· Private foundation
Merrill 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.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k11 grants · $25k
- $10k–50k11 grants · $256k
- $50k–250k3 grants · $201k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| WILSON TOURISM HUB INC | $100,500 |
| COUNTRY CLUB CHRISTIAN CHURCH | $50,584 |
| SAINT LUKES FOUNDATION | $50,000 |
| LEAWOOD PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH | $40,834 |
| Individual grant recipient | $40,000 |
| CHURCH OF THE RESURRECTION | $30,000 |
| YOUTH FRONT | $30,000 |
| SALVATION ARMY | $25,000 |
| ROCKY RIDGE MUSIC CENTER FOUNDATION | $20,000 |
| MUSEUM OF PRAIRIEFIRE FOUNDATION | $18,834 |
| KANSAS STATE ALUMNI ASSOCIATION | $15,000 |
| THE KANSAS CITY SYMPHONY | $13,750 |
| JDRF KANSAS CITY CHAPTER | $13,000 |
| KANSAS CITY CHORALE | $10,000 |
| HARVESTERS COMMUNITY FOOD NETWORK | $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 (FY18–18, $5k) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 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.
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.
33 repeat relationships — 22 still active in FY2025, 11 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, 83% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $81k 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
- KCKANSAS CITY SYMPHONY9× · 2017–2025 · $72k · revenue +18%
- TCTEXAS CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY9× · 2017–2025 · $49k · revenue +60%
- HTHARVESTERS - THE COMMUNITY FOOD NETWORK9× · 2017–2025 · $35k · revenue +40%
Funded once
- BOBELLES OF THE AMERICAN ROYALone grant, 2024 · $9k
- KCKANSAS CZECHS INCone grant, 2022 · $8k
- TKThe Kansas University Endowment Associationone grant, 2022 · $5k · revenue -7%
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 kansas city museum foundation preserves, interprets, and celebrates kansas city through collections, exhibitions, and bold programs that reflect the city's evolution and spirit, and engage visitors in unfolding stories about kansas…
Kansas farm bureau exists to strengthen agriculture and the lives of kansans through advocacy, education, and service.
To inspire and engage through the beauty, power and passion of dance
To secure and provide funds and resources to enhance student learning in the kansas city public schools.
Kansas wesleyan university is a liberal arts college that promotes and integrates academic excellence, spiritual development, personal well-being, and social responsibility.
The memorial unions function as a concessionaire to the university of kansas for the purpose of operating various enterprises within the kansas union building, the burge union, the debruce center, residential dining halls, and other…
To strengthen the University and communities that have touched the lives of KU alumni and friends, the mission of The KU Endowment Charitable Gift Fund is to receive and administer gifts and bequests to further the charitable objectives of…
The mission of KCAI is to educate artists and designers while honoring the distinct journeys of students. We forge a vibrant community that equips them to become leaders who leverage the creative process to transform the future.
The mission of The Black Repertory Theatre of Kansas City is to educate and inspire our community by presenting and promoting appreciation for African-American culture through our stories.
The Foundation was created to assist in the promotion, development and enhancement of the financial resources for Washburn University of Topeka, as well as to receive and hold in trust any assets given in benefit of the University.
We build lifelong relationships that strengthen the university of kansas and the legacy of excellence embodied by its students, alumni, faculty, staff and friends.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts and the most unlike its peers is Relentless Endeavor Ministries 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 54 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) — 3% of your grantees by number, and just 1% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 14% 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, 2017–2026.
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 2017–2026, not grant rows in a single year — so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 27 of the 46 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 WILSON TOURISM HUB INC ↗
- Who funds MUSEUM OF PRAIRIEFIRE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds KANSAS CITY SYMPHONY ↗
- Who funds Saint Lukes Foundation ↗
- Who funds TEXAS CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds Franklin Center Inc ↗
- Who funds KANSAS ALPHA OF PHI DELTA THETA EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds HARVESTERS - THE COMMUNITY FOOD NETWORK ↗
- Who funds Relentless Endeavor Ministries Inc ↗
- Who funds ROCKY RIDGE MUSIC CENTER FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds YOUTHFRONT INC ↗
- Who funds WAYSIDE WAIFS INC ↗
- Who funds LYRIC OPERA OF KANSAS CITY INC ↗
- Who funds KANSAS STATE UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE NELSON GALLERY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds BOYS HOPE GIRLS HOPE ↗
- Who funds KAUFFMAN CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS ↗
- Who funds KANSAS CITY CHORALE ↗
- Who funds Symphony in the Flint Hills Inc ↗
- Who funds PI BETA PHI FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds PUBLIC TELEVISION 19 INC ↗
- Who funds MUSICAL THEATER HERITAGE INC ↗
- Who funds THE NATURE CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds The Kansas University Endowment Association ↗
- Who funds THE MOSAIC FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds KANSAS SAMPLER FOUNDATION INC ↗
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: Greater Kansas City Community Foundation · G Kenneth and Ann Baum Philanthropic Fund · Muriel McBrien Kauffman Family Foundation · Jewish Community Foundation of Greater Kansas City · Merriman Foundation · Richard J Stern Foundation for the Arts Commerce Bank Trustee · Marion and Henry Bloch Family Foundation · The Francis Family Foundation · Hallmark Corporate Foundation · The H & R Block Foundation · Womack Foundation · Linda T Watson Family 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 Merrill 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.
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.