How much does George J and Theresa L Cotsirilos Merced Foundation give?

George J and Theresa L Cotsirilos Merced Foundation reported 18 grants totaling $111,200 in its FY2025 IRS filing. It funded between 13 and 22 organizations a year over FY2018 to FY2024.

Who are George J and Theresa L Cotsirilos Merced Foundation's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2017 to FY2025: California Trout Inc ($105k), Earthjustice ($83k), Sierra Club Foundation ($74k).

Does George J and Theresa L Cotsirilos Merced Foundation fund new organizations?

In FY2024, 7% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Does George J and Theresa L Cotsirilos Merced Foundation accept unsolicited applications?

Its most recent filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and does not take unsolicited requests. Check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.

Which funders back the same organizations as George J and Theresa L Cotsirilos Merced Foundation?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include East Bay Community Foundation, The San Francisco Foundation, McNabb Foundation.

George J and Theresa L Cotsirilos Merced Foundation

George J and Theresa L Cotsirilos Merced Foundation at a glance

· Private foundation

George J and Theresa L Cotsirilos Merced Foundation

Q: What does George J and Theresa L Cotsirilos Merced Foundation fund?

By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2025, its largest causes are Arts & Culture (36%), Environment (18%), Animals (17%).

Q: Where is George J and Theresa L Cotsirilos Merced Foundation based?

George J and Theresa L Cotsirilos Merced Foundation is based in CA.

Its FY2025 filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and did not take unsolicited requests; check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.

$111k

Granted FY2025still arriving

Grants FY2025still arriving

States reached

$30k

Largest

01What it funds

0199% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2025.

Arts & Culture$355kEnvironment$175kAnimals$166kCivil Rights$129kEducation$78kCrime & Legal$48kPublic Benefit$10kYouth Development$7kOther$0

02FY2025 · 18 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2025

Under $10k15 grants · $56k
$10k–50k3 grants · $56k

$5,000

Median grant

States reached

$2.9M

Total assets

Largest grants
Recipient	Amount
UC Berkeley Foundation	$30,000
California Trout	$15,500
Legal Defense Fund	$10,000
KQED	$8,500
PBS News Hour	$8,500
Earthjustice	$5,700
Berkeley East Bay Humane Society	$5,000
Jazz in the Neighborhood	$5,000
Working America Education Fund	$5,000
Golden Gate Bird Alliance	$5,000
Bard College	$5,000
Harvard University	$2,000
Southern Poverty Law Center	$1,000
UC Berkeley Foundation	$1,000
Trout Unlimited	$1,000

02The need

Does the money reach high-need areas?

Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.

show:

Dollar for dollar, its grants (FY17–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 98% of its dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount

How this is measured

Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty line in the grantee’s ZIP, averaged from the tracts in that ZIP.

Which US states its grants reach

How this is measured

US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are delivered. Need from public data (U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA), shown as context about the area, never attributed to the funder’s giving.

03Its grantees

repeat funding

Who it funds again

Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.

94%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$925k · 26 repeat orgs$58k to everyone else

Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +84% since the first grant, against +10% for those funded once.

26 repeat relationships: 10 still active in FY2025, 16 since wound down; 5 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$925k

$29k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+84%

+10%

Still filing today

69%

70%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 73% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $29k went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant

Arts & CultureAnimalsEnvironmentEducationCivil RightsCrime & LegalOther

How this is measured

First-time means a grantee’s first year in the filing window; renewed means funded in an earlier year too. The renewed share climbs naturally as a portfolio matures, so the signal is a year that bucks it (a wave of new grantees). 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

CT
CALIFORNIA TROUT INC
9× · 2017–2025 · $105k · revenue +396%
EARTHJUSTICE
8× · 2017–2025 · $83k · revenue +82%
BE
Berkeley East Bay Humane Society Inc dba Berkeley Humane
9× · 2017–2025 · $45k · revenue +271%

Funded once

VL
VOTO LATINO FOUNDATION INC
one grant, 2020 · $10k · revenue -42%
NY
New York Universitygraduated
one grant, 2017 · $5k · revenue +76%
SS
SEA SHEPHERD CONSERVATION SOCIETY
one grant, 2022 · $5k · revenue +10%

How this is measured

Repeat means funded in two or more distinct years. Growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.

