· Private foundation
Mercer Family Foundation
Its FY2024 filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and did not take unsolicited requests; check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.
Read this first · the figures below need context
100% of Mercer Family Foundation’s FY2024 grant dollars went to Donors Trust Inc, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2024 names 0 organizations directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it. Everything below is therefore FY2017, the last year Mercer Family Foundation named its own grantees at scale: 26 organizations, $15M. It is dated, not current.
Organizations named directly on the return
Amber years are those where most dollars went to a sponsor.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2017
- $10k–50k10 grants · $200k
- $50k–250k9 grants · $1.3M
- $250k+18 grants · $14M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| MEDIA RESERACH CENTER | $2,000,000 |
| RECLAIM NEW YORK INC | $1,760,000 |
| GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY INSTITUTE | $1,725,000 |
| HOSPITAL FOR SPECIAL SURGERY | $1,000,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $800,000 |
| COLD SPRING HARBOR LAB | $750,000 |
| LAW ENFORCEMENT EDUCATION FUND | $635,802 |
| MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY | $625,000 |
| SUCCESS ACADEMY CHARTER SCHOOLS | $550,000 |
| DONORS TRUST | $500,000 |
| OISM | $500,000 |
| THE FEDERALIST SOCIETY | $500,000 |
| SUSAN B ANTHONY LIST INC ED FD | $500,000 |
| MANHATTAN INST FOR POLICY RESEARCH | $450,000 |
| THE BECKET FUND | $400,000 |
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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY17–24) land where the poverty rate runs at 10%, against an area that typically sits at 7%. 96% of your 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.
Which US states your grants reach
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.
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 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.
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,…
The foreign policy research institute (frpi) is dedicated to producing the highest quality scholarship and nonpartisan policy analysis focused on crucial foreign policy and national security challenges facing the united states. we educate…
The american enterprise institute is a community of scholars and supporters committed to expanding liberty, increasing individual opportunity, and strengthening free enterprise. aei pursues these ideals through independent thinking and the…
The open markets institute works to help people relearn how to use competition policy to build stronger democracies, more just and equitable societies, more innovative and sustainable economies, and a more secure and peaceful world.
To provide accurate, objective information and analysis on international strategic issues for legislators, diplomats, foreign affairs analysts, international business leaders, economists, the military, defense commentators, journalists,…
A national non partisan public policy forum to illuminate issues of public policy.
Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan "fact tank" that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping America and the world. Pew Research Center generates a foundation of facts that enriches the public dialogue and…
The american astronomical society (aas), established in 1899, is the major organization of professional astronomers in north america. the basic objective of the aas is to promote the advancement of astronomy and closely related branches of…
Using legal advocacy to make advances in science and technology safer for people and the planet.
See schedule onorc at the university of chicago conducts research and data science on critical societal issues to guide decision-making and the development of programs and public policy. our experts identify relationships and trends, and…
The peterson institute for international economics (piie) is an independent nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization dedicated to strengthening prosperity and human welfare in the global economy through expert analysis and practical…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies and the most unlike its peers is Breakthrough T1D. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
For each theme you fund, this compares how the sector’s money is shifting with how your own giving is shifting.
Sector change and giving change are each shown relative to their own range, growing (right) or shrinking (left); both normalized, so inflation isn’t mistaken for growth.
Your grantees are a median of 38 years old; the field is 16. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 23% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 3% lost their exemption, against 13% of the field you don’t fund.
Age = years since IRS exemption (a founding proxy). “Closed” = auto-revocation for 3 years of non-filing — a floor on closure, not proof, and bigger established orgs lapse least. Association, not causation.
32 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. 32 of the 42 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 Donors Trust Inc ↗
- Who funds MEDIA RESEARCH CENTER ↗
- Who funds RECLAIM NEW YORK INC ↗
- Who funds GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds COLD SPRING HARBOR LABORATORY ↗
- Who funds SUCCESS ACADEMY CHARTER SCHOOLS INC ↗
- Who funds THE FEDERALIST SOCIETY FOR LAW AND PUBLIC POLICY STUDIES ↗
- Who funds MANHATTAN INSTITUTE FOR POLICY RESEARCH INC ↗
- Who funds SIMONS LAUFER MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds The Becket Fund ↗
- Who funds CATO INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds WORLD SCIENCE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds OREGON INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE AND MEDICINE ↗
- Who funds GATESTONE INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds ENERGY & ENVIRONMENT LEGAL INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds CO2 COALITION ↗
- Who funds FOUNDATION FOR CULTURAL REVIEW ↗
- Who funds CENTER FOR UNION FACTS ↗
- Who funds BREAKTHROUGH T1D ↗
- Who funds THE EXPLORERS CLUB ↗
- Who funds UNITED STATES COMMON SENSE DBA ARGIVE ↗
- Who funds Federation of Tamil Sangams of North America ↗
- Who funds The American Association for Aerosol Research Inc ↗
- Who funds American Principles Project ↗
- Who funds THE FAMILY LEADER FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds THE ANGLOSPHERE SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds The Frick Collection ↗
- Who funds MARINE CORPS UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds PECONIC LAND TRUST INC ↗
- Who funds Leadership Institute ↗
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: Donors Trust Inc · Bradley Impact Fund Inc · The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation Inc · National Philanthropic Trust · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · Natl Christian Charitable Fdn Inc · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Amazonsmile Foundation
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 Mercer Family 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.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to Mercer Family Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Mercer Family Foundation through trustees and officers whose names appear on both boards. Search for your organization and Plinth traces the shortest route it can evidence.
Each link is a name appearing on two organizations’ public IRS 990 filings, matched on that name and, where the filings support it, on location. A same-state match has geographic support, which is a second matching feature rather than confirmation that the two are one person; a cross-state one is the likeliest to be two people who share a name. Every hop shows its tier, low-confidence and distant paths are held back rather than guessed, and it is worth confirming the person before you use the introduction.