· Private foundation
The James & Merryl Tisch 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.
Read this first · the figures below need context
99% of The James & Merryl Tisch Foundation Inc’s FY2025 grant dollars went to Jewish Communal Fund, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2025 names 7 organizations directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it. Everything below is therefore FY2020, the last year The James & Merryl Tisch Foundation Inc named its own grantees at scale: 9 organizations, $8M. It is dated, not current.
Organizations named directly on the return
Amber years are those where most dollars went to a sponsor.
What you funded, over time
Every grant clustered by its grantee’s IRS cause code (NTEE), by year — across FY2020–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2020
- Under $10k2 grants · $7k
- $10k–50k3 grants · $65k
- $50k–250k2 grants · $200k
- $250k+4 grants · $8.2M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| MOUNT SINAI MEDICAL CENTER | $6,000,000 |
| MOUNT SINAI SCHOOL OF MEDICINE | $1,000,000 |
| JEWISH COMMUNAL FUND | $945,000 |
| STRONG FUTURE MARYLAND | $250,000 |
| 92ND STREET Y | $100,000 |
| HATZOLOH INC | $100,000 |
| DECODA INC | $30,000 |
| TIKVAH FUND | $25,000 |
| AMERICAN SKIN ASSOCIATION | $10,000 |
| REGIONAL FOOD BANK OF NORTHEASTERN NEW YORK INC | $5,000 |
| METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART | $2,000 |
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 (FY24–24, $25k) land where the poverty rate runs at 17%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 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.
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 +32% since the first grant, against +1% for the ones you funded once.
9 repeat relationships — 4 still active in FY2020, 5 since wound down; 21 grantees were first funded in FY2020 (too recent to call). Read against FY2020, the last year this funder named its own grantees directly; its giving has since run through a sponsor, which reports no donor behind each grant.
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, 85% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $31k 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
ICAHN SCHOOL OF MEDICINE AT MOUNT SINAI2× · 2020–2021 · $6.7M · revenue +39%- TNThe New York Public Library Astor Lenox and Tilden Foundations5× · 2021–2025 · $2.7M · revenue +72%
- MMMETROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART6× · 2020–2025 · $507k · revenue +119%
Funded once
- SFStrong Future Maryland Incone grant, 2020 · $250k · revenue -100%
- HIHATZOLOH INCone grant, 2020 · $100k
- TYTHE YOUNG MEN'S AND YOUNG WOMEN'S HEBREW ASSOCIATIONone grant, 2020 · $100k · revenue +11%
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 institute for advanced study (the institute) is one of the world's leading centers for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. see schedule o.
Operate a state-of-the-art, world-class genomic research center that creates and uses advanced genomics to understand the genetic basis of disease. for more information, see schedule o.
Long island jewish medical center is part of the northwell health ("northwell"), which strives to improve the health of the communities it serves and is committed to providing the highest quality clinical care; educating the current and…
Committed to exceptional healthcare quality for all and actively engaged with our community, einstein drives scientific discovery and educates compassionate leaders in health and science.
Biu produces students who excel in the sciences, humanities, law, engineering, business & the arts.
The weizmann institute of science, located in rehovot, israel, is one of the worlds top-ranking, multidisciplinary research institutions. at any one time, several thousand scientists, staff and students are involved in hundreds of research…
The museum's mission statement is: "to discover, interpret, and disseminate - through scientific research and education - knowledge about human cultures, the natural world, and the universe."
Provide clinical instruction to and supervision of medical school students, interns and residents and, incident thereto, rendering professional services.
The mission of the jewish museum is to collect, preserve, exhibit and interpret art and jewish culture. see schedule o for more information.
Provide clinical instruction to and supervision of medical school students, interns and residents and, incident thereto, rendering professional services.
Lenox hill hospital is part of northwell health ("northwell"), which strives to improve the health of the communities it serves and is committed to providing the highest quality clinical care; educating the current and future generations…
The Knight First Amendment Institute defends the freedoms of speech and the press in the digital age through strategic litigation, research, public advocacy and public education. Our aim is to promote a system of free expression that is…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The Queens Library Foundation Inc and the most unlike its peers is The Tikvah Fund. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
Your grantees are a median of 43 years old; the field is 18. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 19% startups (under 5 years old) — 4% 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.
28 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. 28 of the 31 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 COMMUNAL FUND ↗
- Who funds ICAHN SCHOOL OF MEDICINE AT MOUNT SINAI ↗
- Who funds THE MOUNT SINAI MEDICAL CENTER ↗
- Who funds The New York Public Library Astor Lenox and Tilden Foundations ↗
- Who funds METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART ↗
- Who funds International Rescue Committee INC ↗
- Who funds Strong Future Maryland Inc ↗
- Who funds THE YOUNG MEN'S AND YOUNG WOMEN'S HEBREW ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds THE BREAST CANCER RESEARCH FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds THE ROCKEFELLER UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds CITIZENS BUDGET COMMISSION INC ↗
- Who funds PECONIC HOCKEY FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds WASHINGTON INSTITUTE FOR NEAR EAST POLICY ↗
- Who funds Decoda Inc ↗
- Who funds THE QUEENS LIBRARY FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds THE TIKVAH FUND ↗
- Who funds THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE FOR STUTTERING TREATMENT AND PROFESSIONAL TRAINING ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN SKIN ASSOCIATION INC ↗
- Who funds Research Institute for Contemporary Iran ↗
- Who funds UNITED JEWISH APPEAL-FEDERATION OF JEWISH PHILANTHROPIES OF NEW YORK INC ↗
- Who funds Literacy Partners Inc ↗
- Who funds NYOH COMMUNITY CANCER FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds New York University ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF THE ISRAEL DEFENSE FORCES ↗
- Who funds NEW YORK CITY POLICE FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds REGIONAL FOOD BANK OF NORTHEASTERN NEW YORK INC ↗
- Who funds POLICE ATHLETIC LEAGUE INC ↗
- Who funds Center for Educational Innovation 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: Jewish Communal Fund · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · National Philanthropic Trust · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Amazonsmile Foundation
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 The James & Merryl Tisch 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.
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How do I get to The James & Merryl Tisch Foundation Inc?
Find your warmest path to The James & Merryl Tisch 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.