· Private foundation
Read Foundation Inc f/k/a The Merrill Foundation Inc
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 clustered by its grantee’s IRS cause code (NTEE), by year — across FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k16 grants · $34k
- $10k–50k4 grants · $52k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Create Wisconsin | $20,000 |
| Mount Mary University | $12,000 |
| Bloedel Reserve | $10,000 |
| Bat Conservation International | $10,000 |
| Opera Colorado | $6,000 |
| Colorado Ballet | $5,000 |
| Central City Opera | $5,000 |
| Girl Scouts of Wisconsin SE | $4,000 |
| St Anne's Episcopal School | $3,000 |
| Denver Center for the Performing Arts | $2,000 |
| Law Foward | $2,000 |
| Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin | $2,000 |
| University of School Milwaukee | $1,000 |
| Bryn Mawr College | $1,000 |
| Writer's Theater | $1,000 |
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 (FY18–20, $2k) land where the poverty rate runs at 17%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 100% 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 +38% since the first grant, against +19% for the ones you funded once.
41 repeat relationships — 14 still active in FY2025, 27 since wound down; 6 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, 47% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $45k 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
BAT CONSERVATION INTERNATIONAL9× · 2017–2025 · $226k · revenue +179%
FLORENTINE OPERA COMPANY INC7× · 2017–2023 · $165k · revenue +38%
THE UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MILWAUKEE CORPORATION7× · 2018–2025 · $60k · revenue +45%
Funded once
- HHHistoric Haymarket Milwaukee Incgraduatedone grant, 2024 · $100k · revenue +64%
NATIONAL TRUST FOR HISTORIC PRESERVATION IN THE UNITED STATESone grant, 2022 · $10k · revenue +12%
MUSEUM OF WISCONSIN ART INCone grant, 2021 · $10k · revenue -14%
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.
Milwaukee women inc is an organization of executives determined to change the quality and composition of corporate boards to maximize the performance of public and private companies with a focus on women and women of color.
The milwaukee institute of art and design's mission is to ignite curious minds through art, design and service. we value courage to seek our own path, integrity to pursue our lives and work with meaning, kindness to thoughtfully engage…
The mission of the milwaukee bar association is to be an inclusive, equitable and diverse organization that serves the interests of the lawyers, judges and the people of milwaukee county by working to promote the professional interests of…
The wisconsin maritime museum connects all people with wisconsin's waterways, by engaging and educating the public about wisconsin's maritime history, wisconsin's world war ii submarines, uss cobia, and the great lakes. the wisconsin…
To cultivate civil discourse, increase understanding, and create common ground by connecting wisconsin people and ideas.
We conduct impartial public policy research and analysis to drive informed debate and effective decision-making in the state of wisconsin.
To protect, conserve, and enhance wisconsin's natural resources by advocating for and supporting county conservation efforts, for current and future generations.
Strengthen communities by providing high-quality and innovative artistic experiences that entertain, inspire, and unite diverse audiences.
Lawrence university of wisconsin, through its undergraduate residential college and conservatory of music, educates students in the liberal arts and sciences. the university is devoted to excellence and integrity in all of its activities…
Landmark conservancy is a nationally accredited, nonprofit conservation organization serving 20 counties across northwest wisconsin. their mission is to conserve wisconsin's natural legacy for everyone...forever.
The purpose of the wisconsin public radio association (wpra) is to support wisconsin public radio by engaging in cooperative fundraising, stewardship and advocacy. the wpra generates support through programs and participatory activities…
To improve the health of the people of wisconsin by supporting and strengthening physicians' ability to practice high quality patient care in a changing environment.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Milwaukee Art Museum Inc and the most unlike its peers is Layton Art Collection. 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 48 years old; the field is 20. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 17% 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 8% 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.
55 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. 55 of the 74 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 BAT CONSERVATION INTERNATIONAL ↗
- Who funds MILWAUKEE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA INC ↗
- Who funds FLORENTINE OPERA COMPANY INC ↗
- Who funds GIRL SCOUTS OF WISCONSIN SOUTHEAST INC ↗
- Who funds Historic Haymarket Milwaukee Inc ↗
- Who funds THE UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MILWAUKEE CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds COLORADO BALLET ↗
- Who funds OPERA COLORADO ↗
- Who funds St Anne's Episcopal School Inc ↗
- Who funds MILWAUKEE PUBLIC MUSEUM INC ↗
- Who funds CREATE WISCONSIN INC ↗
- Who funds LAYTON ART COLLECTION ↗
- Who funds DENVER CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS ↗
- Who funds MOUNT MARY UNIVERSITY INC ↗
- Who funds MILWAUKEE COUNTY WAR MEMORIAL INC ↗
- Who funds MILWAUKEE ART MUSEUM INC ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL TRUST FOR HISTORIC PRESERVATION IN THE UNITED STATES ↗
- Who funds JUNIOR ACHIEVEMENT OF WISCONSIN INC ↗
- Who funds MUSEUM OF WISCONSIN ART INC ↗
- Who funds THE BLOEDEL RESERVE ↗
- Who funds TALL PINES CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL SOCIETY OF THE COLONIAL DAMES OF AMERICA IN THE STATE OF CONNECTICUT ↗
- Who funds FOREST HOME HISTORIC PRESERVATION ASSOCIATION INC ↗
- Who funds LAW FORWARD INC ↗
- Who funds Lyric Opera of Chicago ↗
- Who funds Marquette University ↗
- Who funds BRYN MAWR COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds PLANNED PARENTHOOD OF WISCONSIN INC ↗
- Who funds MILWAUKEE BALLET COMPANY INC ↗
- Who funds 1000 FRIENDS OF WISCONSIN ↗
- Who funds GATHERING OF SOUTHEAST WI 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 Milwaukee Foundation Inc · Herbert H Kohl Charities Inc · Baird Foundation Inc · Evan & Marion Helfaer Foundation · United Way of Greater Milwaukee & Waukesha County Inc · Green Bay Packers Foundation · The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation Inc · Bradley Impact Fund Inc · Hauske Family Foundation Inc · Bert L and Patricia S Steigleder Charitable · Ralph Evinrude Foundation Inc · Charter Manufacturing Company Foundation 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 Read Foundation Inc f/k/a The Merrill Foundation Inc 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.
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 Read Foundation Inc f/k/a The Merrill Foundation Inc?
Find your warmest path to Read Foundation Inc f/k/a The Merrill Foundation Inc 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.