04Its field

Closest unfunded matches

The nonprofits that most resemble its grantees but are not funded by it, scored along the direction from the rest of the field toward the portfolio. A resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.

The Bar Association of San Francisco

The bar association of san francisco champions equal access to justice and promotes humanity, excellence, and diversity in the legal profession. we provide legal services to disadvantaged and underserved individuals in san francisco. we…

—

The Union of Concerned Scientists Inc

The union of concerned scientists puts rigorous, independent science into action, developing solutions and advocating for a healthy, safe, and just future.

International

Environmental Investigation Agency

To establish and promote programs to protect the global climate, forests, wildlife and the natural environment, through research, advocacy, and investigation.

International

San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory

The San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory is dedicated to the conservation of birds and their habitats through science and outreach.

Environment

Golden Gate University

Golden gate university prepares individuals to lead and serve by providing high quality, practice-based educational programs in law, taxation, business and related professions - as a nonprofit institution - in an innovative and challenging…

Education

The California Channel

To distribute public affairs and other educational information in order to create an electronic bridge between californians and their public officials, and, in the process educate a new generation of voting citizens and civic leaders who…

—

Jobs with Justice San Francisco

A long-term, strategic alliance of labor, community, faith-based, and student organizations working together to build greater economic power for workers and community members through employee rights at work and access to good jobs,…

Employment

Environmental Law Alliance Worldwide

Educational & charitable. to provide legal and scientific information to public interest attorneys and scientists in numerous countries.

—

Southern Coalition for Social Justice

Southern coalition for social justice partners with communities of color and economically disadvantaged communities across the south to defend and advance their political, social, and economic rights. through an intersectional and…

Crime & Legal

Asociacion Interamericana Para La Defensa Del Ambiente

To strenghten people's ability to guarantee their individual and collective right to a healthy environment, via the development, implementation, and effective enforcement of national and international law.

Crime & Legal

United States Naval Institute

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.

—

American Association for the Advancement of Science

Advance science, engineering, and innovation throughout the world for the benefit of all. the world's largest multidisciplinary scientific society and a leading publisher of cutting-edge research through its science family of journals,…

Science & Tech

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is East Bay Community Law Center; the most unlike its peers is New York University. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.

04the grantee network

29 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.

Each grant beside the grantee’s revenue from every source, year by year.

How this is measured

Counted here: distinct organizations funded across 2017 to 2025, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 29 of the 42 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile.

Each grantee is resolved to its own IRS returns. Association, dated; never a causal claim.

Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)

Early backer (in before they grew)

29/29

Grantees still filing

20/29

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Other$445,750Environment$167,725Animals$154,500Arts & Culture$91,800Education$78,000Civil Rights$31,000Crime & Legal$16,000

Each grantee by its size and the funder’s share of it; top left is load-bearing

Grantee by grantee: a decade per organization, before and after funding

A decade per grantee: revenue shaded, grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.

Co-funders

Grantmakers whose grantees overlap with this funder’s far more than size alone predicts. Closer means stronger alignment; arcs show where they also fund each other. Here they form a tightly interlocked group: most of these funders back each other's grantees too.

East Bay Community FoundationCA18.9× affinity7 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: East Bay Community Foundation · The San Francisco Foundation · McNabb Foundation · The James Irvine Foundation · Marin Community Foundation · Silicon Valley Community Foundation · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · American Endowment Foundation · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · The Blackbaud Giving Fund · Network for Good

How this is measured

Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. Overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.

How much its grantees rely on government

Each dot is one organization George J and Theresa L Cotsirilos Merced Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from George J and Theresa L Cotsirilos Merced Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

0get no government money at all

5report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)

0rely on government for over half their income

typical government reliance, FY20–25

How this is measured

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 a grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first, a floor rather than 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 to 24 months.

Play a game based on George J and Theresa L Cotsirilos Merced’s filings →

More from the funding graph

The unnamed billions

grants reported with no recipient in the public record

The regranting layer

51% of grant dollars land in the regranting layer

The DAF merry-go-round

$9.7B circulates between donor-advised funds

The endowment market

who holds foundation money, and what just moved

The camps

funders cluster by geography, not ideology

By state

where grant money is based, and what stays home