· Private foundation
Merryman 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 it funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2025.
Where the money goes
Grants by size, and the largest recipients.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k32 grants · $59k
- $10k–50k1 grant · $20k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| VIRGINIA TECH FOUNDATION | $20,000 |
| LIBERTY UNIVERSITY | $5,000 |
| LYNCHBURG COMMUNITY TRUST | $5,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $3,000 |
| ACADEMY CENTER OF THE ARTS | $3,000 |
| CVCC | $3,000 |
| V-COM | $2,500 |
| THE NATIONAL D-DAY MEMORIAL | $2,500 |
| SKELTON 4H EDUCATIONAL CENTER | $2,500 |
| RUTGERS UNIVERSITY | $2,500 |
| CAMPBELL COUNTY EDUCATION FOUNDATIO | $2,000 |
| CASA OF CENTRAL VIRGINIA | $2,000 |
| RUSTBURG UNITED METHODIST CHURCH | $2,000 |
| HARMONY DAYCARE | $2,000 |
| LYNCHBURG CITY SCHOOL EDUCATION FND | $2,000 |
Does the money reach high-need areas?
Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.
Its human-services grants (FY17–25, $47k) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 13%. 61% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.
How this is measured
How this is measured
Who it funds again
Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.
Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +62% since the first grant, against +14% for those funded once.
41 repeat relationships: 30 still active in FY2025, 11 since wound down; 2 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, 93% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $4k went to new ones.
Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant
How this is measured
Backed again, and grew
- ACACADEMY CENTER OF THE ARTS INC9× · 2017–2025 · $23k · revenue +287%
- UOUNIVERSITY OF LYNCHBURG4× · 2017–2020 · $20k · revenue +5%
- CCCAMPBELL COUNTY EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATION9× · 2017–2025 · $18k · revenue +399%
Funded once
- TNTREVECCA NAZARENE UNIVERSITYone grant, 2021 · $5k · revenue +14%
- LULONGWOOD UNIVERSITYone grant, 2024 · $5k
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2023 · $5k
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.
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.
Provision of safe and affordable housing.
Providing life-enriching services that promote well-being and build community.
To provide "dignity in living" for senior adults who reside in this planned services community.
Louisville collegiate school inspires academic excellence, extraordinary character and global citizenship.
VCIC works with schools, businesses, and communities to achieve success through inclusion.
To provide investment and investment management and related services to the rector and the board of visitors of virginia commonwealth university (vcu), and/or to the private and independent foundations and other entities affiliated with…
To provide excellence in the delivery of healthcare.
Provides seminary, under-graduate, graduate, doctoral, and other continuing education programs
Furtherance of economic growth, education, training and development
New schools for virginia works with parents, students, educators and the community to improve educational outcomes by designing new schools and by supporting existing schools to improve outcomes.
The mission of the school is to provide outstanding legal education in a collegial and supportive environment with attention to newly emerging areas of law, particularly those related to technological development, globalization and the…
To deliver important healthcare services with exceptional quality and patient-centered care.
How this is measured
22 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. 22 of the 54 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.
Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee
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.
- Who funds VIRGINIA TECH FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds ACADEMY CENTER OF THE ARTS INC ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY OF LYNCHBURG ↗
- Who funds CAMPBELL COUNTY EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds PRESBYTERIAN HOMES & FAMILY SVCS ↗
- Who funds CASA OF CENTRAL VIRGINIA INC ↗
- Who funds MEALS ON WHEELS INC ↗
- Who funds BEACON OF HOPE INC ↗
- Who funds FELLOWSHIP OF CHRISTIAN ATHLETES ↗
- Who funds Campbell County Historical Society Inc ↗
- Who funds LIBERTY UNIVERSITY INC ↗
- Who funds LYNCHBURG DAILY BREAD INC ↗
- Who funds GREATER LYNCHBURG HABITAT FOR HUMANITY INC ↗
- Who funds CENTRA HEALTH INC ↗
- Who funds MIRIAM'S HOUSE INC ↗
- Who funds TREVECCA NAZARENE UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds CHATHAM HALL ↗
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.
Open a dossier: Foster Foundation · Schewel Charitable Foundation · Easley Char Irr Tua 5019004715 · Centra Health Inc · Greater Lynchburg Community Foundation · The Al Stroobants Foundation · Valtim Family Foundation Inc · The Harry D Forsyth Foundation · Valentine Family Foundation · Carrington Family Foundation · M4k Lynchburg Inc · Moore's Charitable Foundation
How this is measured
How much its grantees rely on government
Each dot is one organization Merryman Charitable Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Merryman Charitable Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.
How this is measured
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to Merryman Charitable Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Merryman 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.
Play a game based on Merryman’s filings →