers is Coe College. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
Your grantees are a median of 80 years old; the field is 16. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 22% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 13% of the field you don’t fund.
Age = years since IRS exemption (a founding proxy). “Closed” = auto-revocation for 3 years of non-filing — a floor on closure, not proof, and bigger established orgs lapse least. Association, not causation.
26 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.
Each one resolved to its own IRS returns and tracked year by year — your grant beside their revenue from every source. Association, dated; never a causal claim.
Counted here: distinct organizations you funded across 2017–2025, not grant rows in a single year — so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 26 of the 70 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile; the rest are funded organizations whose filings we could not track year by year.
Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee
Each org by its size and your share of it — top-left is where you’re load-bearing
Go grantee by grantee — a decade per org, and how each moved after you funded them
A decade per grantee — revenue shaded, your grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.
- Who funds CULVER-STOCKTON COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds QUINCY UNIVERSITY CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds ST AMBROSE UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds GRAND VIEW UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds Hannibal LaGrange University ↗
- Who funds COLUMBIA COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds Maryville University - St Louis ↗
- Who funds LIMESTONE UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds Simpson College ↗
- Who funds COE COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY OF DUBUQUE ↗
- Who funds SAINT XAVIER UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds ROCKFORD UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds DEFIANCE COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds SIENA HEIGHTS UNIVERSITY ↗
The grantmakers whose grantees overlap with yours far more than size alone predicts. Each orbits closer the stronger the alignment; the arcs between them show where they also fund each other. Here it reads as a tightly interlocked camp — most of these funders back each other's grantees too.
Open a dossier: Michael & Susan Dell Foundation · Ibm International Foundation · Tulsa Community Foundation · Enterprise Holdings Foundation · Pittsfield High School Class of 1954 Scholarship Fund Inc · Associated Colleges of Illinois Inc · Council of Independent Colleges · Ge Aerospace Foundation · Edward Jones Foundation · Raymond James Charitable Endowment Fund · Porter Edwin M Educational Fund · R D Cundiff Scholarship Trust Dtd 10121
Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. A research starting point: overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.
Government reliance of your grantees
Every dot is one organization Brent Taylor Perpetual Char Trust Mercantile Bank Trustee funds. Left–right is the share of its income from government; up–down is the share from you. Bigger dots raise more. Filter to federal or a single department — and drag the year to watch it move.
- The University of Tulsa — 2% of income from government
- University of New Haven — 1% of income from government
- Seton Hall University — 0% of income from government
Government income is each org’s traced federal awards (USASpending — grants and contracts) plus state payments (open checkbooks) as a share of its total revenue (IRS Form 990); the self-reported government-grant line (990 line 1e) is carried for cross-check: a grantee that reports government grants we could not trace to a source is left off the chart rather than shown as receiving none. An association, not a claim that your grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first — a floor, not a census; state records exist for 9 states, so a grantee outside them shows no state figure (dimmed) rather than a false zero. Federal award amounts are obligations, which can span years, so a single-year share is indicative. 990 filings lag 12–24 months.