· Private foundation
Catherin V Merrill Foundation Co Christine Demareah Elvin Knight
Its FY2024 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2019–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| DON BOSCO CENTERS | $140,000 |
| BENEDICTINE COLLEGE | $125,000 |
| ROCKHURST UNIVERSITY SCHOLARSHIP | $100,000 |
| ST MICHAEL THE ARCHANGEL | $75,000 |
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.
Your human-services grants (FY19–24, $284k) land where the poverty rate runs at 15%, against an area that typically sits at 12%. 100% of those 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.
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.
Who you back again
Which organizations you funded more than once, and which you funded a single time. Each grantee is matched to its own filings.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +76% since the first grant, against -11% for the ones you funded once.
14 repeat relationships — 4 still active in FY2024, 10 since wound down.
How the two cohorts compare
Organizations
Total granted
Median revenue growth · since first grant
Still filing today
New vs renewed · share of each year
In FY2024, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 went to new ones.
Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant
First-time = a grantee’s first year in your filing window; renewed = funded in an earlier year too. As a portfolio matures the renewed share naturally climbs — once funded, an org stays “renewable” — so the signal is the years that buck it (a new-grantee intake wave). The earliest year is left-censored: relationships that predate the data read as “new.” Theme is the grantee’s IRS cause.
Backed again, and grew
- BCBenedictine College6× · 2019–2024 · $650k · revenue +76%
- FFFOUNDATION FOR INCLUSIVE RELIGIOUS EDUCATION INC5× · 2019–2023 · $350k · revenue +91%
- TDTHE DON BOSCO CENTERS2× · 2023–2024 · $265k · revenue +7%
Funded once
- AUAVILA UNIVERSITYgraduatedone grant, 2019 · $60k · revenue +117%
- HTHARVESTERS - THE COMMUNITY FOOD NETWORKone grant, 2021 · $11k · revenue -11%
- OLOUR LADY OF THE PRESENTATIONone grant, 2023 · $10k
Repeat = funded in two or more distinct years; growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.
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.
The corporation of saint mary's college, notre dame (saint mary's) is a catholic, residential, women's, liberal arts college offering undergraduate degrees and co-educational graduate programs. (continued in schedule o)
The university provides a rigorous liberal arts and professional education for a diverse student population. (see schedule o for the organization's mission.)
Saint xavier university, a catholic institution inspired by the heritage of the sisters of mercy, educates persons to search for truth, think critically, communicate effectively and serve wisely and compassionately in support of human…
See Schedule O. See explanation for Form 990, Part I, Line 1 - Organization's Mission above.
Siena university is a learning community advancing the ideals of a liberal arts education, rooted in its identity as a franciscan and catholic institution. as a learning community, siena is committed to a student-centered education…
As a Catholic, Jesuit university our mission is to search for truth, discover shareknowledge, foster personal professional excellence, promote a life of faith and developleadership expressed in service to others. See Schedule O.
Inspired by Saint Pope John Paul II, we take as our motto Cultura Vitae, the culture of life, as our students triumph over the materialism and despair that pervades our culture in order to have life and have it abundantly. We do this with…
The University of Mary exists to serve the religious, academic and cultural needs of the people in this region and beyond.(Continued on Schedule O)
Loyola University New Orleans, a Jesuit and Catholic institution of higher education, welcomes students of diverse backgrounds and prepares them to lead meaningful lives with and for others; to pursue truth, wisdom, and virtue; and to work…
Desales is a catholic, salesian university that inspires transformative learning through the liberal arts and professional studies by energizing students to be who they are and be that well.
Benedictine University is an inclusive academic community dedicated to teaching and learning, scholarship and service, truth and justice, as inspired by the Catholic intellectual tradition, the social teaching of the Church, and the…
As a jesuit catholic university committed to academic rigor, inclusive excellence, and care for the whole person, john carroll university inspires individuals of intellect and character to learn, lead and serve in the community and…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Avila University and the most unlike its peers is Benedictine College. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
9 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. 9 of the 19 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 Benedictine College ↗
- Who funds FOUNDATION FOR INCLUSIVE RELIGIOUS EDUCATION INC ↗
- Who funds THE DON BOSCO CENTERS ↗
- Who funds AVILA UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds BRIGHT FUTURES FUND ↗
- Who funds Little Sisters of The Poor ↗
- Who funds HARVESTERS - THE COMMUNITY FOOD NETWORK ↗
- Who funds The Children's Mercy Hospital ↗
- Who funds CRISTO REY KANSAS CITY SISTERS OF CHARI TY OF LEAVENWORTH HIGH SCHOOL ↗
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: The McGee Foundation · Greater Kansas City Community Foundation · Joseph M Fahey and Mary Elizabeth Rogers Fahey Foundation Inc · McCullough Family Foundation · Constance M Cooper Charitable Foundation · The Sherman Family Foundation · John J Sullivan Jr Foundation John Houlehan & Mark Henke-Trustees · Forster-Powers Charitable Trust · Martin Mary Elizabeth Scholarship · Patricia Sweeny Memorial Fund · The Dehaemers Family Charitable Trust · National Philanthropic Trust
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 Catherin V Merrill Foundation Co Christine Demareah Elvin Knight 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.
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.