How much does Merrimac Charitable Trust II give?

Merrimac Charitable Trust II reported 32 grants totaling $44,000 in its FY2025 IRS filing. It funded between 25 and 30 organizations a year over FY2018 to FY2024.

What does Merrimac Charitable Trust II fund?

By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2025, its largest causes are Health (23%), Human Services (15%), Education (15%).

Who are Merrimac Charitable Trust II's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2017 to FY2025: Advocates Inc ($41k), Cape Cod Lighthouse Charter School Education Foundation Inc ($19k), Alzheimer's Disease Research Foundation ($19k).

Does Merrimac Charitable Trust II fund new organizations?

In FY2024, 28% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Does Merrimac Charitable Trust II accept unsolicited applications?

Its most recent filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and does not take unsolicited requests. Check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.

Which funders back the same organizations as Merrimac Charitable Trust II?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Triangle Community Foundation Inc, Eastern Bank Foundation, Boston Foundation Inc.

Where is Merrimac Charitable Trust II based?

Merrimac Charitable Trust II is based in MA.

Merrimac Charitable Trust II

Merrimac Charitable Trust II at a glance

· Private foundation

Merrimac Charitable Trust II

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.

$44k

Granted FY2025still arriving

Grants FY2025still arriving

States reached

$5k

Largest

01What it funds

0198% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2025.

Health$79kHuman Services$53kEducation$51kHousing & Shelter$29kInternational$26kEnvironment$22kAnimals$19kReligion$18kOther$0

02FY2025 · 32 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

$1,000

Median grant

States reached

$253k

Total assets

Largest grants
Recipient	Amount
ADVOCATES INC	$5,000
ITHACA COLLEGE	$5,000
CURE ALZHEIMERS FUND	$3,000
SAFE COALITION	$2,500
THE DOVER CHURCH	$2,500
TANZANIAN CHILDREN'S FUND	$2,000
CAPE COD LIGHTHOUSE CHARTER SCHOOL (CCLCS)	$2,000
MILTON ACADEMY (THE MOUNTAIN SCHOOL)	$1,500
JOG YOUR MEMORY 5K INC	$1,500
LGBTQ CENTER OF DURHAM	$1,250
TRANSLATINA NETWORK INC	$1,250
AUGUSTA FOOD BANK	$1,125
CAPE WELLNESS COLLABORATIVE	$1,000
SANTA BARBARA CHANNEL KEEPER	$1,000
THE CHILL FOUNDATION	$1,000

02The need

Does the money reach high-need areas?

Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.

show:

Its human-services grants (FY17–25, $29k) land where the poverty rate runs at 9%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 27% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Its grants skew toward lower-need ZIPs.

grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount

How this is measured

Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty line in the grantee’s ZIP, averaged from the tracts in that ZIP.

Which US states its grants reach

How this is measured

US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are delivered. Need from public data (U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA), shown as context about the area, never attributed to the funder’s giving.

03Its grantees

repeat funding

Who it funds again

Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.

86%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$289k · 46 repeat orgs$49k to everyone else

46 repeat relationships: 22 still active in FY2025, 24 since wound down; 10 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$289k

$41k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+21%

+37%

Still filing today

76%

70%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 83% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $8k went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

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

HealthHuman ServicesEnvironmentEducationArts & CultureInternationalOther

How this is measured

First-time means a grantee’s first year in the filing window; renewed means funded in an earlier year too. The renewed share climbs naturally as a portfolio matures, so the signal is a year that bucks it (a wave of new grantees). 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

AI
ADVOCATES INC
9× · 2017–2025 · $41k · revenue +170%
CC
CAPE COD LIGHTHOUSE CHARTER SCHOOL EDUCATION FOUNDATION INC
8× · 2017–2025 · $19k · revenue +12%
AD
ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE RESEARCH FOUNDATION
9× · 2017–2025 · $19k · revenue +224%

Funded once

MG
MASSACHUSETTS GENERAL CANCER CENTER AT NEWTON - WELLESLEY
one grant, 2021 · $2k
HF
HABITAT FOR HUMANITY OF SONOMA COUNTYgraduated
one grant, 2017 · $2k · revenue +48%
TD
THE DANCE PRISM INC
one grant, 2023 · $2k

How this is measured

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

04Its field

Closest unfunded matches

The nonprofits that most resemble its grantees but are not funded by it, scored along the direction from the rest of the field toward the portfolio. A resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.

