· Private foundation
The Merow Foundation
Its FY2021 filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and did not take unsolicited requests; check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2021.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| ST THOMAS CHURCH | $15,230 |
Do your dollars go where the need is?
Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, then read against the area’s typical level.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY17–21) land where the poverty rate runs at 17%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 97% of your dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of your grants land in higher-need ZIPs.
Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty linein the grantee’s ZIP, averaged from the tracts in that ZIP; grantee ZIP can differ from where services are delivered.
US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are actually delivered. Need from public data — U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA — shown as context about the area, never attributed to your giving.
Who you back again
Which organizations you funded more than once, and which you funded a single time. Each grantee is matched to its own filings.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +38% since the first grant, against +23% for the ones you funded once.
6 repeat relationships — 1 still active in FY2021, 5 since wound down.
How the two cohorts compare
Organizations
Total granted
Median revenue growth · since first grant
Still filing today
New vs renewed · share of each year
In FY2021, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 went to new ones.
Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant
First-time = a grantee’s first year in your filing window; renewed = funded in an earlier year too. As a portfolio matures the renewed share naturally climbs — once funded, an org stays “renewable” — so the signal is the years that buck it (a new-grantee intake wave). 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
- STST THOMAS CHURCH4× · 2017–2021 · $640k
- LALEARNING ALLYRECORDING FOR THE BLIND & DYSLEXIC2× · 2017–2020 · $575k
- MAMunicipal Art Society of New York2× · 2017–2019 · $50k · revenue +28%
Funded once
- NYNEW YORK PRESBYTERIAN HOSPITALone grant, 2020 · $550k
- COCOUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS INCone grant, 2020 · $550k · revenue +21%
- CCCATHEDRAL CHURCH OF ST JOHN THE DIVINEone grant, 2017 · $25k
Repeat = funded in two or more distinct years; growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.
The map has a center of gravity: the average direction from the rest of the sector toward the organizations the foundation funds — the shape of its giving. Scoring every nonprofit along that direction surfaces the ones that look most like the portfolio. These are the closest matchesthat aren’t grantees — a resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.
The society is an international nonprofit, nonpartisan organization which connects people and institutions in asia and the world to build understanding, address challenges and maximize opportunities.
The architectural league of new york supports critically transformative work in the allied fields that shape the built environment. as a vital, independent forum, the league stimulates thinking, debate, and action on today's (continued on…
The icaa's mission is to advance the appreciation and practice of the principles of traditional architecture and its allied arts by engaging educators, professionals, students, and enthusiasts through education, publications, and awards…
The institute for advanced study (the institute) is one of the world's leading centers for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. see schedule o.
Today, with the formal approval of congress, the society continues exploring and instituting new and creative ways to bring the fascinating story of the capitol, its institutions and america's unique history to people across the nation and…
Enhance Columbia University's education mission by acquiring and publishing outstanding original works by scholars and others that contribute to an understanding of global human concerns. Columbia University Press became part of the…
New york quadricentennial committee's mission is to celebrate the 400th anniversaries of the founding of today's new york city and educate the public about historical events that occurred in the new york city area.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is St Bartholomew's Conservancy Inc and the most unlike its peers is The William Nelson Cromwell Foundation. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
10 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.
Each one resolved to its own IRS returns and tracked year by year — your grant beside their revenue from every source. Association, dated; never a causal claim.
Counted here: distinct organizations you funded across 2017–2025, not grant rows in a single year — so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 10 of the 25 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile; the rest are funded organizations whose filings we could not track year by year.
Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee
Each org by its size and your share of it — top-left is where you’re load-bearing
Go grantee by grantee — a decade per org, and how each moved after you funded them
A decade per grantee — revenue shaded, your grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.
- Who funds COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS INC ↗
- Who funds Municipal Art Society of New York ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN FRIENDS OF THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY'S ANGLICAN COMMUNION FUNDINC ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN AUSTRALIAN ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds The William Nelson Cromwell Foundation ↗
- Who funds 101 EAST 69TH STREET CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds YOUNG CONCERT ARTISTS INC ↗
- Who funds MANHATTAN INSTITUTE FOR POLICY RESEARCH INC ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN LAW INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds ST BARTHOLOMEW'S CONSERVANCY INC ↗
The grantmakers whose grantees overlap with yours far more than size alone predicts. Each orbits closer the stronger the alignment; the arcs between them show where they also fund each other. Here it reads as a tightly interlocked camp — most of these funders back each other's grantees too.
Open a dossier: The Ayco Charitable Foundation · National Philanthropic Trust · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Amazonsmile Foundation
Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. A research starting point: overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.
Government reliance of your grantees
Every dot is one organization The Merow Foundation funds. Left–right is the share of its income from government; up–down is the share from you. Bigger dots raise more. Filter to federal or a single department — and drag the year to watch it move.
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 your grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first — a floor, not 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 12–24 months.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to The Merow Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Merow 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.