· Private foundation
Merriman 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 $10k17 grants · $59k
- $10k–50k7 grants · $100k
- $50k–250k3 grants · $250k
- $250k+4 grants · $2.9M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| SMU School of Business | $1,000,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $1,000,000 |
| Heart of America Council BSA | $585,000 |
| St Lukes Hospital Foundation | $300,000 |
| The Garden Club of Palm Beach 1928 | $150,000 |
| Mayo Clinic | $50,000 |
| Nelson Gallery Foundation | $50,000 |
| Alcuin School | $20,000 |
| United Way Greater Kansas City | $20,000 |
| Blair House Foundation | $20,000 |
| Society of the Four Arts | $10,000 |
| Welcome House Inc | $10,000 |
| Boys & Girls Clubs of Palm Beach County | $10,000 |
| Preservation Foundation of Palm Beach | $10,000 |
| BOTAR | $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 (FY17–25, $407k) land where the poverty rate runs at 15%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 98% 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.
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 +37% since the first grant, against +17% for the ones you funded once.
64 repeat relationships — 18 still active in FY2025, 46 since wound down; 11 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, 92% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $250k 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
- PHPEMBROKE HILL SCHOOL5× · 2020–2024 · $5.0M · revenue +23%
- YMYOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION OF GREATER KANSAS CITY2× · 2020–2021 · $285k · revenue +11%
- TCThe Children's Mercy Hospital3× · 2018–2024 · $102k · revenue +41%
Funded once
- SLSAINT LUKE'S HOSPITAL FOUNDATION INCone grant, 2020 · $260k
- SVSMU - VISION 2025 FOOTBALL SUPPORT FUNDone grant, 2021 · $100k
- GWGEORGE W BUSH PRESIDENTAL CENTERone grant, 2018 · $50k
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.
Provide an independent forum for those who dare to read, think, speak, and write to advance the professional, literary, and scientific understanding of sea power and other issues critical to global security.
The bac is committed to provide excellence in design education grounded in practice and accessible to diverse communities.
Its mission is to perform great performances for greater audiences. the kansas city symphony will achieve this mission by: - developing an uncompromising performance standard. - advancing the profile and value of the orchestra locally,…
To inspire and engage through the beauty, power and passion of dance
Provides innovative education in a dynamic urban setting. dedicated to academic excellence and community engagement,we prepare students of diverse backgrounds with the knowledge, skill,and experience to lead meaningful lives as informed…
Park university's mission is to transform lives through accessible, student-centered, quality higher education.
Leading the way to the best kc region by convening innovative leaders, collaborating with like-minded organizations, advocating for positive change, and helping small businesses grow.
The Television Academy is dedicated to celebrating excellence, innovation and the advancement of the telecommunications arts and sciences through recognition, education and leadership, while fostering a diverse, inclusive and accessible…
The primary mission of furman as a liberal arts institution is to provide a distinctive education in fine arts, humanities, social sciences, mathematics and the sciences, as well as selected professional disciplines.
Columbia college improves lives by providing quality education to both traditional and nontraditional students, helping them achieve their true potential.
We build lifelong relationships that strengthen the university of kansas and the legacy of excellence embodied by its students, alumni, faculty, staff and friends.
The organization's mission is to educate students for creative occupations in diverse fields of arts and media.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Big Brothers Big Sisters Kansas City and the most unlike its peers is Phi Delta Theta Fraternity. 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 43 years old; the field is 24. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 18% startups (under 5 years old) — 4% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 2% lost their exemption, against 12% 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.
82 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. 82 of the 160 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 PEMBROKE HILL SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds CATHOLIC COMMUNITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Saint Lukes Foundation ↗
- Who funds MAYO CLINIC ↗
- Who funds YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION OF GREATER KANSAS CITY ↗
- Who funds The Children's Mercy Hospital ↗
- Who funds KAUFFMAN CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS ↗
- Who funds Peggy Adams Animal Rescue League of the Palm Beaches Inc ↗
- Who funds ALCUIN SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds THE CENTRAL EXCHANGE INC ↗
- Who funds DOWNTOWN KANSAS CITY CIVIC VENTURES ↗
- Who funds THE NELSON GALLERY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Urban Youth Impact Inc ↗
- Who funds American National Red Cross & Its Constituent Chapters and Branches ↗
- Who funds BLAIR HOUSE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds CROSSROADS CHARTER SCHOOLS ↗
- Who funds BOYS & GIRLS CLUB OF PBC ↗
- Who funds KANSAS CITY REPERTORY THEATRE 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 · William T Kemper Foundation Commerce Bank Trustee · Marion and Henry Bloch Family Foundation · The H & R Block Foundation · Jewish Community Foundation of Greater Kansas City · Hallmark Corporate Foundation · Oppenstein Brothers Foundation · The Kansas City Royals Foundation · Copaken Family Foundation · The Sunderland Foundation · Health Forward Foundation · United Way of Greater Kansas City Inc
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 Merriman 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.
- Cox Science Center and Aquarium Inc — 6% 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.