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Michael and Sherle Berger Foundation at a glance

· Private foundation

Michael and Sherle Berger Foundation

Its FY2024 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.

$17k
Granted FY2019
2
Grants FY2019
1
States reached
$12k
Largest
01What it fundsRead
02The needRead
03Its fieldRead
01What it funds
0192% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2019.

Arts & Culture$20kInternational$1kYouth Development$500Public Benefit$500Health$143Other$0
02FY2019 · 2 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2019

  • Under $10k1 grant · $5k
  • $10k–50k1 grant · $12k
$12,000
Median grant
1
States reached
$772k
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
HOLOCAUST CENTER OF PITTSBURGH$12,000
PITTSBURGH SYMPHONY$5,000
02The need
03

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 (FY18–18, $1k) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 13%. 0% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Its grants skew toward lower-need ZIPs.

area typical 13%CITY OF ASYLUM: $1k → 11%0%20%40%50%more need →
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.
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 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.

1
Philadelphia Museum of Art

The philadelphia museum of art - in partnership with the city, the region, and art museums around the globe - seeks to preserve, enhance, interpret, and extend the reach of its great collection in particular, and the visual arts in…

Arts & Culture
2
Smithsonian Institution

*increase and diffusion of knowledge* is the mission set forth by james smithson. the smithsonian endeavors to shape the future by preserving our heritage, discovering new knowledge, and sharing our resources with the world.

Arts & Culture
3
Clyfford Still Museum

Home to the art and legacy of the american painter clyfford still, we invite all to explore the potential of individual creative endeavor.

Arts & Culture
4
The Asia Society

The society is an international nonprofit, nonpartisan organization which connects people and institutions in asia and the world to build understanding, address challenges and maximize opportunities.

International
5
The Pierpont Morgan Library

The Morgan Library & Museum celebrates and shares the history and process of human creativity from antiquity to the present day through the preservation, study, and interpretation of a dynamic and growing collection.

Education
6
Museum of the City of New York

The museum of the city of new york fosters understanding of the distinctive nature of urban life in the world's most influential metropolis. it engages visitors by celebrating, documenting, and interpreting the city's past, present, and…

Arts & Culture
7
The Phillips Collection

The phillips collection is the oldest museum of modern and contemporary art in the u.s. in addition to presentation of works from the permanent collection and special exhibitions, the museum maintains active educational, academic,…

Arts & Culture
8
Peabody Essex Museum Inc

Pem offers thought-provoking experiences of the arts, humanities, and sciences to activate understanding of our shared humanity and to empower imagination and learning through experimentation. we steward, build, and make our collections…

Arts & Culture
9
Cleveland Museum of Art

The mission of the cleveland museum of art (cma) is to fulfill its dual roles as one of the world's most distinguished comprehensive art museums and as one of northeastern ohio's principal civic and cultural institutions. the museum,…

Arts & Culture
10
San Diego Museum of Art

To inspire, educate and cultivate curiosity through great works of art.

Arts & Culture
11
Mint Museum of Art Inc

The mint museum welcomes all to be inspired and transformed through the power of art and creativity.

Arts & Culture
12
Westmoreland Museum of American Art

The westmoreland museum of american art offers a place to share compelling and meaningful cultural experiences that open the door to new ideas, perspectives, and possibilities.

Arts & Culture
How this is measured
The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Carnegie Institute; the most unlike its peers is Pittsburgh Child Guidance Foundation. 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

9 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. 9 of the 12 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.

0
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
1
Early backer (in before they grew)
9/9
Grantees still filing
5/9
Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

HOLOCAUST CENTER OF PITTSBURGH: $12,000 · OtherHOLOCAUST CENTER OF PITTSBURGHIndividual grant recipient: $1,000 · OtherIndividual grant recipientPITTSBURGH CHILD GUIDANCE FOUNDATION: $500 · OtherLEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS: $500 · Other+1 more: $207 · OtherPITTSBURGH SYMPHONY INC: $5,000 · Arts & CulturePITTSBURGH SYMPHONY INCCARNEGIE INSTITUTE: $1,500 · Arts & CultureCARNEGIE INSTITUTE+2 more: $240 · Arts & CultureCITY OF ASYLUM: $1,000 · Human ServicesAMNESTY INTERNATIONAL OF THE USA INC: $1,000 · InternationalAmerican Heart Association Inc: $143 · Health
Other$14,207Arts & Culture$6,740Human Services$1,000International$1,000Health$143

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

25%50%75%100%$1.0M$10M$100Mgrantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetPITTSBURGH SYMPHONY INC: $5,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetCARNEGIE INSTITUTE: $1,500 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetCITY OF ASYLUM: $1,000 over 1y, 0.1% of budgetAMNESTY INTERNATIONAL OF THE USA INC: $1,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetFRICK ART & HISTORICAL CENTER INC: $207 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetTHE BARNES FOUNDATION: $190 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetAmerican Heart Association Inc: $143 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetSILVER EYE CENTER FOR PHOTOGRAPHY: $50 over 1y, 0.0% of budget
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.

How much its grantees rely on government

Each dot is one organization Michael and Sherle Berger Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Michael and Sherle Berger Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2024
’20’21’22’23’24’25
no gov · 00%0%1%3%5%funder's share of their income ↑0%1%3%4%5%share of the org’s income from government →
    no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
    0get no government money at all
    4report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)
    0rely on government for over half their income
    ⤢ axis zoomed · 0–5%
    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.

    On method. Every financial figure here is read from IRS e-file XML, the funder’s own 990/990-PF, and from the multi-year returns of the 12 grantees we resolved, each linked to its source. Grantee outcomes are each organization’s own program-service reporting (Form 990, Part III), read as association with funding, never as caused by it. Low-confidence name matches are suppressed rather than guessed. How we build these →

    How this is measured
    Each figure carries one of six labels. Filed is what the funder reported on its return. Official is another government record about an organization, such as a federal award or a charity register, joined by name where no shared identifier exists. Resolved is an identity we worked out where the filing named a recipient without an EIN, kept only above a measured confidence threshold. Computed is arithmetic over those, like themes, portfolio clusters and co-funder strength. Context is a statistic about a place rather than about an organization, which is what the need overlay is: it describes the area a grantee’s address sits in, not where its work lands. Inferred is drawn by a model from text, like the partnerships read out of public news and organization websites. Each is labeled where it appears.

    Generated from the IRS Form 990-PF e-file return for fiscal year 2019, released 2019. Filings run roughly 12 to 24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

    Possibly out of date. A more recent filing (FY2024) is on record but names no grant recipient in the published copy, so the figures above are from FY2019, the most recent year this funder’s grantee list reached the public record.

    Source object · view filing

    Play a game based on Michael and Sherle Berger’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