Commonwealth Care Alliance Inc

Commonwealth care alliance, inc.'s mission is to improve the health and well-being of people with significant needs by innovating, coordinating and providing the highest quality, individualized care.

Health

Boston Architectural College

The bac is committed to provide excellence in design education grounded in practice and accessible to diverse communities.

—

Native Plant Trust Inc

The organization's mission is to conserve and promote new england's native plants to ensure healthy, biologically diverse landscapes.

Environment

Northeast College of Health Sciences

Northeast college of health sciences (the college) is committed to academic excellence, leadership, and professional best practices in the health sciences.

Education

Boston Harbor Now Inc

Our mission is to ensure that the people of greater boston benefit from a vibrant, resilient, and inclusive waterfront, harbor, and islands; these spaces are equitable, accessible, and adapted to climate change; and to ensure our public,…

Environment

American Flood Coalition Inc

To drive transformational adaptation to protect communities across the country from higher seas, stronger storms, and more frequent flooding.

Environment

Center for Arms Control and

A nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization dedicated to enhancing international peace and security in the 21st century, thereby retaining its focus on nuclear weapons but expanding to include other present emerging security threats.

International

Asociacion Interamericana Para La Defensa Del Ambiente

To strenghten people's ability to guarantee their individual and collective right to a healthy environment, via the development, implementation, and effective enforcement of national and international law.

Crime & Legal

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

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.

Education

University of New Haven

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…

Education

American Gas Association

American gas association's (the association) mission is to develop and advocate for informed, innovative, and durable policy that fulfills our nation's energy needs, environmental aspirations and economic potential. we are committed to…

—

National Association of Corporate Directors

We empower directors and transform boards to be future ready.

Public Benefit

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Advocates Inc; the most unlike its peers is The North Carolina Public Radio Association. 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

83 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.

Each grant beside the grantee’s revenue from every source, year by year.

How this is measured

Counted here: distinct organizations funded across 2017 to 2025, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 83 of the 111 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile.

Each grantee is resolved to its own IRS returns. Association, dated; never a causal claim.

Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)

Early backer (in before they grew)

83/83

Grantees still filing

56/83

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Health$101,025Other$111,800Education$43,850Human Services$31,600Housing & Shelter$25,500Environment$19,650Arts & Culture$11,300

Each grantee by its size and the funder’s share of it; top left is load-bearing

Grantee by grantee: a decade per organization, before and after funding

A decade per grantee: revenue shaded, grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.

Co-funders

Grantmakers whose grantees overlap with this funder’s far more than size alone predicts. Closer means stronger alignment; arcs show where they also fund each other. Here they form a tightly interlocked group: most of these funders back each other's grantees too.

Triangle Community Foundation IncNC28.7× affinity13 shared granteesties to 9 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Triangle Community Foundation Inc · Eastern Bank Foundation · Boston Foundation Inc · Amica Companies Foundation · The Pfizer Foundation Inc · American Tower Corporation Foundation Inc · Duke University · Rockland Trust Charitable Foundation Inc · Ge Aerospace Foundation · United Way of the Greater Triangle Inc · Mutual Bancorp Foundation Inc Fka Cape Cod 5 Foundation Inc · Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Greater Boston Inc

How this is measured

Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. Overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.

How much its grantees rely on government

Each dot is one organization Merrimac Charitable Trust II funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Merrimac Charitable Trust II. Bigger dots raise more.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

15get no government money at all

19report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)

3rely on government for over half their income

typical government reliance, FY20–25

How this is measured

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 a grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first, a floor rather than 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 to 24 months.

05Through Plinth

Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

How do I get to Merrimac Charitable Trust II?

Find your warmest path to Merrimac Charitable Trust II 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.

Play a game based on Merrimac Charitable Trust II’s filings →

More from the funding graph

The unnamed billions

grants reported with no recipient in the public record

The regranting layer

51% of grant dollars land in the regranting layer

The DAF merry-go-round

$9.7B circulates between donor-advised funds

The endowment market

who holds foundation money, and what just moved

The camps

funders cluster by geography, not ideology

By state

where grant money is based, and what stays home