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· Private foundation

The Merkatz 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.

$10k
Granted FY2024still arriving
2
Grants FY2024still arriving
2
States reached
$5k
Largest
01What it funds
0196% classified

What it funded, over time

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

Religion$23kEducation$19kHealth$15kInternational$15kPublic Benefit$3kOther$0
02FY2024 · 2 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

$5,000
Median grant
2
States reached
$0
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
THE MARIAN K SHAUGHNES FRANCES PAYNE BOLTON SY NURSE LEADERSHIP ACADEMY$5,000
INTEGRATED CHILD AND A NEIL H MERKATZ MD DOLESCENT PSYCHIATRY$4,700
02The need
03

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:

Dollar for dollar, its grants (FY17–24) land where the poverty rate runs at 17%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 99% of its dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

area typical 9%CENTRAL SYNAGOGUE: $8k → 17%BRICK BY BRICK: $520 → 19%MEDSHARE INTERNATIONAL: $5k → 14%CASE WESTERN UNIVERSITY: $6k → 17%SEATTLE PACIFIC UNIVERSITY: $500 → 9%MED SHARE: $2k → 14%CENTRAL SYNAGOGUE: $3k → 17%CASE WESTERN UNIVERSITY: $5k → 17%MED SHARE: $1k → 14%CENTRAL SYNAGOGUE: $3k → 17%THE MARIAN K SHAUGHNES FRANCES PAYNE BOLTON SY NURSE LEADERSHIP ACADEMY: $5k → 17%MED SHARE: $1k → 14%CENTRAL SYNAGOGUE: $3k → 17%CASE WESTERN UNIVERSITY: $4k → 17%CENTRAL SYNAGOGUE YOM KIPPUR APPEAL: $3k → 17%CASE WESTERN UNIVERSITY: $3k → 17%CENTRAL SYNAGOGUE: $3k → 17%FRANCIS PAYNE BOLTEN MARIAN K SHAUGHNESSY LEADERSHIP ACADEMY: $3k → 17%CENTRAL SYNAGOGUE: $3k → 17%EXCELLENCE IN COMMUNITY SCHOOLS: $500 → 17%INTEGRATED CHILD AND A NEIL H MERKATZ MD DOLESCENT PSYCHIATRY: $5k → 17%WEILL CORNELL MEDICAL SCHOOL (NEIL MERKATZ SCHOLARS PROGRAM): $2k → 17%POPULATION COUNCIL: $10k → 17%0%20%40%50%more need →
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.
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.

56%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.
$42k · 3 repeat orgs$33k to everyone else

3 repeat relationships: 0 still active in FY2024, 3 since wound down; 2 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

3
8

Total granted

$42k
$24k

Still filing today

0%
50%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2024, 0% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $10k went to new ones.

50%100%’17’18’19’20’21’22’23’24
RenewedFirst-time

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

’17’18’19’20’21’22’23’24
EducationInternationalOther
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

  • CS
    CENTRAL SYNAGOGUE
    6× · 2017–2023 · $20k
  • CW
    CASE WESTERN UNIVERSITY
    4× · 2017–2020 · $18k
  • MS
    MED SHARE
    3× · 2017–2019 · $4k

Funded once

  • TP
    THE POPULATION COUNCIL INC
    one grant, 2023 · $10k · revenue -20%
  • MEDSHARE INTERNATIONAL INC
    one grant, 2023 · $5k · revenue -47%
  • FP
    FRANCIS PAYNE BOLTEN MARIAN K SHAUGHNESSY LEADERSHIP ACADEMY
    one grant, 2022 · $3k
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
04the grantee network

4 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. 4 of the 13 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.

0
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
0
Early backer (in before they grew)
4/4
Grantees still filing
1/4
Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

CENTRAL SYNAGOGUE: $20,000 · OtherCENTRAL SYNAGOGUECASE WESTERN UNIVERSITY: $18,100 · OtherCASE WESTERN UNIVERSITYTHE MARIAN K SHAUGHNES FRANCES PAYNE BOLTON SY NURSE LEADERSHIP ACADEMY: $5,000 · OtherTHE MARIAN K SHAUGHNES FRANCES PAYNE BOLTON SY NURSE LEADERSHIP ACADEMYINTEGRATED CHILD AND A NEIL H MERKATZ MD DOLESCENT PSYCHIATRY: $4,700 · OtherINTEGRATED CHILD AND A NEIL H MERKATZ MD DOLESCENT PSYCHIATRYMED SHARE: $3,750 · OtherMED SHAREFRANCIS PAYNE BOLTEN MARIAN K SHAUGHNESSY LEADERSHIP ACADEMY: $2,500 · OtherCENTRAL SYNAGOGUE YOM KIPPUR APPEAL: $2,500 · OtherWEILL CORNELL MEDICAL SCHOOL (NEIL MERKATZ SCHOLARS PROGRAM): $2,000 · Other+1 more: $520 · OtherTHE POPULATION COUNCIL INC: $10,000 · InternationalTHE POPULATION COUNCIL…MEDSHARE INTERNATIONAL INC: $5,000 · InternationalMEDSHARE INTERNATIONAL…SEATTLE PACIFIC UNIVERSITY: $500 · EducationEXCELLENCE COMMUNITY SCHOOLS INC: $500 · Education
Other$59,070International$15,000Education$1,000

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

25%50%75%100%$100Mgrantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetTHE POPULATION COUNCIL INC: $10,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetMEDSHARE INTERNATIONAL INC: $5,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetSEATTLE PACIFIC UNIVERSITY: $500 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetEXCELLENCE COMMUNITY SCHOOLS INC: $500 over 1y, 0.0% of budget
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.

  • Who funds THE POPULATION COUNCIL INC ↗
  • Who funds MEDSHARE INTERNATIONAL INC ↗
  • Who funds SEATTLE PACIFIC UNIVERSITY ↗
  • Who funds EXCELLENCE COMMUNITY SCHOOLS INC ↗

How much its grantees rely on government

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

2024
’20’21’22’23’24’25
no gov · 00%0%1%3%5%funder's share of their income ↑0%5%10%15%20%share of the org’s income from government →
    no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
    0get no government money at all
    1report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)
    0rely on government for over half their income
    ⤢ axis zoomed · 0–20%
    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.

    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 13 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 2024, released 2024. 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 no grant expense, so the figures above are from FY2024, the most recent year this funder made grants.

    Source object · view filing

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