· Private foundation
The Melvin Family 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.
Read this first · the figures below need context
72% of The Melvin Family Foundation’s FY2025 grant dollars went to Mayo Clinic, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2025 names 2 organizations directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it.
Organizations named directly on the return
Amber years are those where most dollars went to a sponsor.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2019–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k8 grants · $11k
- $10k–50k3 grants · $45k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $50k
- $250k+1 grant · $270k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| MAYO CLINIC | $269,758 |
| YAF YOUNG AMERICAS FOUNDATION | $50,000 |
| ST COLUMCILLE CATHOLIC CHURCH | $25,000 |
| HIGH SCHOOL OF ST THOMAS MORE | $10,000 |
| EAA 288 | $10,000 |
| JUDICIAL WATCH | $5,000 |
| WILLOW BREEZE HOSPICE HOUSE | $2,500 |
| BILL AND BONNIE ROGERS SCHOLARSHIP FUND | $1,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $500 |
| WESLEY VILLAGE - MAXINE HUDSON MEMORIAL | $500 |
| CHECKROW COMM CHURCH - VELMA FERGUSON MEMORIAL | $500 |
| Individual grant recipient | $500 |
| JFL SULLIVANHEATHER EDWARDS MEMORIAL | $200 |
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 (FY19–21, $1k) 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.
Where the work is directed
The same grants, placed two ways — where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose earmarks the money.
About 51% of The Melvin Family Foundation’s grant dollars are earmarked, by their stated purpose, for a different county than the recipient’s own address — money that lands at a nonprofit in one place but is meant to do its work in another.
Recipient view: each grant at its grantee’s ZIP, mapped to a county. Directed view: each grant at the county its stated purpose names, falling back to the recipient’s county when the purpose names no place; US grants only. A county shows only if it carries the top 95% of that view’s dollars. Purposes are read from the foundation’s own 990 grant descriptions.
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 +9% since the first grant, against 0% for the ones you funded once.
5 repeat relationships — 0 still active in FY2025, 5 since wound down; 12 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, 0% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $106k 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
- ACARTHUR CHRISTIAN SCHOOL2× · 2022–2024 · $260k · revenue +20%
- MCMONMOUTH COLLEGE2× · 2019–2020 · $90k · revenue +9%
CHARITY GLOBAL INC2× · 2019–2021 · $1k · revenue +5%
Funded once
- YAYoung America's Foundationgraduatedone grant, 2020 · $83k · revenue +49%
- CCHOICESone grant, 2021 · $50k
- TCTHE CROSS FOUNDATIONgraduatedone grant, 2021 · $50k · revenue +195% · 66% of their budget
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.
Illinois college is a co-educational institution of higher education learning providing a four-year educational program leading to the baccalaureate degree. illinois college is a community committed to the highest standards of scholarship…
Asbury university equips students, through academic excellence and spiritual vitality, for lifelong learning, leadership, and service to the professions, society, the family and the church, preparing them to engage their cultures and…
The catholic education foundation is dedicated to the growth and vitality of catholic education in the archdiocese of louisville. the foundation advances its mission primarily through tuition assistance grants to families who cannot afford…
Greenville college d/b/a greenville university empowers students for lives of character and service through a transforming christ-centered education in the liberal arts, sciences, and professional studies.
Christianity Today is a global community inspired by evangelical conviction to advance the stories and ideas of the kingdom of God. Our mission is to elevate the storytellers and sages of the global church.
We, at ch, humbly join together to bring christ's healing mission and the mission of mercy of the catholic church expressed in catholic health care to our communities.
As a christian university, we provide education and research opportunities preparing global leaders to partner with local communities.
Education
Columbia college provides educational opportunities that develop students' capacity for critical thought and expression, life-long learning, acceptance of personal responsibilty, and commitment to service and social justice.
The university of sioux falls, a christian university in the liberal arts tradition, educates students in the humanities, sciences and professions. the traditional motto of the university is culture for service, that is, we seek to foster…
The mission of the organization (ccr) shall be to work with individuals, communities, courts, and other institutions to manage and resolve conflict.
Saint anselm is a catholic, benedictine college providing all of its students a distinctive liberal arts education that incorporates opportunities for professional and career preparation. it does so in a learning community that encourages…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Judicial Watch Inc and the most unlike its peers is Charity Global Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
17 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. 17 of the 55 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 MAYO CLINIC ↗
- Who funds ARTHUR CHRISTIAN SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds MONMOUTH COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds Young America's Foundation ↗
- Who funds THE CROSS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds CRISIS PREGNANCY CENTER OF EASTERN ILLINOIS ↗
- Who funds GARY EMEL FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds WIREPOINTS CORP ↗
- Who funds Sullivan Community Education Foundation ↗
- Who funds EASTER SEALS DUPAGE & THE FOX VALLEY REGION ↗
- Who funds JUDICIAL WATCH INC ↗
- Who funds CATO INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds DON MOYER BOYS & GIRLS CLUB ↗
- Who funds CHARITY GLOBAL INC ↗
- Who funds CAMP NEW HOPE INC ↗
- Who funds GRAHAM HOSPITAL FOUNDATION INCORPORATED ↗
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: Southeastern Illinois Community Foundation · 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 Melvin 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.