How much does The Mermelstein Foundation give?

The Mermelstein Foundation reported 46 grants totaling $141,338 in its FY2025 IRS filing. It funded between 39 and 53 organizations a year over FY2022 to FY2024.

What does The Mermelstein Foundation fund?

By grant dollars over FY2022 to FY2025, its largest causes are Religion (64%), International (9%), Health (7%).

Who are The Mermelstein Foundation's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2022 to FY2025: Yeshiva Har Torah ($112k), American Committee for Shaare Zedek Hospital in Jerusalem Inc ($29k), Hebrew Academy of Long Beach ($28k).

Does The Mermelstein Foundation fund new organizations?

In FY2024, 77% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Does The Mermelstein 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 Mermelstein Foundation?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Jewish Communal Fund, Fjc, The Ojc Fund.

Where is The Mermelstein Foundation based?

The Mermelstein Foundation is based in NY.

The Mermelstein Foundation

The Mermelstein Foundation at a glance

· Private foundation

The Mermelstein 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.

$141k

Granted FY2025still arriving

Grants FY2025still arriving

States reached

$20k

Largest

01What it funds

0199% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2022 to 2025.

Religion$307kInternational$45kHealth$35kPhilanthropy$35kArts & Culture$24kEducation$17kHuman Services$13kFood & Nutrition$2kOther$0

02FY2025 · 46 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2025

Under $10k42 grants · $72k
$10k–50k4 grants · $69k

$1,000

Median grant

States reached

$189k

Total assets

Largest grants
Recipient	Amount
YESHIVA HAR TORAH	$19,825
JCC CHABAD W QUEENS	$18,000
HEBREW ACADEMY OF LONG BEACH	$15,660
DAF A WEEK INC	$15,500
FRIENDS OF UNITED HATZALAH	$8,000
TOY DRIVE OF GREAT NECK	$8,000
JCC OF GREAT NECK	$5,200
CHABAD LUBAVITCH OF BEACH COUNTY	$5,000
Individual grant recipient	$5,000
GREAT NECK SYNAGOGUE	$4,020
AMERICAN FRIENDS OF SHALVA	$3,780
Individual grant recipient	$3,600
Individual grant recipient	$2,500
EMUNAH OF AMERICA INC	$2,360
YESHIVA UNIVERSITY	$2,000

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 (FY24–24, $3k) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 50% 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.

64%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$308k · 22 repeat orgs$171k to everyone else

Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +23% since the first grant, against 0% for those funded once.

22 repeat relationships: 18 still active in FY2025, 4 since wound down; 28 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$308k

$110k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+23%

Still filing today

64%

38%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 57% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $61k went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

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

InternationalReligionEducationPhilanthropyHuman ServicesHealthOther

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

YH
YESHIVA HAR TORAH
3× · 2022–2025 · $112k · revenue +7%
AC
AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR SHAARE ZEDEK HOSPITAL IN JERUSALEM INC
2× · 2024–2025 · $29k · revenue +18%
FO
FRIENDS OF UNITED HATZALAH INC
3× · 2022–2025 · $20k · revenue +63%

Funded once

NE
NE EMAN FOUNDATION USAgraduated
one grant, 2022 · $20k · revenue +33%
AF
AMERICAN FRIENDS OF YESHIVOT BNEI AKIVA
one grant, 2022 · $15k
IG
Individual grant recipient
one grant, 2022 · $11k

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.

Zohar Hatorah Inc

Religious School

Religion

American Friends of Oseh Chayil

To further jewish education in israel

Religion

American Friends of Ish El Rayahu

To promote, benefit, and support Jewish religious, charitable & educational activities in Israel and the USA.

Religion

American Friends of Yeshiva Aish Hatorah

—

Yeshiva Ohr Yisroel

Philanthropy

Sherit Isroel

—

American Friends of Shviti Hashem Inc

To support and promote the study of torah (bible) among members of jewish faith worldwide.

Religion

American Friends of Neveh Zion

To voluntarily assist the house of religious learning known as yeshiva neveh zion in israel

Religion

American Friends of Yeshiva High School of Kiryat Arba Inc

Raise funds for religious and educational institutions in the state of israel, and to provide educational and social improvement for the children of kiryat arba, israel.

Philanthropy

American Friends of Yeshivat Nachalat Yossef

The organization will provide financial assistance to educational institutions that promote the observance of the jewish religion, its laws and traditions, and sacred texts, including yeshivat nachalat yossef, located in jerusalem, israel.

Religion

American Friends of Daas Aharon Inc

To promote, assist, and sponsor the spreading of Jewish religious education in Israel. The organization will also organize inspirational gatherings in the USA to enhance the participants' Torah knowledge.

Education

American Friends of Zvi Latzadik Dba Breslov Research Institute Jerusalem

To foster jewish religious education and disseminate the teachings of rabbi nachman of breslov through publication and distribution of books and cds, as well as seminars, lectures and study groups.

International

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Emunah of America Inc; the most unlike its peers is Hft Foundation. 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

42 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. 42 of the 109 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)

42/42

Grantees still filing

20/42

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Other$336,186International$69,852Religion$23,393Education$22,764Arts & Culture$20,000Philanthropy$5,115Health$3,490

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.

Jewish Communal FundNY35.9× affinity27 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Jewish Communal Fund · Fjc · The Ojc Fund · Gail & Maurice Setton Foundation Inc · The Setton Foundation · The Jobarr Foundation Inc · United Jewish Appeal-Federation of Jewish Philanthropies of New York Inc · The Wendy Fyman Charitable Foundation · The Stanley & Vivian Bernstein Foundation · Damar Foundation Inc · Hyman & Ann Arbesfeld Foundation Inc · Granit 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 Mermelstein Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from The Mermelstein Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

13get no government money at all

4report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)

0rely on government for over half their income

⤢ axis zoomed · 0–75%

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 Mermelstein’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