· Private foundation
Merus 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 FY2022–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k41 grants · $26k
- $10k–50k12 grants · $200k
- $50k–250k3 grants · $150k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| AMERICA'S RIVER ROOTS' FESTIVAL | $50,000 |
| KEEP CINCINNATI BEAUTIFUL | $50,000 |
| CORPORATION OF FINDLAY MARKET | $50,000 |
| BRIGHTON CENTER INC | $30,250 |
| PROJECT DESTINED | $30,000 |
| ARTWORKS | $25,000 |
| TENNESSEE PERFORMING ARTS CENTER | $25,000 |
| UNITED WAY OF GREATER CINCINNATI | $19,685 |
| CINCINNATI PLAYHOUSE IN THE PARK | $10,250 |
| WALK BIKE NASHVILLE | $10,000 |
| URBAN GREEN LAB | $10,000 |
| PITTSBURGH PARKS CONSERVANCY | $10,000 |
| CIVIC DESIGN CENTER | $10,000 |
| YWCA GREATER CINCINNATI | $10,000 |
| CINCINNATI MUSEUM CENTER | $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 (FY22–25, $17k) 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 +11% since the first grant, against +6% for the ones you funded once.
29 repeat relationships — 23 still active in FY2025, 6 since wound down; 33 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, 39% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $230k 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
- AOART OPPORTUNITIES INC3× · 2022–2025 · $100k · revenue +46%
- UWUnited Way of Greater Cincinnati3× · 2023–2025 · $65k · revenue +16%
- CUCINCINNATI USA REGIONAL CHAMBER FOUNDATION2× · 2022–2024 · $55k · revenue +11%
Funded once
- BSBOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA COUNCIL 438 DAN BEARDone grant, 2024 · $50k · revenue 0%
- C3CITYLINK 3CDCone grant, 2024 · $40k
- WTWAKE TECH COMM COLLEGE FOUNDone grant, 2023 · $25k
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 United Way of Cleveland County helps people by uniting resources and programs to responsibly meet the needs of our community.
To resolve serious legal problems of low income people, to promote economic and family stability, and reduce poverty through effective legal assistance.
Strategies to End Homelessness leads a coordinated community effort to end homelessness in Greater Cincinnati.
The World Affairs Council, a 501(c)3 nonprofit, is the bridge that connects the world to one of America's most vibrant regions. Through Global education, International exchange, and cultural awareness initiatives, the council strengthens…
The Central Ohio Worker Center is a non-profit organization that educates, empowers, and advocates for and with low-wage and immigrant workers in Central Ohio.
To strengthen the capacity of United Ways across Ohio and to advance the common good for Ohioans.
To grow the vibrancy and economic prosperity of the cincinnati region.
Empowering women to break the cycles of poverty, addiction, and human trafficking.
Greater cleveland volunteers enriches the community and indivuduals through volunteer service. volunteers age 18 and older are recruited and placed in the agency's programs or referred to local nonprofit or public organizations to help…
Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra (CCO) creates intimate, transformative experiences that connect the musically curious.
Women's health clinic focusing on helping at-risk parents deal with issues related to prenancy and parenting.
Goodwill's mission is to help people with disabilities or other disadvantages achieve and maintain employment to gain a better quality of life.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Welcome House Inc and the most unlike its peers is Rock Solid Families. 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 36 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) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 11% 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.
72 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. 72 of the 101 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 ART OPPORTUNITIES INC ↗
- Who funds PROJECT DESTINED INC ↗
- Who funds United Way of Greater Cincinnati ↗
- Who funds Brighton Center Inc ↗
- Who funds CINCINNATI USA REGIONAL CHAMBER FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Keep Cincinnati Beautiful Inc ↗
- Who funds BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA COUNCIL 438 DAN BEARD ↗
- Who funds TENNESSEE PERFORMING ARTS CENTER (TPAC) MANAGEMENT CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds Easter Seals Tristate ↗
- Who funds Clifton Cultural Arts Center ↗
- Who funds WAKE TECHNICAL COMMUNITY COLLEGE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Cincinnati Institute of Fine Arts ↗
- Who funds Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park ↗
- Who funds PITTSBURGH PARKS CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds URBAN GREEN LAB ↗
- Who funds WALK BIKE NASHVILLE INC ↗
- Who funds YWCA of Greater Cincinnati ↗
- Who funds CINCINNATI MUSEUM CENTER ↗
- Who funds CIVIC DESIGN CENTER ↗
- Who funds TALBERT HOUSE ↗
- Who funds American Heart Association Inc ↗
- Who funds ProKids ↗
- Who funds Matthew 25 Ministries Inc ↗
- Who funds I AM NEXT INC ↗
- Who funds BLOOD CANCER UNITED INC ↗
- Who funds XAVIER UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds Vanderbilt University Medical Center ↗
- Who funds HABITAT FOR HUMANITY OF WAKE COUNTY INC ↗
- Who funds FREESTORE FOODBANK INC ↗
- Who funds NORTHERN KENTUCKY CHILDREN'S ADVOCACY CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds CORNERSTONE RENTER EQUITY 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: The Greater Cincinnati Foundation · Carol Ann and Ralph V Haile Jr Foundation · Duke Energy Foundation · The Thomas J Emery Memorial · John a Schroth Family Char Tr · Elsa M Heisel Sule Charitable Trust 2005 · Ge Aerospace Foundation · The Scripps Howard Foundation · Johnson Charitable Gift Fund · Charles H Dater Foundation Inc · Robert H & Susan F Castellini Foundation · L & L Nippert Charitable Foundation Inc Attn Carter F Randolph Phd
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 Merus 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.
- Best Buddies International Inc — 4% 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 Merus Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Merus 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.