· Private foundation
Merchants Foundation Inc
Its FY2024 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2023–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k22 grants · $50k
- $10k–50k9 grants · $135k
- $50k–250k4 grants · $265k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| INDIANA UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION INC | $90,000 |
| RDOOR - FKA (MERCHANTS AFFORDABLE HOUSING CORP) | $75,000 |
| GREATER INDIANAPOLIS HABITAT FOR HUMANITY | $50,000 |
| COBURN PLACE | $50,000 |
| PROVIDENCE CRISTO REY HIGH SCHOOL | $32,000 |
| LOCAL INITIATIVES SUPPORT CORPORATION (LISC) INDIANA | $20,000 |
| FIRST BAPTIST ATHLETICS | $20,000 |
| SECOND HELPINGS | $13,000 |
| COMMUNITY FOUNDATION OF RANDOLPH COUNTY | $10,000 |
| THE ARC MINNESOTA | $10,000 |
| CATCH THE STARS FOUNDATION | $10,000 |
| DOVE RECOVERY HOUSE FOR WOMEN | $10,000 |
| PARTNERS IN HOUSING | $10,000 |
| MILLION MEAL MOVEMENT | $7,020 |
| FOSTER SUCCESS | $5,000 |
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 (FY24–24, $61k) land where the poverty rate runs at 16%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 100% 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.
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 services in response to individual need
By drawing on varied resources within public agencies and the private sector, we hope to provide hunger relief for those in need throughout Indiana.
Second harvest heartland's mission is to end hunger together. in partnership with more than 1,000 food shelves and hunger-relief programs in minnesota and western wisconsin, we provided 145 million meals to neighbors last year.
To end hunger in san francisco and marin counties by soliciting food donations nationally, distributing this food to qualifying public service agencies and neighborhood pantries, advocating for improved government food programs, and…
The society of st vincent de paul (archdiocesan council of indianapolis) provides support services and supplies to individuals and families in need, without discrimination. its operations rely heavily on volunteers, and donations come from…
Provide resources for low income clients.
Nourishing hope provides food, mental health support, and social services to help all our neighbors thrive.
Improve lives by eliminating hunger in partnership with our community.
With the support of our community, we provide over 90 million meals annually through our network of over 900 member food pantries and programs across thirteen counties, currently reaching over a half million individuals each month with…
We believe that food is a human right and that food has the power to bring people together. Our vision is to build a stronger, healthier, and hunger-free Coralville community. Powered by community support, the Coralville Community Food…
to create affordable housing solutions for people with low and moderate incomes, and collaborate to enhance the quality of life in Indianapolis neighborhoods.
The food bank for central & northeast missouri is a regional disaster and hunger relief network that acquires and distributes millions of meals each year to help neighbors get the food they need to thrive. (continued on schedule o)the…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Gleaners Food Bank of Indiana Inc and the most unlike its peers is Churches of Mercer Cty Food Pantry. 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 32 years old; the field is 20. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 19% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 10% 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.
27 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. 27 of the 40 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 Indiana University Foundation ↗
- Who funds COBURN PLACE SAFEHAVEN II INC ↗
- Who funds SECOND HELPINGS INC ↗
- Who funds PARTNERS IN HOUSING DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds THE ARC MINNESOTA INC ↗
- Who funds CATCH THE STARS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE COMMUNITY FOUNDATION OF RANDOLPH COUNTY ↗
- Who funds DOVE RECOVERY HOUSE FOR WOMEN INC ↗
- Who funds MILLION MEAL MOVEMENT INC ↗
- Who funds SEEDS OF HOPE INC ↗
- Who funds NEIGHBORLINK INDIANAPOLIS FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds FOSTER SUCCESS ↗
- Who funds COALITION FOR HOMELESSNESS INTERVENTION AND PREVENTION OF GREATER INDPLS INC ↗
- Who funds GENNESARET FREE CLINIC INC ↗
- Who funds BRIGHTLANE LEARNING CORP ↗
- Who funds DREAM ALIVE INC ↗
- Who funds A KID AGAIN INC ↗
- Who funds TWIN CITIES HABITAT FOR HUMANITY ↗
- Who funds VILLAGE OF MERICI INC ↗
- Who funds GLEANERS FOOD BANK OF INDIANA INC ↗
- Who funds THE OPEN DOOR ↗
- Who funds FOOD BANK OF SOUTH JERSEY INC ↗
- Who funds CHURCHES OF MERCER CTY FOOD PANTRY ↗
- Who funds St Petersburg Free Clinic Inc ↗
- Who funds CAPITAL AREA FOOD BANK INC ↗
- Who funds SAINT FRANCIS HOUSE INC ↗
- Who funds NEW YORK COMMON PANTRY ↗
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: United Way of Central Indiana Inc · The Indianapolis Foundation Inc · Central Indiana Community Foundation Inc · Nicholas H Noyes Jr Memorial Foundation · Lilly Endowment Inc · Hoover Family Foundation · Nina Mason Pulliam Charitable Trust · Indiana University Health Inc · The Brave Heart Foundation Inc · Pacers Foundation Inc · Maurer Family Foundation Inc · Eugene & Marilyn Glick 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 Merchants Foundation Inc 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.
- Food Bank of South Jersey Inc — 30% of income from government
- Saint Francis House Inc — 18% 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 Merchants Foundation Inc?
Find your warmest path to Merchants Foundation Inc 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.