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· Private foundation

Merle E & Patricia a Butler Family Charitable 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.

$605k
Granted FY2025still arriving
15
Grants FY2025still arriving
3
States reached
$300k
Largest
01What you fund
0194% classified

What you funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY20172025.

Health$3.2MHousing & Shelter$466kReligion$406kFood & Nutrition$347kEducation$344kHuman Services$231kPhilanthropy$55kArts & Culture$50kOther$0
02FY2025 · 15 grants

Where the money goes

Your grants by size, and where they go.

By grant size · FY2025

  • Under $10k2 grants · $10k
  • $10k–50k11 grants · $165k
  • $50k–250k1 grant · $130k
  • $250k+1 grant · $300k
$17,500
Median grant
3
States reached
$9.8M
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
ST LOUIS CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL FOUNDATION$300,000
MISSOURI BAPTIST HEALTHCARE FOUNDATION$130,000
ASTHMA & ALLERGY FOUNDATION OF AMERICA$20,000
RONALD MCDONALD HOUSE CHARITIES$20,000
ST PETERS UNITED CHURCH OF CHRIST$20,000
GREATER ST LOUIS HONOR FLIGHT$20,000
OPERATION FOOD SEARCH$17,500
ST LOUIS AREA FOOD BANK$17,500
Individual grant recipient$10,000
ST JOHN UCC MISSION TEAM$10,000
ROSSMAN SCHOOL$10,000
MARY INSTITUTE AND SAINT LOUIS COUNTRY DAY SCHOOL$10,000
TOYS FOR TOTS$10,000
CHURCHILL SCHOOL$5,000
ORCHARD FARM HIGH SCHOOL$5,000
02The need
03

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.

show:

Your human-services grants (FY18–23, $205k) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 0% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants skew toward lower-need ZIPs.

area typical 11%NURSES FOR NEWBORNS: $115k → 11%NURSES FOR NEWBORNS: $30k → 11%NURSES FOR NEWBORNS: $15k → 11%NURSES FOR NEWBORNS: $15k → 11%NURSES FOR NEWBORNS: $15k → 11%NURSES FOR NEWBORNS: $15k → 11%0%20%40%50%more need →
grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount

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.

03Your edge
repeat funding

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.

97%of every dollar goes to organizations you’ve funded before.
$5.1M · 27 repeat orgs$158k to everyone else

27 repeat relationships — 15 still active in FY2025, 12 since wound down.

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

27
8

Total granted

$5.1M
$158k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+14%
+19%

Still filing today

41%
50%

New vs renewed · share of each year

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

50%100%’17’18’19’20’21’22’23’24’25
RenewedFirst-time

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

’17’18’19’20’21’22’23’24’25
HealthEducationFood & NutritionPhilanthropyHuman ServicesArts & CultureOther

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

  • MB
    MISSOURI BAPTIST HEALTHCARE FOUNDATION
    6× · 2018–2025 · $774k · revenue +223%
  • VETERANS COMMUNITY PROJECT
    2× · 2022–2023 · $466k · revenue +14%
  • NF
    NURSES FOR NEWBORNS
    6× · 2018–2023 · $205k · revenue +65%

Funded once

  • SC
    STARLIGHT CHILDREN'S FOUNDATION
    one grant, 2023 · $100k · revenue +12%
  • AA
    ASTHMA & ALLERGY FOUNDATION
    one grant, 2020 · $20k
  • VP
    VFW POST 6632
    one grant, 2024 · $15k

Repeat = funded in two or more distinct years; growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.

04Your field

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.

1
Jewish Federation of St Louis

Jewish federation of st. louis mobilizes the jewish community and its human and financial resources to preserve and enhance jewish life in st. louis, in israel and around the world.

Philanthropy
2
St Louis Community Foundation

To promote the possibilities of charitable giving, helping charitable citizens understand how they can effectively provide for the community they love and the causes they care deeply about.

