Does The Meredith and Rosemary Willson Charit (Aka the Music Man Foundation) accept unsolicited applications?

Its most recent filing reports that it accepts unsolicited grant applications.

Which funders back the same organizations as The Meredith and Rosemary Willson Charit (Aka the Music Man Foundation)?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include The Ralph M Parsons Foundation, The Ahmanson Foundation, Perenchio Foundation.

The Meredith and Rosemary Willson Charit (Aka the Music Man Foundation)

The Meredith and Rosemary Willson Charit (Aka the Music Man Foundation) at a glance

· Private foundation

The Meredith and Rosemary Willson Charit (Aka the Music Man Foundation)

Q: What does The Meredith and Rosemary Willson Charit (Aka the Music Man Foundation) fund?

By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2024, its largest causes are Arts & Culture (71%), Health (7%), Philanthropy (6%).

Q: Who are The Meredith and Rosemary Willson Charit (Aka the Music Man Foundation)'s largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2017 to FY2024: Education Through Music Inc ($3.5M), Mason City Foundation ($969k), Los Angeles County Registrar-Recordercounty Clerk ($915k).

Q: Does The Meredith and Rosemary Willson Charit (Aka the Music Man Foundation) fund new organizations?

In FY2023, 37% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Its FY2024 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.

$4.2M

Granted FY2024still arriving

Grants FY2024still arriving

States reached

$300k

Largest

01What it funds

01100% classified

What it funded, over time

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

Arts & Culture$18MHealth$1.8MPhilanthropy$1.6MEducation$1.2MHuman Services$1.2MYouth Development$785kSocial Science$300kCrime & Legal$110kOther$0

02FY2024 · 41 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2024

Under $10k5 grants · $10k
$10k–50k6 grants · $140k
$50k–250k26 grants · $3.0M
$250k+4 grants · $1.1M

$100,000

Median grant

States reached

$78M

Total assets

Largest grants
Recipient	Amount
JOHN F KENNEDY CENTER FOR PERFORMING ARTS	$300,000
ASPEN INSTITUTE	$300,000
THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA	$250,000
SAVE THE MUSIC FOUNDATION	$250,000
AMERICAN MUSIC THERAPY ASSOCIATION	$200,000
ETM-LA INC	$175,000
ARTS FOR HEALING AND JUSTICE NETWORK	$175,000
LOS ANGELES COUNTY DEPARTMENT OF ARTS AND CULTURE	$150,000
STATE EDUCATION AGENCY DIRECTORS OF ARTS EDUCATION	$150,000
HEART OF LOS ANGELES YOUTH INC	$150,000
MUSIC WILL	$150,000
EQUITY ARC	$135,000
LOS ANGELES COUNTY DEPARTMENT OF ARTS AND CULTURE	$125,000
CREATE CA	$125,000
LOS ANGELES OPERA COMPANY	$125,000

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 (FY17–24, $1.3M) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 100% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

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.

90%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$21M · 62 repeat orgs$2.4M to everyone else

Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +54% since the first grant, against +31% for those funded once.

62 repeat relationships: 21 still active in FY2024, 41 since wound down; 13 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$21M

$1.2M

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+54%

+31%

Still filing today

82%

69%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2024, 72% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $1.2M went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

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

Arts & CultureHealthEducationHuman ServicesEnvironmentYouth DevelopmentOther

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

MC
MASON CITY FOUNDATION
8× · 2017–2024 · $969k · revenue +376% · 51% of their budget
LA
LOS ANGELES PHILHARMONIC ASSOCIATION
7× · 2018–2024 · $775k · revenue +28%
AA
ARTS AND SERVICES FOR DISABLED INC DBA ABLE ARTS WORK
6× · 2017–2023 · $774k · revenue +60%

Funded once

SE
STATE EDUCATION AGENCY DIRECTORS OF ARTS EDUCATION (SEADAE)
one grant, 2019 · $250k
IG
Individual grant recipient
one grant, 2022 · $125k
OA
OPERA AMERICA INC
one grant, 2023 · $90k · revenue +23%

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.

The Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra Society Inc

The orchestra pursues its mission, "to enrich and connect our community through intimate and transformative musical experiences which exemplify and foster artistic excellence, education and innovation," through the blend of traditional…

Arts & Culture

Ojai Festivals Ltd

The ojai music festival serves as a creative music laboratory for pioneering new works,championing adventurous programming, and working with today's emerging artists with events during the year and the ojai music festival serves as a…

Arts & Culture

Elaine Kaufman Cultural Center Lucy Moses School for Music and Dance

Kaufman music center stimulates appreciation of and participation in music through music performance and education in ways that awaken creativity, advance innovation, and create a sense of wonder among performers, students, teachers, and…

Arts & Culture

California Music Center

To seek and nurture exceptional young string musicians, foster and further their performance and professional skills development, and provide them with performance opportunities and monetary support.

Arts & Culture

Sound Art Inc Dba in the Band

Sound art dba in the band is dedicated to empowering the youth of los angeles and beyond through access to music education and mentoring in community centers, schools and online. founded to fulfill the need for an affordable and culturally…

Arts & Culture

Community Arts Music Association of Santa Barbara Inc

To bring high quality classical musicians from around the globe to the santa barbara area to perform orchestral, vocal, solo instrumental, and chamber concerts.

Arts & Culture

Lyrica Baroque

The mission of lyrica baroque is to support a diverse community of students, teachers, artists, institutions and audiences of all ages through education, collaboration and performance. lyrica baroque seeks to promote the extraordinary…

Arts & Culture

Manhattan School of Music

Manhattan school of music is deeply committed to excellence in education, performance, and creative activity; to the humanity of the school's environment; and to the cultural enrichment of the larger community. a premiere international…

Arts & Culture

California Bach Society Inc

Choral Music Performances: California Bach Society is a 30-voice chamber choir known for finely wrought interpretations of Renaissance and Baroque music, often accompanied by leading period instrumentalists. Each season, the choir performs…

—

Foundation for Modern Opera

—

Chicago Opera Theater

Chicago opera theater expands the tradition of opera as a living art form by engaging lovers of music and storytelling through innovative experiences, predominantly of new and rarely performed works.

Arts & Culture

The Fresno Philharmonic Association

The mission of the Fresno Philharmonic is to enrich the lives of Central San Joaquin Valley residents through inspiring performances of orchestral music. We are an essential and collaborative member of a vibrant arts scene which unites,…

Arts & Culture

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Los Angeles Music and Art School; the most unlike its peers is New York University. 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

100 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. 100 of the 126 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)

99/100

Grantees still filing

81/100

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Other$10,590,785Arts & Culture$8,485,631Philanthropy$1,700,000Education$1,329,500Human Services$1,252,850Health$1,239,970Environment$968,704

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.

The Ralph M Parsons FoundationCA52.2× affinity25 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: The Ralph M Parsons Foundation · The Ahmanson Foundation · Perenchio Foundation · California Community Foundation · Colburn Foundation · The Rose Hills Foundation · Thelma Pearl Howard Foundation · The Annenberg Foundation · Ann & Gordon Getty Foundation · Elbridge Stuart Foundation Dba Stuart Foundation · The J Paul Getty Trust · Snap 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 Meredith and Rosemary Willson Charit (Aka the Music Man Foundation) funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from The Meredith and Rosemary Willson Charit (Aka the Music Man Foundation). Bigger dots raise more.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

1get no government money at all

45report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)

0rely on government for over half their income

⤢ axis zoomed · 0–40%

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.

05Through Plinth

Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

How do I get to The Meredith and Rosemary Willson Charit (Aka the Music Man Foundation)?

Find your warmest path to The Meredith and Rosemary Willson Charit (Aka the Music Man 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.

Play a game based on Meredith and Rosemary Willson Charit (Aka the Music Man Foundation)’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