How much does Helen S and Merrill L Bank Foundation give?

Helen S and Merrill L Bank Foundation reported 42 grants totaling $577,090 in its FY2025 IRS filing. It funded between 1 and 34 organizations a year over FY2018 to FY2024.

What does Helen S and Merrill L Bank Foundation fund?

By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2025, its largest causes are Health (16%), Arts & Culture (14%), Education (2%).

Who are Helen S and Merrill L Bank Foundation's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2017 to FY2025: Vail Health Services Foundation ($252k), Palm Beach Dramaworks Inc ($116k), Chautauqua Institution ($86k).

Does Helen S and Merrill L Bank Foundation fund new organizations?

In FY2024, 0% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Does Helen S and Merrill L Bank 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.

Where is Helen S and Merrill L Bank Foundation based?

Helen S and Merrill L Bank Foundation is based in FL.

Helen S and Merrill L Bank Foundation

Helen S and Merrill L Bank Foundation at a glance

· Private foundation

Helen S and Merrill L Bank Foundation

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.

$577k

Granted FY2025still arriving

Grants FY2025still arriving

States reached

$130k

Largest

01What it funds

0191% classified

What it funded, over time

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

Health$514kArts & Culture$431kEducation$72kAnimals$61kScience & Tech$52kPhilanthropy$35kHousing & Shelter$28kEnvironment$12kOther$0

02FY2025 · 42 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2025

Under $10k24 grants · $109k
$10k–50k16 grants · $283k
$50k–250k2 grants · $185k

$8,000

Median grant

States reached

$4.5M

Total assets

Largest grants
Recipient	Amount
VAIL HEALTH FOUNDATION	$130,000
STEADMAN PHILIPPON RESEARCH INSTITU	$55,000
PALM BEACH DRAMAWORKS	$47,290
RAYMOND KRAVIS CENT FOR PERFORMING	$30,000
CHAUTAUQUA INSTITUTION	$25,000
NEW ENGLAND BAPTIST HOSPITAL	$20,000
BALTIMORE OUTREACH SERVICES	$19,000
GBMC	$18,000
GARRISON FOREST SCHOOL	$18,000
JEWISH FEDERATION OF PALM BEACH COU	$15,000
CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL OF COLORADO FDN	$13,000
TUNNEL TO TOWERS FOUNDATION	$13,000
BALTIMORE COUNTY HUMANE SOCIETY	$13,000
Individual grant recipient	$12,000
LINDEN HALL SCHOOL	$10,000

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:

Its human-services grants (FY22–25, $28k) land where the poverty rate runs at 19%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 100% of those 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.

98%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$3.0M · 35 repeat orgs$62k to everyone else

35 repeat relationships: 33 still active in FY2025, 2 since wound down; 7 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$3.0M

$3k

Still filing today

54%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 89% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $59k went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

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

HealthArts & CultureEducationAnimalsEnvironmentHuman ServicesOther

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

PB
PALM BEACH DRAMAWORKS INC
4× · 2022–2025 · $116k · revenue +40%
CI
CHAUTAUQUA INSTITUTION
4× · 2022–2025 · $86k · revenue +44%
SP
STEADMAN PHILIPPON RESEARCH INSTITUTE
3× · 2022–2025 · $85k · revenue +5%

Funded once

BG
BLACK GIRLS DIVE FOUNDATION
one grant, 2022 · $3k

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.

Boston Architectural College

The bac is committed to provide excellence in design education grounded in practice and accessible to diverse communities.

—

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.

—

University of New Haven

The University of New Haven is a student-centered comprehensive university with an emphasis on excellence in liberal arts and professional education. Our mission is to prepare our students to lead purposeful and fulfilling lives in a…

Education

The Trustees of Princeton University

Research, education and general - princeton university is a private not-for-profit, non-sectarian institution of higher learning with approximately 5,700 undergraduate and 3,300 graduate students. 2,500 students graduated in the 2024-2025…

Education

University of Maryland Anesthesiology Associates Pa

Under the medical service plan of the university of maryland school of medicine, medical services are rendered by the members of the faculty on behalf of the school of medicine in connection with their duties to provide clinical…

—

Furman University

The primary mission of furman as a liberal arts institution is to provide a distinctive education in fine arts, humanities, social sciences, mathematics and the sciences, as well as selected professional disciplines.

Education

National Public Radio Inc

National public radio, inc. ("npr") works collaboratively with member public radio station licensees ("member stations") to create a more informed public, one that is challenged and invigorated by a deeper understanding and appreciation of…

Arts & Culture

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The mission of mit is to advance knowledge and educate students in science, technology, and other areas of scholarship that will best serve the nation and the world in the 21st century.

Education

Federation of State Medical Boards of the United States Inc

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…

Health

Stony Brook Ophthalmology University Faculty Practice Corporation

Provide clinical instruction to and supervision of medical school students, interns and residents and, incident thereto, rendering professional services.

Health

Stony Brook Internists University Faculty Practice Corporation

Provide clinical instruction to and supervision of medical school students, interns and residents and, incident thereto, rendering professional services.

Health

Banner -University Medical Group

Assist banner health complete its mission to make health care easier so life can be better by providing integrated & coordinated care & population health management.

Health

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Maryland Zoological Society Inc; the most unlike its peers is American Diabetes Association. 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

27 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. 27 of the 45 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)

27/27

Grantees still filing

18/27

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Other$2,291,818Health$430,500Arts & Culture$276,349Education$43,000Animals$38,200Philanthropy$30,000Human Services$28,000

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.

France-Merrick Foundation IncMD13.5× affinity4 shared granteesties to 10 of 10Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: France-Merrick Foundation Inc · T Rowe Price Program for Charitable Giving Inc · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · National Philanthropic Trust · Natl Christian Charitable Fdn Inc · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Amazonsmile Foundation

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 Helen S and Merrill L Bank Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Helen S and Merrill L Bank Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

1get no government money at all

6report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)

0rely on government for over half their income

⤢ axis zoomed · 0–25%

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 Helen S and Merrill L Bank’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