Philanthropy
3
Thomas Jefferson School

Thomas jefferson school engages its students in the education necessary to live as responsible citizens of the world. through the strongest possible college-prepatory program and within a nurturing community, students develop a…

4
The Scholarship Foundation of St Louis

Based on a conviction that an educated society is essential to a healthy democracy, the scholarship foundation of st. louis supports students with financial need to and through higher education by providing scholarship grants,…

5
St Marys Healthcare System for Children Inc

To serve as the sole member of the various health care and supporting organizations that comprise st. mary's healthcare system for children

Health
6
St Luke's Health Foundation of Sioux City Iowa

To enhance the quality of life for the people of the siouxland region by obtaining funds in support of the health-care mission of st. luke's health system.

7
St Luke's Foundation Inc

An exceptional education that inspires a deep love of learning, a strong moral compass, the commitment to serve, and the confidence to lead.

Education
8
Le Bonheur Children's Hospital Foundation

In partnership with donors and volunteers, le bonheur children's hospital foundation promotes philanthropic investment to support le bonheur children's hospital's mission of providing high qualitypatient care, research and advocacy.

Health
9
The Missouri Foundation for Health

To eliminate underlying causes of health inequities, transform systems and enable individuals and communities to thrive

Health
10
South Shore Charter School

The mission of south shore charter school is to cultivate students the tenacity, integrity, and curiosity needed to become innovative and socially responsible leaders, ready to face and solve the ever-changing challenges facing our…

Education
11
St Martin Hospital Inc

To improve, maintain and restore the health of the people in the communities we serve.

Health
12
La Salle Charter Schools Inc

La salle middle school is a public charter school located in st. louis. la salle is committed to transforming children and our community through innovative education. students at la salle are pushed to achieve excellence academically,…

Education

For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is St Louis Children's Hospital Foundation and the most unlike its peers is Love Enough 4 U 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

15 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 20172025, not grant rows in a single year — so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 15 of the 35 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.

0
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
2
Early backer (in before they grew)
15/15
Grantees still filing
11/15
Grew since you first funded

Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee

ST LOUIS CHILDRENS HOSPITAL — $1,245,706 · OtherST LOUIS CHILDRENS HOSPITALST PETERS UNITED CHURCH OF CHRIST — $351,377 · OtherST PETERS UNITED CHURCH OF CHRISTRONALD MCDONALD HOUSE CHARITIES — $175,000 · OtherRONALD MCDONALD HOUSE CHARITIESST LOUIS AREA FOOD BANK INC — $168,700 · OtherST LOUIS AREA FOOD BANK INCHONOR FLIGHT — $130,000 · OtherASTHMA AND ALLERGY FOUNDATION OF AMERICA — $105,000 · OtherROSSMAN SCHOOL — $100,000 · OtherSTARLIGHT CHILDREN'S FOUNDATION — $100,000 · Other+18 more — $416,700 · Other+18 moreMISSOURI BAPTIST HEALTHCARE FOUNDATION — $774,402 · HealthMISSOURI BAPTIST HEALTHCARE FO…ST LOUIS CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL FOUNDATION — $645,000 · HealthST LOUIS CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL F…+1 more — $5,000 · HealthVETERANS COMMUNITY PROJECT — $466,000 · Public BenefitVETERANS C…NURSES FOR NEWBORNS — $205,000 · Human ServicesOPERATION FOOD SEARCH INC — $178,500 · Food & NutritionMary Institute and St Louis Country Day School — $95,000 · EducationLadue Education Foundation — $5,000 · EducationMARINE TOYS FOR TOTS FOUNDATION — $55,000 · Philanthropy
Other$2,792,483Health$1,424,402Public Benefit$466,000Human Services$205,000Food & Nutrition$178,500Education$100,000Philanthropy$55,000

Each org by its size and your share of it — top-left is where you’re load-bearing

