· Private foundation
Merchant 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.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2020–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k7 grants · $25k
- $10k–50k4 grants · $75k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| YOUNG LIFE PORTLAND WEST | $25,000 |
| MEALS ON WHEELS | $25,000 |
| PORTLAND COMMUNITY COLLEGE FOUNDATION | $12,500 |
| PCC FOUNDATION WOMEN IN TRADE | $12,500 |
| COMMUNITY CANCER FUND | $6,000 |
| TILLAMOOK ESTARIES PARTNERSHIP | $5,000 |
| HATCHERY & WILD COEXIST | $5,000 |
| FINANCIAL BEGINNINGS | $4,000 |
| HELPING ONE WOMAN | $2,000 |
| PENNINSULA FAMILY SERVICES | $2,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF PUGET SOUND | $1,000 |
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, $33k) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 88% 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.
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.
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 +17% since the first grant, against +13% for the ones you funded once.
18 repeat relationships — 8 still active in FY2025, 10 since wound down; 3 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).
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, 85% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $16k 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
Victory Academy Inc3× · 2020–2023 · $75k · revenue +17%
PORTLAND COMMUNITY COLLEGE FOUNDATION INC2× · 2024–2025 · $18k · revenue +3%
MEDICAL TEAMS INTERNATIONAL5× · 2020–2024 · $13k · revenue +22%
Funded once
OREGON FOOD BANKone grant, 2024 · $10k · revenue -13%- KCKHESED CHURCHone grant, 2024 · $5k
- SPSUNSHINE PANTRYone grant, 2020 · $5k
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.
Rooted in the liberal arts & sciences & lutheran expression of the christian faith, & is committed to offering a challenging education that develops qualities of mind, spirit, & body necessary for a rewarding life of leadership & service…
Portland state university foundation is responsible for raising and managing private resources to advance psu's priorities and mission to be a leading urban university.
The bac is committed to provide excellence in design education grounded in practice and accessible to diverse communities.
The university of portland, an independently governed catholic university guided by the congregation of holy cross, addresses significant questions of human concern through interdisciplinary studies of the arts, sciences, and humanities…
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…
Ashland university, guided by our christian heritage, is a comprehensive, private university that provides a transformative learning experience, shaping graduates who work, serve and lead with integrity in their local, national, and global…
The university's goal in the coming decade is to advance learning through the integration of teaching, research and service to others. the core of this goal is to prepare graduates to engage with the world and lead lives of meaning. to do…
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.
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.
To produce, in a humanistic tradition, health care professionals and biomedical knowledge that will enhance and extend the quality of life in our communities.
Wilson college empowers students to be confident and critical thinkers, creative visionaries, effective communicators, honorable leaders, and agents of justice.
Lewis & clark is a premier private higher education institution offering an exceptional education in an inclusive environment. by fostering critical thinking, innovation, creativity, civic engagement, and leadership, both inside and…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is University of Oregon Foundation and the most unlike its peers is Luis Palau Association. 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 44 years old; the field is 18. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 20% startups (under 5 years old) — 4% of your grantees by number, and just 2% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 3% lost their exemption, against 11% 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.
26 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. 26 of the 43 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 Victory Academy Inc ↗
- Who funds MEALS ON WHEELS PEOPLE INC ↗
- Who funds HILLSDALE COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds Clackamas Community College Foundation ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY CANCER FUND ↗
- Who funds PORTLAND COMMUNITY COLLEGE FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds MEDICAL TEAMS INTERNATIONAL ↗
- Who funds OREGON FOOD BANK ↗
- Who funds FINANCIAL BEGINNINGS ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN FRIENDS OF THE OCEAN CLEANUP FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds TILLAMOOK ESTUARIES PARTNERSHIP ↗
- Who funds WITH LOVE OREGON INC ↗
- Who funds THE HOWARD UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds Helping One Woman ↗
- Who funds ST MARY'S FOOD BANK ALLIANCE ↗
- Who funds THE UNIVERSITY OF PUGET SOUND ↗
- Who funds The Trustees of Princeton University ↗
- Who funds PACIFIC UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds Trustees of Hamilton College ↗
- Who funds Luis Palau Association ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY OF OREGON FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds YOUNG LIFE ↗
- Who funds Linfield University ↗
- Who funds Good Samaritan Ministries ↗
- Who funds B-17 ALLIANCE FOUNDATION ↗
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: The Oregon Community Foundation · Marie Lamfrom Charitable Foundation Trust · The Reser Family Foundation · Gs Donor Advised Philanthropy Fund for Wealth Management Inc · The Blackbaud Giving Fund · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Natl Christian Charitable Fdn Inc · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · 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 Merchant 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, a single department, or state — and drag the year to watch it move.
- Tillamook Estuaries Partnership — 100% of income from government
- Oregon Food Bank — 21% of income from government
- With Love Oregon Inc — 16% of income from government
- Medical Teams International — 14% of income from government
- The Trustees of Princeton University — 11% of income from government
- Portland Community College Foundation Inc — 5% of income from government
- Linfield University — 4% of income from government
- Pacific University — 2% of income from government
- Financial Beginnings — 1% of income from government
- Clackamas Community College Foundation — 0% of income from government
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 Merchant Family Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Merchant 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.