· Private foundation
The Jess Merkle 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 FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- $10k–50k5 grants · $60k
- $50k–250k2 grants · $335k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| KINGS HIGHWAY CHRISTIAN CHURCH | $220,000 |
| SALVATION ARMY OF SHREVEPORT BOSSIER CITY | $115,000 |
| CHRISTIAN SERVICE INSTITUE | $20,000 |
| LOUISIANA UNITED METHODIST CHILDREN & FAMILY SERVICES | $10,000 |
| HIGHLAND CLUB | $10,000 |
| COMMUNITY RENEWAL INTERNATIONAL | $10,000 |
| HELPING OTHERS HALFWAY HOUSE | $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, $40k) land where the poverty rate runs at 32%, against an area that typically sits at 20%. 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.
12 repeat relationships — 6 still active in FY2025, 6 since wound down; 1 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, 44% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $220k 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
- CRCOMMUNITY RENEWAL INTERNATIONAL INC7× · 2017–2025 · $110k · revenue +45%
- SAStoner Avenue Bridge House Inc8× · 2017–2024 · $96k · revenue +14% · 26% of their budget
- MLMARTIN LUTHER KING HEALTH CENTER DBA MLK HEALTH CENTER & PHARMACY8× · 2017–2024 · $90k · revenue +16%
Funded once
- SLST LUKES EPISCOPAL MOBILE MEDICAL MINISTRY INCone grant, 2018 · $10k · revenue +21%
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2022 · $9k
- SCSamaritan Counseling Centerone grant, 2020 · $2k · revenue -95%
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.
Provide faith based sober living program for individuals that struggle with addiction and substance abuse
The house of miracles provides women with rehab counseling in a drug and alcohol free environment. their stay is generally three months. upon departure, residents have maintained their sobriety. the program is extremely successful.
Christian drug and alcohol recovery program
The corporation was organized to provide counseling and rehabiltation for individuals with alcohol and substance abuse
Alcohol and drug rehabilitation, counseling, and spiritual guidance.
Recovery House and Addiction Counseling
To provide halfway house & treatment for recovery
Rehabilitation
Marys house mission is to provide transitional living environment which provides residential care, individual and group counceling, assessment
A faith-based, sober living house, for men who are serious about maintaining a life of sobriety from addictive substances.
To provide a safe and healthy environment for the alcoholic/addict and their families to find recovery and outpatient addiction treatment services
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Oakwood Home for Women Inc and the most unlike its peers is Community Renewal International Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
8 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. 8 of the 16 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 Oakwood Home for Women Inc ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY RENEWAL INTERNATIONAL INC ↗
- Who funds Stoner Avenue Bridge House Inc ↗
- Who funds MARTIN LUTHER KING HEALTH CENTER DBA MLK HEALTH CENTER & PHARMACY ↗
- Who funds HIGHLAND CLUB ↗
- Who funds LOUISIANA UNITED METHODIST CHILDREN & FAMILY SERVICES INC ↗
- Who funds ST LUKES EPISCOPAL MOBILE MEDICAL MINISTRY INC ↗
- Who funds Samaritan Counseling Center ↗
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: Community Foundation of North Louisiana · Grayson Foundation Inc · 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 Jess Merkle 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.