25%50%75%100%$1.0M$10M$100Mgrantee revenue →↑ your share of their budgetMISSOURI BAPTIST HEALTHCARE FOUNDATION — $774,402 over 6y, 3.6% of budgetST LOUIS CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL FOUNDATION — $645,000 over 2y, 0.2% of budgetVETERANS COMMUNITY PROJECT — $466,000 over 2y, 2.2% of budgetNURSES FOR NEWBORNS — $205,000 over 6y, 3.0% of budgetOPERATION FOOD SEARCH INC — $178,500 over 9y, 0.1% of budgetST LOUIS AREA FOOD BANK INC — $168,700 over 9y, 0.0% of budgetROSSMAN SCHOOL — $100,000 over 8y, 0.4% of budgetSTARLIGHT CHILDREN'S FOUNDATION — $100,000 over 1y, 0.6% of budgetMary Institute and St Louis Country Day School — $95,000 over 2y, 0.1% of budgetMARINE TOYS FOR TOTS FOUNDATION — $55,000 over 9y, 0.0% of budgetGREATER SAINT LOUIS HONOR FLIGHT INC — $40,000 over 2y, 2.5% of budgetTHE ST LOUIS CHILDREN'S CHOIRS — $10,000 over 2y, 0.4% of budgetLadue Education Foundation — $5,000 over 1y, 1.3% of budgetLOVE ENOUGH 4 U FOUNDATION — $5,000 over 1y, 5.4% of budgetPATRIOT TRAINING FOUNDATION — $2,500 over 1y, 0.5% of budget
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 MISSOURI BAPTIST HEALTHCARE FOUNDATION
  • Who funds ST LOUIS CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL FOUNDATION
  • Who funds VETERANS COMMUNITY PROJECT
  • Who funds NURSES FOR NEWBORNS
  • Who funds OPERATION FOOD SEARCH INC
  • Who funds ST LOUIS AREA FOOD BANK INC
  • Who funds ROSSMAN SCHOOL
  • Who funds STARLIGHT CHILDREN'S FOUNDATION
  • Who funds Mary Institute and St Louis Country Day School
  • Who funds MARINE TOYS FOR TOTS FOUNDATION
  • Who funds GREATER SAINT LOUIS HONOR FLIGHT INC
  • Who funds THE ST LOUIS CHILDREN'S CHOIRS
  • Who funds Ladue Education Foundation
  • Who funds LOVE ENOUGH 4 U FOUNDATION
  • Who funds PATRIOT TRAINING 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.

St Louis Community Foundation IncMO17.3× affinity6 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: St Louis Community Foundation Inc · St Louis Community Foundation · Edward Jones Foundation · August a Busch III Charitable Trust · World Wide Technology Foundation · Dotopia · The Blackbaud Giving Fund · Enterprise Holdings Foundation · The Pfizer Foundation Inc · Renaissance Charitable Foundation Inc · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · Jpmorgan Chase 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 Merle E & Patricia a Butler Family Charitable 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.

2024
202122232425
no gov · 00%1%3%6%10%your share of their income ↑0%4%8%11%15%share of the org’s income from government
    no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
    0get no government money at all
    5report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)
    0rely on government for over half their income
    ⤢ axis zoomed · 0–15%
    typical government reliance, FY2025

    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.

    05Through Plinth

    Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

    How do I get to Merle E & Patricia a Butler Family Charitable Foundation?

    Find your warmest path to Merle E & Patricia a Butler Family Charitable 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.

    On method. Every financial figure here is read directly from IRS e-file XML — your own 990/990-PF and the multi-year returns of the 35 grantees we resolved across every year we hold, several hundred filings in all (a different count from the grant rows on the cover, which are one fiscal year)— each linked to its source. Grantee achievements and outcomes are each organization’s own program-service reporting (Form 990, Part III); we read these as association with sustained funding — the foundation is one of several forces — suppress low-confidence name matches rather than guess, and say so where a figure rests on a single grant or filing. Not everything on this page is a filed figure, and the difference matters. Filed is what you reported on your return. Official is another government record about an organization, such as a federal award or a charity register, joined by name where no shared identifier exists. Resolved is an identity we worked out where the filing named a recipient without an EIN, kept only above a measured confidence threshold. Computed is arithmetic over those, like themes, portfolio clusters and co-funder strength. Context is a statistic about a place rather than about an organization, which is what the need overlay is: it describes the area a grantee’s address sits in, not where its work lands. Inferred is drawn by a model from text, like the partnerships read out of public news and organization websites. Each is labeled where it appears. How we build these →

    Generated from your IRS Form 990-PF e-file return for fiscal year 2025, released 2025. Filings run roughly 12–24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

    Source object · view filing

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