How much does Meier Family Foundation give?

Meier Family Foundation reported 23 grants totaling $360,000 in its FY2025 IRS filing. It funded between 5 and 24 organizations a year over FY2018 to FY2024.

What does Meier Family Foundation fund?

By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2025, its largest causes are Arts & Culture (22%), Health (20%), Food & Nutrition (13%).

Who are Meier Family Foundation's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2017 to FY2025: Radio Milwaukee Inc ($378k), Children's Hospital of Wisconsin Inc ($152k), The Women's Center Inc ($140k).

Does Meier Family Foundation fund new organizations?

In FY2024, 13% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Does Meier Family 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 Meier Family Foundation?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Baird Foundation Inc, United Way of Greater Milwaukee & Waukesha County Inc, Greater Milwaukee Foundation Inc.

Where is Meier Family Foundation based?

Meier Family Foundation is based in WI.

Meier Family Foundation

Meier Family Foundation at a glance

· Private foundation

Meier Family 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.

$360k

Granted FY2025still arriving

Grants FY2025still arriving

States reached

$30k

Largest

01What it funds

0197% 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$638kHealth$582kFood & Nutrition$380kHuman Services$345kPhilanthropy$206kReligion$150kInternational$135kEducation$100kOther$0

02FY2025 · 23 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2025

Under $10k1 grant · $5k
$10k–50k22 grants · $355k

$10,000

Median grant

States reached

$5.5M

Total assets

Largest grants
Recipient	Amount
AMERICAN CANCER SOCIETY	$30,000
HUNGER TASK FORCE	$25,000
COVENANT HOUSE	$25,000
NO KID HUNGRY BY SHARE OUR STRENGTH	$25,000
THE WOMEN'S CENTER	$20,000
HORIZON HOME CARE AND HOSPICE	$20,000
RED CROSS	$20,000
WOMEN AND GIRLS FUND OF WAUKESHA COUNTY	$20,000
EXCHANGE CLUB OF CULVER CITY CHARITABLE FOUNDATION	$20,000
DISCOVERY WORLD LTD	$20,000
MENTAL HEALTH AMERICA OF WISCONSIN	$20,000
WAUKESHA COUNTY COMMUNITY FOUNDATION	$10,000
4TH DIMENSION SOCIETY	$10,000
EASTERN STATE PENITENTIARY HISTORIC SITE	$10,000
AMERICARES	$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 (FY17–25, $180k) land where the poverty rate runs at 7%, against an area that typically sits at 12%. 22% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Its grants skew toward lower-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.

90%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$2.6M · 35 repeat orgs$289k to everyone else

35 repeat relationships: 21 still active in FY2025, 14 since wound down.

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$2.6M

$289k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+26%

+31%

Still filing today

71%

46%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

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

HealthArts & CulturePhilanthropyHuman ServicesInternationalEducationOther

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

RADIO MILWAUKEE INC
5× · 2017–2021 · $378k · revenue +78%
CH
CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL OF WISCONSIN INC
3× · 2017–2019 · $152k · revenue +43%
TW
THE WOMEN'S CENTER INC
7× · 2017–2025 · $140k · revenue +41%

Funded once

HT
HOLY TRINITY CHURCH
one grant, 2017 · $150k
MD
MILWAUKEE DEVELOPMENT CORPORATIONgraduated
one grant, 2020 · $50k · revenue +31%
FW
Froedtert West Bend Hospital Foundation Inc
one grant, 2017 · $20k · revenue -39%

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.

Wisconsin Policy Forum Inc

We conduct impartial public policy research and analysis to drive informed debate and effective decision-making in the state of wisconsin.

Public Benefit

Midwest Dairy Association

Midwest dairy works with others to give consumers an excellent dairy experience increasing sales, fostering innovation, and inspiring consumer confidence of dairy products and practices.

—

My Choice Wisconsin Inc

We inspire people to experience life at its fullest by encouraging ownership of health, fostering independence, and serving the whole person; and do so with an unwavering commitment as stewards of medicaid funding.

Health

Wisconsin Association of Health Plans Inc

Promote a positive state legislative and regulatory climate for wisconsin's community health plans. the association communicates with regulatory agencies to promote issue positions representing community health plans.

—

Wisconsin Bankers Association

We actively advocate, educate and support our members to help them positively impact the wisconsin communities they serve.

—

Disability Rights Wisconsin Inc

Legal protection and advocacy to protect the rights of people with disabilities in wisconsin.

—

West Bend Community Foundation Inc

Philanthropy

Wisconsin Medical Society Inc

To improve the health of the people of wisconsin by supporting and strengthening physicians' ability to practice high quality patient care in a changing environment.

—

Minneapolis Regional Chamber of Commerce

Creating powerful advocacy to enhance economic vitality in the minneapolis-st. paul region.

—

Museum of Wisconsin Art Inc

The museum of wisconsin art celebrates the value, diversity, and uniqueness of the visual arts and artists of wisconsin. this is achieved by collecting, conserving, documenting, exhibiting, and promoting aesthetic understanding of the…

Arts & Culture

Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce Inc

Founded in 1911, our mission is to make wisconsin the most competitive state in the nation to do business. we are wisconsin's business voice.

—

Minnesota Chamber of Commerce and Industry

The minnesota chamber of commerce proactively leads the business community statewide to: advance pro-business, responsible minnesota public policy that creates jobs and grows the econony; provde member services to address evolving business…

—

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Make-a-Wish Foundation of Wisconsin Inc; the most unlike its peers is Exchange Club of Culver City Charitable Foundation. 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

34 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. 34 of the 51 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)

34/34

Grantees still filing

21/34

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Other$1,126,000Arts & Culture$693,000Health$531,000Philanthropy$211,000Human Services$180,000International$105,000Education$100,000

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.

Baird Foundation IncWI26.9× affinity14 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Baird Foundation Inc · United Way of Greater Milwaukee & Waukesha County Inc · Greater Milwaukee Foundation Inc · Ge Aerospace Foundation · Harley-Davidson Foundation Inc · Waukesha County Community Foundation · Ellenbecker Investment Group Charitable Foundation Inc · Youth Foundation Inc · Ralph Evinrude Foundation Inc · Evan & Marion Helfaer Foundation · Joseph and Vera Zilber Family Foundation Inc · Herbert H Kohl Charities Inc

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 Meier Family Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Meier Family Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

0get no government money at all

10report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)

0rely on government for over half their income

⤢ axis zoomed · 0–90%

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 Meier Family’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