· Private foundation
Merced Fdn - Western
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.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2019–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| EAST TEXAS FOOD BANK | $100,000 |
| UNDUE MEDICAL DEBT | $70,365 |
| CATHOLIC CHARITIES OF CENTRAL TEXAS | $60,000 |
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 (FY20–25, $240k) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 71% 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 +49% since the first grant, against +1% for the ones you funded once.
8 repeat relationships — 3 still active in FY2025, 5 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 FY2025, 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
- CCCatholic Charities of Central Texas7× · 2019–2025 · $450k · revenue +49%
- LSLUTHERAN SOCIAL SERVICES OF THE SOUTH INC2× · 2020–2021 · $70k · revenue +59%
The Houston Food Bank2× · 2020–2021 · $20k · revenue +36%
Funded once
- RMRONALD McDONALD HOUSE CHARITIES OF GREATER NORTH TEXAS INCone grant, 2019 · $30k · revenue -6%
- LSLOUISIANA STATE UNIVERSITY IN SHREVEPORTone grant, 2024 · $25k
- LSLUTHERAN SOCIAL SERVICES OF THEone grant, 2019 · $20k
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.
Rebuilding Together Houston is the only organization in Houston and Harris County providing free home repairs to hundreds of families each year. We employ licensed contractors to restore homes to safe, livable conditions, extending each…
See Schedule OThe Women's Resource of Greater Houston helps women and girls make choices toward becoming independent, productive, and financially stable. We fulfill our mission by recruiting volunteer instructors to deliver our programs in…
Plant, protect and promote trees all over the greater Houston area.
The mission of Family Service Center of Houston and Harris County (Family Houston) is to create a stronger community for tomorrow by helping individuals and families meet the challenges they face today. We help others help themselves.
To enrich life through discovery, education, and the conservation of plants and the natural environment.
Food distribution to the hungry throughout an eight county service territory in Southeast Texas.
The WTFB exists to collect, purchase, and distribute food to feed the hungry in 19 counties in West Texas in partnership with volunteers and community organizations and to educate these partners and the public at large about the real face…
As the Houston affiliate of the National Christian Foundation (NCF), our mission is to serve and encourage givers to grow as faithful stewards who give wisely to further the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
To lead a unified effort for a hunger-free texas.
To procure and distribute nutritional food to qualified agencies that feed the hungry of West Central Texas.
Founded as a Christian ministry of healing, Baylor Scott & White Health promotes the well-being of all individuals, families and communities.
The Houston Bar Foundation supports programs that help provide legal representation to the indigent, promote community understanding of our legal system, and foster the administration of justice.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Greater Houston Community Foundation and the most unlike its peers is Ronald McDONALD House Charities of Greater North Texas Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
13 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. 13 of the 18 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 Catholic Charities of Central Texas ↗
- Who funds MEDICAL DEBT RESOLUTION INC ↗
- Who funds LUTHERAN SOCIAL SERVICES OF THE SOUTH INC ↗
- Who funds RONALD McDONALD HOUSE CHARITIES OF GREATER NORTH TEXAS INC ↗
- Who funds GREATER HOUSTON COMMUNITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds The Houston Food Bank ↗
- Who funds PHILANTHROPY SOUTHWEST ↗
- Who funds PRISON ENTREPRENEURSHIP PROGRAM INC ↗
- Who funds Bo's Place ↗
- Who funds Welcome Table Incorporated ↗
- Who funds BakerRipley ↗
- Who funds SAN ANTONIO FOOD BANK ↗
- Who funds United Way of Greater Houston ↗
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 set of overlaps that mostly run through you, not between each other.
Open a dossier: Austin Community Foundation 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 Merced Fdn - Western 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.