· Private foundation
Merlin Foundation Inc
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.
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 · FY2024
- Under $10k30 grants · $130k
- $10k–50k16 grants · $234k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| UNIVERSITY OF MONTANA FOUNDATION | $32,500 |
| MISSOULA COMMUNITY FOUNDATION | $30,000 |
| CONSERVATION INTERNATIONAL | $25,000 |
| HANA RETREAT -ALA KUKUI | $20,000 |
| BIRD ALLIANCE OF OREGON | $16,000 |
| FAMILIES FIRST LEARNING LAB | $10,000 |
| HOMEWORD | $10,000 |
| THE SAFINA CENTER | $10,000 |
| YOUTH HOMES | $10,000 |
| MISSOULA FOOD BANK | $10,000 |
| MONTANA LAND RELIANCE | $10,000 |
| THE DAVID SHELDRICK WILDLIFE TRUST | $10,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $10,000 |
| CONSERVATION INTERNATIONAL - BRAZIL | $10,000 |
| THE ROXY THEATER | $10,000 |
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 (FY17–24, $31k) land where the poverty rate runs at 9%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 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.
Where the work is directed
The same grants, placed two ways — where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose earmarks the money.
About 8% of Merlin Foundation Inc’s grant dollars are earmarked, by their stated purpose, for a different county than the recipient’s own address — money that lands at a nonprofit in one place but is meant to do its work in another.
Recipient view: each grant at its grantee’s ZIP, mapped to a county. Directed view: each grant at the county its stated purpose names, falling back to the recipient’s county when the purpose names no place; US grants only. A county shows only if it carries the top 95% of that view’s dollars. Purposes are read from the foundation’s own 990 grant descriptions.
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 +63% since the first grant, against +48% for the ones you funded once.
56 repeat relationships — 38 still active in FY2024, 18 since wound down; 7 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (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 FY2024, 86% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $46k 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
- TUTHE UNIVERSITY OF MONTANA FOUNDATION6× · 2018–2024 · $105k · revenue +41%
- HRHANA RETREAT8× · 2017–2024 · $100k · revenue +74%
CONSERVATION INTERNATIONAL FOUNDATION5× · 2020–2024 · $95k · revenue +94%
Funded once
- MEMontana Environmental Information Centergraduatedone grant, 2020 · $12k · revenue +150%
- TDTHE DAVID SHELDRICK WILDLIFE Tone grant, 2021 · $10k
- MIMISSOULA INTERFAITH COLLABORATIVEone grant, 2023 · $10k · revenue +15%
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.
The montana wildlife federation is a statewide conservation organization dedicated to protecting wildlife, wildlife habitat, and public access for outdoor recreation.
Cascadia wildlands defends and restores cacasia's wild ecosystems in the forests,in the courts, and in the streets. we envision vast old-growth forests, rivers full of wild salmon, wolves howling in the backcountry, a stable climate, and…
Icl's mission is to create a conservation community and pragmatic, enduring solutions that protect and restore the air you breathe, the water you drink, and the land and wildlife you love.
To collectively serve as a catalyst for engagement and bonding of people to our wildlife and public lands in montana through a sense of place, education, access, research and stewardship.
Rocky mountain wild works to protect, connect, and restore wildlife and wild lands in the southern rocky mountain region. we work to secure the biodiversity of the mountains, plains, and desert ecosystems of colorado, wyoming, utah, and…
Washington wild protects and restores wild lands and waters in washington state through advocacy, education and civic engagement.
The wyoming outdoor council's mission is to protect wyoming's environment and quality of life now and for future generations.
Rainforest trust saves endangered wildlife and protects our planet by creating rainforest reserves through partnerships, community engagement, and donor support.
Our mission is to protect the rural nature of Wallowa County by working cooperatively with private landowners,indigenous people, local communities and governmental entities to conserve land.
The mission of wildcoast is to conserve coastal and marine ecosystems and address climate change through natural solutions. our staff is dedicated to conserving threatened and endangered coastlines and wildlife in california and mexico.…
Our mission is conserving West Michigans ecologically critical land. We protect land by creating public nature preserves, providing support to communities and local governments in creating natural areas, and helping private landowners…
Western rivers conservancy's mission is to protect outstanding river ecosystems in the western united states. continued on schedule o.we acquire land to conserve critical habitat, provide public access for compatible use and enjoyment, and…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Wild Salmon Center and the most unlike its peers is Childrens Museum of Bozeman Inc. 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 27 years old; the field is 19. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 18% startups (under 5 years old) — 2% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 8% 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.
70 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. 70 of the 96 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 THE UNIVERSITY OF MONTANA FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds HANA RETREAT ↗
- Who funds CONSERVATION INTERNATIONAL FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds MISSOULA COMMUNITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds BIRD ALLIANCE OF OREGON INC ↗
- Who funds THE DAVID SHELDRICK WILDLIFE TRUST USA INC ↗
- Who funds SUSSEX SCHOOL INC ↗
- Who funds THE ROXY THEATER ↗
- Who funds BLACKFOOT CHALLENGE INC ↗
- Who funds OWL RESEARCH INSTITUTE INC ↗
- Who funds EXPLORATIONWORKS INC ↗
- Who funds MISSOULA FOOD BANK & COMMUNITY CENTER ↗
- Who funds YOUTH HOMES ↗
- Who funds MONTANA BICYCLE GUILD ↗
- Who funds FRIENDSHIP CENTER OF HELENA INC ↗
- Who funds Childrens Museum of Bozeman Inc ↗
- Who funds THE CARL SAFINA CENTER INC THE SAFINA CENTER ↗
- Who funds NESTUCCA NESKOWIN WATERSHED COUNCIL ↗
- Who funds Girls Thrive Inc ↗
- Who funds THE MONTANA LAND RELIANCE ↗
- Who funds HELENA FOOD SHARE INC ↗
- Who funds THE PEOPLE'S FUND ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY FOOD AND AGRICULTURE COALITION ↗
- Who funds ECOLOGY PROJECT INTERNATIONAL ↗
- Who funds YELLOWSTONE FOREVER ↗
- Who funds UNION GOSPEL MISSION OF MISSOULA ↗
- Who funds WILD SKIES RAPTOR CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds WILD SALMON CENTER ↗
- Who funds MISSOULA BUTTERFLY HOUSE AND INSECTARIUM ↗
- Who funds Montana Environmental Information Center ↗
- Who funds MONTANA AUDUBON ↗
- Who funds ADVOCATES FOR THE WEST INC ↗
- Who funds SARARA INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds THE TRUST FOR PUBLIC LAND ↗
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: Dennis & Phyllis Washington Foundation · First Interstate BancSystem Foundation Inc · The High Stakes Foundation · Patagoniaorg · Montana Community Foundation Inc · The Llewellyn Foundation · Cross Charitable Foundation Attn John R Clark · Treacy Foundation · Town Pump Charitable Foundation · The Fanwood Foundation · Otto Bremer Trust · Elizabeth Wakeman Henderson Charitable Foundation Xxx-Xx-Xxxx
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 Merlin 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.
- Wild Salmon Center — 49% of income from government
- Ecotrust — 14% of income from government
- The Orion Society Inc — 2% of income from government
- Bird Alliance of Oregon Inc — 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 Merlin Foundation Inc?
Find your warmest path to Merlin 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.