· Private foundation
Merchantz 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.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2020–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- $50k–250k5 grants · $350k
- $250k+3 grants · $1.1M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| CHRISTIAN LIFE MINISTRIES | $400,000 |
| CAPITOL MINISTRIES | $400,000 |
| MUSEUM OF THE BIBLE | $250,000 |
| ILLINOIS FAMILY INSTITUTE | $100,000 |
| JUDICIAL WATCH | $100,000 |
| CITY OF REFUGE | $50,000 |
| ACLJ - CHRISTIAN ADVOCATES SERVING EVANGELISM | $50,000 |
| SAMARITAN'S PURSE | $50,000 |
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 (FY20–20, $5k) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, 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.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +38% since the first grant, against +37% for the ones you funded once.
8 repeat relationships — 7 still active in FY2025, 1 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, 71% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $400k 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
- CMCAPITOL MINISTRIES3× · 2023–2025 · $900k · revenue +38%
- MOMUSEUM OF THE BIBLE3× · 2023–2025 · $550k · revenue +41%
JUDICIAL WATCH INC3× · 2023–2025 · $200k · revenue +22%
Funded once
- ACAMERICAN CENTER FOR LAW AND JUSTICE INCone grant, 2023 · $50k · revenue +12%
University of Illinois Foundationgraduatedone grant, 2023 · $40k · revenue +37%- COCITY OF REFUGE - CHICAGOgraduatedone grant, 2020 · $5k · revenue +106%
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 International Catholic Jurists Forum (ICJF) was established to produce, compile, and share resources on fundamental human rights under attack in the regional and international human rights protection systems. It operates as a forum for…
To glorify god by equipping the church with proper christian doctrine and to help non-believers come to a saving knowledge of jesus christ.
The institute's mission, as set out in its certificate of incorporation, is to promote the clarification and simplification of the law and its better adaptation to social needs, to secure the better administration of justice, and to…
To prepare students for the rabbinate and to issue the traditional certificate of ordination in connection therewith. the seminary is authorized to confer the degree of master of hebrew literature (m.h.l.), doctor of hebrew literature…
Jubal band ministries mission is to invite people to become disciples of christian life with jesus.
The mission of the jewish museum is to collect, preserve, exhibit and interpret art and jewish culture. see schedule o for more information.
The rodel institute is a nonpartisan center for leadership and intellectual growth. rodel helps america's most promising leaders reach their full potential as public servants, deepen their commitment to democracy and the rule of law,…
See schedule o.christians for biblical equality (cbe), www.cbeinternational.org, is a 501c3 nonprofit organization comprised of individuals, churches, colleges, seminaries, and organizations, representing more than 100 different…
To provide accurate reporting on israel and current events based on god's written word and most importantly lead people to the saving knowledge of jesus christ.
The family research council's primary exempt purpose is to reaffirm and promote nationally, and particularly in washington, dc, the traditional family unit and the judeo-christian value system upon which it is built. frc's activities in…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Christian Advocates Serving Evangelism Inc and the most unlike its peers is Museum of the Bible. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
9 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. 9 of the 12 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 CAPITOL MINISTRIES ↗
- Who funds MUSEUM OF THE BIBLE ↗
- Who funds ILLINOIS FAMILY INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds JUDICIAL WATCH INC ↗
- Who funds SAMARITAN'S PURSE ↗
- Who funds CHRISTIAN ADVOCATES SERVING EVANGELISM INC ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN CENTER FOR LAW AND JUSTICE INC ↗
- Who funds University of Illinois Foundation ↗
- Who funds CITY OF REFUGE - CHICAGO ↗
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: Natl Christian Charitable Fdn Inc · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift 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 Merchantz 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.