· Private foundation
Esther and Harold Mertz Foundation
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 FY2020–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- $10k–50k5 grants · $60k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $200k
- $250k+3 grants · $54M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| TUNNELS TO TOWERS | $52,143,750 |
| PINES FOUNDATION | $1,000,000 |
| FREEDOM ALLIANCE | $400,000 |
| HOPE FOR NEW YORK | $200,000 |
| GUIDE DOG FOUNDATION FOR THE BLIND INC | $15,000 |
| AMERICA'S VETDOGS | $15,000 |
| SIOUX FALLS AREA COMMUNITY FOUNDATION | $10,000 |
| BACK ON MY FEET | $10,000 |
| THE BANQUET | $10,000 |
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 (FY20–23, $86k) land where the poverty rate runs at 20%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 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.
Where the work is directed
The same grants, placed two ways — where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose earmarks the money.
About 50% of Esther and Harold Mertz Foundation’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.
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.
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.
12 repeat relationships — 7 still active in FY2024, 5 since wound down; 1 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (too recent to call).
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; $10k 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
STEPHEN SILLER TUNNEL TO TOWERS FOUNDATION5× · 2020–2024 · $62M · revenue +392%- HFHOPE FOR NEW YORK5× · 2020–2024 · $1.9M · revenue +3%
FREEDOM ALLIANCE5× · 2020–2024 · $1.8M · revenue +57%
Funded once
- SFSOUTHWEST FLORIDA WATER MANAGEMENT DISTRICTone grant, 2020 · $48M
PINES OF SARASOTA FOUNDATION INCgraduatedone grant, 2021 · $8.5M · revenue +138%- THTOP HONORS INCORPORATEDone grant, 2020 · $75k · revenue +25%
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.
Provide clinical instruction to and supervision of medical school students, interns and residents and, incident thereto, rendering professional services.
Provide an independent forum for those who dare to read, think, speak, and write to advance the professional, literary, and scientific understanding of sea power and other issues critical to global security.
The santa fe community foundation inspires philanthropic generosity, strengthens nonprofits, and fosters positive change to build a more vibrant, healthy, and resilient region. the foundation's vision is a thriving northern new mexico,…
The special forces foundation provides immediate and ongoing support to the special forces community and their families.
Provide clinical instruction to and supervision of medical school students, interns and residents and, incident thereto, rendering professional services.
Dedicated to improving the quality of life and increasing the self sufficiency of individuals with emotional, social and economic barriers. this is accomplished by providing direct support and assistance needed to enable individuals to…
Brief description of the organization's mission the purpose of the fund is to provide assistance to the families of new york city police officers and firefighters who have been killed in the line of duty. after the events of september 11,…
Setting a new standard of employment for people who have disabilities and chronic medical conditions.
The fsmb serves as the voice for state medical boards, supporting them through education, assessment, research and advocacy while providing services and initiatives that promote patient safety, quality health care and regulatory best…
Sfn's mission is to: 1. advance the understanding of the brain and the nervous system by bringing together scientists of all segments of neuroscience, by facilitating the integration of research directed at all levels of biological…
Empower and educate sight-impaired individuals and their families with disease education knowledge, tools and technology so they may live more independently and maintain a high quality of life.
The nmu foundation will establish and foster relationships to generate resources that benefit the strategic goals of northern michigan university.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Make-a-Wish Foundation of South Dakota & Montana and the most unlike its peers is National Law Enforcement and Firefighters Childrens Foundation. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
18 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. 18 of the 22 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 STEPHEN SILLER TUNNEL TO TOWERS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds PINES OF SARASOTA FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds HOPE FOR NEW YORK ↗
- Who funds FREEDOM ALLIANCE ↗
- Who funds RESTORE NYC INC ↗
- Who funds BACK ON MY FEET ↗
- Who funds AMERICA'S VETDOGS THE VETERANS K-9 CORPS INC ↗
- Who funds GUIDE DOG FOUNDATION FOR THE BLIND INC ↗
- Who funds Helen Keller Services ↗
- Who funds TOP HONORS INCORPORATED ↗
- Who funds THE BANQUET ↗
- Who funds SIOUX FALLS AREA COMMUNITY FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds FLORIDA SOUTHWESTERN STATE COLLEGE FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds National Law Enforcement and Firefighters Childrens Foundation ↗
- Who funds SPARKYOUTH NYC INC ↗
- Who funds MAKE-A-WISH FOUNDATION OF SOUTH DAKOTA & MONTANA ↗
- Who funds Long Island Alzheimers and Dementia Center Inc ↗
- Who funds SOUTHEAST TECHNICAL COLLEGE FOUNDATION ↗
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: Sanford Group Return · Jpmorgan Chase Foundation · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · National Philanthropic Trust · The Blackbaud Giving Fund · Charities Aid Foundation America · Network for Good · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · Natl Christian Charitable Fdn Inc · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc
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 Esther and Harold Mertz Foundation 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.