How much does The Mercy Foundation give?

The Mercy Foundation reported 2 grants totaling $50,000 in its FY2024 IRS filing. It funded between 1 and 9 organizations a year over FY2017 to FY2023.

What does The Mercy Foundation fund?

By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2024, its largest causes are Health (40%), Human Services (10%), Religion (10%).

Who are The Mercy Foundation's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2017 to FY2024: Steps of Faith Foundation ($68k), Sexual Assault Center ($43k), St Jude Children's Research Hospital Inc ($35k).

Does The Mercy Foundation fund new organizations?

In FY2023, 60% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Does The Mercy Foundation accept unsolicited applications?

Its most recent filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and does not take unsolicited requests. Check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.

Which funders back the same organizations as The Mercy Foundation?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Nashville Predators Foundation, The Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee Inc, Servant Foundation.

Where is The Mercy Foundation based?

The Mercy Foundation is based in TN.

The Mercy Foundation

The Mercy Foundation at a glance

· Private foundation

The Mercy 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.

$50k

Granted FY2024still arriving

Grants FY2024still arriving

States reached

$30k

Largest

01What it funds

0184% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2024.

Health$165kHuman Services$43kReligion$40kPhilanthropy$30kEducation$23kInternational$15kYouth Development$15kHousing & Shelter$8kOther$0

02FY2024 · 2 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

$30,000

Median grant

States reached

$1.1M

Total assets

Largest grants
Recipient	Amount
STEPS OF FAITH	$30,000
SAC	$20,000

02The need

Does the money reach high-need areas?

Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.

show:

Its human-services grants (FY20–23, $11k) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 12%. 55% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Its grants spread fairly evenly across need levels.

grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount

How this is measured

Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty line in the grantee’s ZIP, averaged from the tracts in that ZIP.

Which US states its grants reach

How this is measured

US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are delivered. Need from public data (U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA), shown as context about the area, never attributed to the funder’s giving.

03Its grantees

repeat funding

Who it funds again

Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.

70%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$282k · 10 repeat orgs$121k to everyone else

Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +97% since the first grant, against 0% for those funded once.

10 repeat relationships: 2 still active in FY2024, 8 since wound down.

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$282k

$121k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+97%

Still filing today

50%

44%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2024, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant

Human ServicesHealthYouth DevelopmentHousing & ShelterOther

How this is measured

First-time means a grantee’s first year in the filing window; renewed means funded in an earlier year too. The renewed share climbs naturally as a portfolio matures, so the signal is a year that bucks it (a wave of new grantees). 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

SO
STEPS OF FAITH FOUNDATION
4× · 2020–2024 · $68k · revenue +391%
SA
SEXUAL ASSAULT CENTER
4× · 2017–2023 · $43k · revenue +97%
ST JUDE CHILDREN'S RESEARCH HOSPITAL INC
2× · 2021–2022 · $35k · revenue +74%

Funded once

HH
HELPING HANDS
one grant, 2023 · $37k
LM
LIGHTHOUSE MINISTRIES OF ANTIOCH TN INC
one grant, 2017 · $23k
SJ
ST JUDE CHILDREN'S RESEARCH
one grant, 2018 · $15k

How this is measured

Repeat means funded in two or more distinct years. Growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.

04Its field

Closest unfunded matches

The nonprofits that most resemble its grantees but are not funded by it, scored along the direction from the rest of the field toward the portfolio. A resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.

Rahab House

Rahab House is deeply committed to the rescue, refuge, and restoration of human trafficking survivors. We provide comprehensive support that encompasses immediate safety and connections to long-term restorative care in alignment with the…

Human Services

Second Chances Foundation Inc

Providing safe affordable alcohol-free and drug-free housing to clients in rehabilitation in the memphis tn regional community.

Housing & Shelter

Calvary Rescue Mission

Calvary rescue mission is a haven for the homeless in memphis. for all time, it has been to reach out and minister to the needs of each person regardless of race, color, or creed. we furnish a clean shower, clothing, bed, along with the…

Human Services

Street Hope Tn

Street hope tn is a faith-based non-profit with a mission to eliminate sexual exploitation and trafficking of children and provide a safe environment to foster healing and hope through jesus christ. this mission is fulfilled through…

Recreation & Sports

Nashville Safe Haven Family Shelter Inc

Lead our community's efforts to house, support, empower and advocate for families experiencing homelessness.

Housing & Shelter

Rescue Hill Nazarene Compassionate Ministry Center

Rescue Hill helps survivors of human trafficking with recovery services and resources in a safe environment. Rescue Hill offers a stabilization home for survivors and their small children as well as advocacy services.

Human Services

Hope Street Ministry Inc

Hope street provides housing and healing to men, women, and children whose lives have been profoundly affected by the toxic environment they grew up in, their own choices, or drug and alcohol abuse. empowered by the active grace of christ,…

Health

Hope Ministries of Northern Kentucky Inc

Hope ministries helps low income families in northern kentucky with emergency food assistance, clothing, household items, and used toys.

Human Services

Greater Chattanooga Christian Services Inc

Provide Group and Foster care for Homeless Children and Counseling

Human Services

Scarlet Hope Nashville

To share the hope and love of Jesus with women in the adult entertainment industry

—

Selah Life Choices Inc

We exist to serve women who have been trafficked. through our confidential services, we offer a safe space for healing to begin while we compassionately reflect jesus to all we encounter.

Human Services

Refuge of Hope Ministries

Glorify and serve god by providing meals for hungry men, women, and children, emergency shelter and transition to independence for homeless men, and spiritual hope through jesus christ.

Religion

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Nashville Rescue Mission; the most unlike its peers is Summit County Rescue Group Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.

04the grantee network

13 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.

Each grant beside the grantee’s revenue from every source, year by year.

How this is measured

Counted here: distinct organizations funded across 2017 to 2025, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 13 of the 27 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile.

Each grantee is resolved to its own IRS returns. Association, dated; never a causal claim.

Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)

Early backer (in before they grew)

13/13

Grantees still filing

9/13

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Other$242,087Health$145,000Human Services$12,000Philanthropy$10,000Housing & Shelter$2,500Youth Development$1,200

Each grantee by its size and the funder’s share of it; top left is load-bearing

Grantee by grantee: a decade per organization, before and after funding

A decade per grantee: revenue shaded, grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.

Co-funders

Grantmakers whose grantees overlap with this funder’s far more than size alone predicts. Closer means stronger alignment; arcs show where they also fund each other. Here they form a tightly interlocked group: most of these funders back each other's grantees too.

Nashville Predators FoundationTN13.5× affinity4 shared granteesties to 9 of 9Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Nashville Predators Foundation · The Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee Inc · Servant Foundation · Natl Christian Charitable Fdn Inc · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · Network for Good · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Amazonsmile Foundation

How this is measured

Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. Overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.

How much its grantees rely on government

Each dot is one organization The Mercy Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from The Mercy Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

0get no government money at all

5report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)

0rely on government for over half their income

typical government reliance, FY20–25

How this is measured

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 a grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first, a floor rather than 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 to 24 months.

Play a game based on Mercy’s filings →

More from the funding graph

The unnamed billions

grants reported with no recipient in the public record

The regranting layer

51% of grant dollars land in the regranting layer

The DAF merry-go-round

$9.7B circulates between donor-advised funds

The endowment market

who holds foundation money, and what just moved

The camps

funders cluster by geography, not ideology

By state

where grant money is based, and what stays home