· Private foundation
Sherry & Gerald Merfish Family Foundation
Its FY2024 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 FY2020–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k17 grants · $45k
- $10k–50k8 grants · $177k
- $50k–250k4 grants · $261k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| HOUSTON AREA WOMEN'S CENTER | $76,640 |
| EVELYN RUBENSTEIN JEWISH COMMUNITY CENTER OF HOUSTON | $70,500 |
| BOULDER JEWISH COMMUNITY CENTER | $60,000 |
| NEW LEADERS COUNCIL (NLC) | $53,780 |
| JEWISH FEDERATION-GREATER HOUSTON | $27,000 |
| CENTER FOR REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS | $25,000 |
| HOUSTON JEWISH COMMUNITY FOUNDATION | $25,000 |
| NATIONAL PARTNERSHIP FOR WOMEN & FAMILIES | $25,000 |
| PROMISE VILLAGE ACADEMY LLC | $24,600 |
| TARGET HUNGER | $20,000 |
| PLANNED PARENTHOOD | $15,000 |
| THE 19TH NEWS | $15,000 |
| HOUSTON ISD FOUNDATION | $5,500 |
| TEXAS CIVIL RIGHTS PROJECT | $5,000 |
| ST JOHN'S SCHOOL | $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 (FY21–24, $314k) land where the poverty rate runs at 15%, against an area that typically sits at 12%. 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.
19 repeat relationships — 15 still active in FY2024, 4 since wound down; 12 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (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 FY2024, 84% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $67k 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
- EREvelyn Rubenstein Jewish Community Center of Houston4× · 2021–2024 · $719k · revenue +3%
- PVPROMISE VILLAGE ACADEMY LLC3× · 2022–2024 · $139k · revenue +61%
- TBTHE BOULDER JEWISH COMMUNITY CENTER3× · 2022–2024 · $80k · revenue +4%
Funded once
- JCJEWISH COMMUNITY CENTER OF DALLASgraduatedone grant, 2020 · $400k · revenue +27%
- UFUNION FOR REFORM JUDAISMone grant, 2020 · $15k
- LALIBERATE AFRICAN CHILDREN FOUNDATIONone grant, 2022 · $10k
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.
To enrich life through discovery, education, and the conservation of plants and the natural environment.
The mission of the Houston Museum of Natural Science shall be to preserve and advance the general knowledge of natural science; to enhance in individuals the knowledge of and delight in natural science and related subjects; and to maintain…
Plant, protect and promote trees all over the greater Houston area.
See Schedule OThe Women's Resource of Greater Houston helps women and girls make choices toward becoming independent, productive, and financially stable. We fulfill our mission by recruiting volunteer instructors to deliver our programs in…
The Houston Local Information Initiative, Inc. provides public service journalism that reflects the civic needs of the diverse communities comprising Greater Houston.
The Jewish Community Center Endowment Fund was created to support the programs and operations of the Evelyn Rubenstein Jewish Community Center of Houston.
Good Reason Houston strives to grow and sustain great schools while advocating for families and communities.
The Health Museum is an innovative science center that provides an interactive and entertaining experience for all ages, promotes understanding and appreciation of the human body, mind, and spirit, and inspires a lifelong commitment to…
The ACLU of Texas works with communities, at the State Capitol, and in the courts to protect and advance civil rights and civil liberties for every Texan, no exceptions.
See Schedule OThe purpose of Awty International School (Awty) is to create an environment where students experience excellence every day to make their mark on the world alongside their community, in a spirit of curiosity, courage and…
The ACLU Foundation of Texas is the unyielding guardian and promoter of freedom, justice, equality and dignity of all people, particularly for those who are still fighting to secure the full exercise of their civil rights and liberties.…
The Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater Houston's mission is to inspire and enable all youth, especially those who need us most, to realize their full potential as productive, responsible and caring citizens.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Birthright Israel Foundation and the most unlike its peers is Planned Parenthood. 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 12. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 26% startups (under 5 years old) — 6% of your grantees by number, and just 5% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 15% 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.
29 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. 29 of the 47 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 Jewish Federation of Greater Houston ↗
- Who funds Evelyn Rubenstein Jewish Community Center of Houston ↗
- Who funds JEWISH COMMUNITY CENTER OF DALLAS ↗
- Who funds Houston Area Women's Center ↗
- Who funds PROMISE VILLAGE ACADEMY LLC ↗
- Who funds THE BOULDER JEWISH COMMUNITY CENTER ↗
- Who funds MALI NIETA FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE CENTER FOR REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS INC ↗
- Who funds PLANNED PARENTHOOD ↗
- Who funds THE 19TH NEWS ↗
- Who funds Houston Independent School District Foundation ↗
- Who funds Houston Jewish Community Foundation ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL PARTNERSHIP FOR WOMEN AND FAMILIES ↗
- Who funds United Way of Greater Houston ↗
- Who funds Target Hunger Inc ↗
- Who funds THE MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS HOUSTON ↗
- Who funds St John's School ↗
- Who funds SON OF A SAINT ↗
- Who funds JEWISH FAMILY SERVICE ↗
- Who funds J STREET EDUCATION FUND INC ↗
- Who funds OFICINA LEGAL DEL PUEBLO UNIDO INC ↗
- Who funds B'NAI B'RITH YOUTH ORGANIZATION ↗
- Who funds BIRMINGHAM CIVIL RIGHTS INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds Evelyn's Park Conservancy ↗
- Who funds BIRTHRIGHT ISRAEL FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE & RELATED DISORDERS ASSOCIATION 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 Houston Community Foundation · Albert & Ethel Herzstein Charitable Foundation · Houston Jewish Community Foundation · Shell USA Company Foundation · American Endowment Foundation · Meyer and Ida Gordon Foundation 2 · Adler Foundation · Mechia Foundation · Gs Donor Advised Philanthropy Fund for Wealth Management Inc · Jpmorgan Chase Foundation · National Philanthropic Trust · The Blackbaud Giving Fund
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 Sherry & Gerald Merfish Family 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.
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 Sherry & Gerald Merfish Family Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Sherry & Gerald Merfish Family 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.