Skip to content
Foundation Dossiers

New York · Private foundation

The Mere 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.

$70k
Granted FY2023
2
Grants FY2023
2
Organizations funded FY2023
0%
First-time grantees FY2023
Read the full brief
Median grant, FY2023
$55,000
Largest grant, FY2023
$55,000
Organizations funded a year
2 to 8
FY2019 to FY2023
States reached, FY2023
1
Total assets, FY2023
$70k
Applications
Preselected organizations only
Per its most recent filing; check its own site

How open it is to new grantees

In FY2023, 0% of the organizations The Mere Foundation funded were first-time grantees, receiving 0% of its grant dollars.

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2023, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 went to new ones.

50%100%’21’22’23
RenewedFirst-time

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

’21’22’23
Arts & CultureEducationOther
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.
The numbers by year
Fiscal yearOrganizations fundedTo those organizationsFirst-time grantees
FY20232$70k0%
FY20223$70k67%
FY20215$35k100%
FY20198$135kn/a
81% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2019 to 2025.

Arts & Culture$105kHousing & Shelter$57kEducation$55kPhilanthropy$38kFood & Nutrition$30kYouth Development$10kScience & Tech$3kOther$0

Top grantees

Largest recipients by total granted, FY2019 to FY2023, and the share of each one’s budget the grants supplied at peak.

GranteeTotal grantedYearsShare of their budget
The Center for Arts and Innovation$65,00021%
Camillus House Inc$57,00030%
North Broward - Psta Inc$40,000110%
The Mad Foundation Inc$30,00013%
United Jewish Appeal-Federation of Jewish Philanthropies of New York Inc$25,00010%
Meru Foundation$12,500142%
Roundabout Theatre Company Inc$10,00010%
Community Classroom Project Inc$5,000110%
Duke University$5,00010%
Loggerhead Marinelife Center Inc$2,50010%

Plus 5 recipients with no EIN on record ($58k), not named here.

Where it is load-bearing

The Mere Foundation supplied at least a quarter of the budget for 1 of its grantees at some point. The chart plots its 10 largest grantees; load-bearing ones sit top left.

25%50%75%100%$100k$1.0M$10M$100Mgrantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetThe Center for Arts and Innovation: $65,000 over 2y, 0.8% of budgetCamillus House Inc: $57,000 over 3y, 0.1% of budgetNorth Broward - Psta Inc: $40,000 over 1y, 10% of budgetThe Mad Foundation Inc: $30,000 over 1y, 2.9% of budgetUnited Jewish Appeal-Federation of Jewish Philanthropies of New York Inc: $25,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetMeru Foundation: $12,500 over 1y, 42% of budgetRoundabout Theatre Company Inc: $10,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetCommunity Classroom Project Inc: $5,000 over 1y, 9.6% of budgetDuke University: $5,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetLoggerhead Marinelife Center Inc: $2,500 over 1y, 0.0% of budget

Tap a dot to name the grantee.

How this is measured
Share of budget is the funder’s grant in a year over the grantee’s total revenue that year, at its highest across the years we hold; revenue is from all sources. Only grantees confirmed against their own filings, whose grants do not exceed their revenue, are plotted: the largest 10.

Compare The Mere Foundation with peer funders

Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

How do I get to The Mere Foundation?

Find your warmest path to The Mere Foundation 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.

About The Mere Foundation

How much does The Mere Foundation give?
The Mere Foundation reported 2 grants totaling $70,000 in its FY2023 IRS filing. It funded between 2 and 8 organizations a year over FY2019 to FY2023.
What does The Mere Foundation fund?
By grant dollars over FY2019 to FY2023, its largest causes are Arts & Culture (15%), Housing & Shelter (8%), Education (8%).
Who are The Mere Foundation's largest grantees?
By total granted over FY2019 to FY2023: The Center for Arts and Innovation ($65k), Camillus House Inc ($57k), North Broward - Psta Inc ($40k).
Does The Mere Foundation fund new organizations?
In FY2023, 0% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.
Does The Mere 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.
Where is The Mere Foundation based?
The Mere Foundation is based in NY.

On method. Every financial figure here is read from IRS e-file XML, the funder’s own 990/990-PF, and from the multi-year returns of the 15 grantees we resolved, each linked to its source. Grantee outcomes are each organization’s own program-service reporting (Form 990, Part III), read as association with funding, never as caused by it. Low-confidence name matches are suppressed rather than guessed. How we build these →

How this is measured
Each figure carries one of six labels. Filed is what the funder reported on its return. Official is another government record about an organization, such as a federal award or a charity register, joined by name where no shared identifier exists. Resolved is an identity we worked out where the filing named a recipient without an EIN, kept only above a measured confidence threshold. Computed is arithmetic over those, like themes, portfolio clusters and co-funder strength. Context is a statistic about a place rather than about an organization, which is what the need overlay is: it describes the area a grantee’s address sits in, not where its work lands. Inferred is drawn by a model from text, like the partnerships read out of public news and organization websites. Each is labeled where it appears.

Generated from the IRS Form 990-PF e-file return for fiscal year 2023, released 2023. Filings run roughly 12 to 24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

Possibly out of date. A more recent filing (FY2025) is on record and reports $91k of grant expense with no grantee named in the published copy. A private foundation itemizes every grant it makes, so a return carrying none has filed its list as an attachment that the public copy does not include. The figures above are therefore from FY2023, the most recent year this funder’s grantee list reached the public record.

Source object · view filing

Play a game based on Mere’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