· Private foundation
The Merrill Foundation Inc
Its FY2024 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 FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
The 45 grants below total $3,922,200 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $4,622,900 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $700,700 is giving the schedule does not break out: grants under the $5,000 itemisation floor, grants to individuals, and grants reported on other schedules. Every figure below describes the itemised rows only.
By grant size · FY2022
- Under $10k10 grants · $42k
- $10k–50k16 grants · $330k
- $50k–250k18 grants · $2.0M
- $250k+1 grant · $1.5M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Cornell University | $1,520,000 |
| JDRF International Inc. | $245,600 |
| Friends of Mitchell Park, DC | $225,000 |
| Capital Area Food Bank | $200,000 |
| Ford's Theatre | $200,000 |
| International Towing and Recovery Survivors Fund | $150,000 |
| Chesapeake Bay Trust | $150,000 |
| News Literacy Project | $105,000 |
| Shelburne Farms | $100,000 |
| Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay | $100,000 |
| Trust for National Mall | $100,000 |
| Memorial International Center | $90,000 |
| Girl Scouts of the Green and White | $65,000 |
| University of Maryland Foundation | $50,000 |
| Anacostia Watershed Society | $50,000 |
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.
22 repeat relationships — 22 still active in FY2022, 0 since wound down; 23 grantees were first funded in FY2022 (too recent to call).
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 FY2022, 75% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $987k 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
Cornell University2× · 2020–2022 · $2.0M · revenue +46%- CACAPITAL AREA FOOD BANK INC2× · 2020–2022 · $425k · revenue +39%
- UOUNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND FOUNDATION INC2× · 2020–2022 · $236k · revenue +22%
Funded once
CHESAPEAKE BAY FOUNDATION INCone grant, 2020 · $600k · revenue -6%- LCLAKE CHAMPLAIN COMMUNITY SAILING CENTER INCgraduatedone grant, 2020 · $205k · revenue +102%
- JHJohns Hopkins University Foundationone grant, 2020 · $150k
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.
Create a more accessible, sustainable, prosperous and livable national capital region by being a discussion forum, expert resource, issue advocate, and catalyst for action.
The Center brings together diverse interests from the agricultural, forestry, and environmental communities for the purpose of retaining Maryland's working landscapes and the industries they support while protecting and improving the…
Freshfarm is a washington, dc-based nonprofit that builds a more equitable, sustainable, and resilient food system in the mid-atlantic region by producing innovative solutions in partnership with local communities and organizations. we…
Plan, develop, coordinate, direct and manage an integrated healthcare system.
We work towards a future where birds thrive across the americas because audubon is a powerful, diverse, and ever-growing force for conservation. (continued on schedule o).
Under the medical service plan of the university of maryland school of medicine, medical services are rendered by the members of the faculty on behalf of the school of medicine in connection with their duties to provide clinical…
Under the medical service plan of the university of maryland school of medicine, medical services are rendered by the members of the faculty on behalf of the school of medicine in connection with their duties to provide clinical…
Serving the interests of independent higher education and supporting the work of campus leaders throughout the state of maryland.
Mission statement: our mission is to provide the global community with the information needed to drive thoughtful, science-based conservation, to educate and train the next generation of conservation scientists, and to make lasting…
As a diverse community of learners, we cultivate integrity, curiosity, connection and resilience.
Nacwa is the national voice of public clean water utilities, shaping water policy, convening a vibrant peer network, and empowering water leaders.
The bac is committed to provide excellence in design education grounded in practice and accessible to diverse communities.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Chesapeake Bay Trust and the most unlike its peers is Building Bridges. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
For each theme you fund, this compares how the sector’s money is shifting with how your own giving is shifting.
Sector change and giving change are each shown relative to their own range, growing (right) or shrinking (left); both normalized, so inflation isn’t mistaken for growth.
Your grantees are a median of 46 years old; the field is 16. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 23% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 13% of the field you don’t fund.
Age = years since IRS exemption (a founding proxy). “Closed” = auto-revocation for 3 years of non-filing — a floor on closure, not proof, and bigger established orgs lapse least. Association, not causation.
27 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. 27 of the 59 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 Cornell University ↗
- Who funds CHESAPEAKE BAY FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds FORD'S THEATRE SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds CAPITAL AREA FOOD BANK INC ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds LAKE CHAMPLAIN COMMUNITY SAILING CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds CHESAPEAKE BAY TRUST ↗
- Who funds FREEDOM HOUSE ↗
- Who funds ALLIANCE FOR THE CHESAPEAKE BAY INC ↗
- Who funds THE NEWS LITERACY PROJECT INC ↗
- Who funds THE MARYLAND FOOD BANK INC ↗
- Who funds ANNAPOLIS MARITIME MUSEUM INC ↗
- Who funds CHESAPEAKE LEGAL ALLIANCE INC ↗
- Who funds ANACOSTIA WATERSHED SOCIETY INC ↗
- Who funds CHILDREN'S NATIONAL ↗
- Who funds THE LIGHT HOUSE INC ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN COUNCIL OF TRUSTEES AND ALUMNI ↗
- Who funds MARET SCHOOL INC ↗
- Who funds The Barker Adoption Foundation ↗
- Who funds MERIDIAN INTERNATIONAL CENTER ↗
- Who funds LUMINIS HEALTH ANNE ARUNDEL MEDICAL CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds VERMONT FOODBANK ↗
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: Greater Washington Community Foundation · The Keith Campbell Foundation for the Environment Inc · Clark-Winchcole Foundation · Chesapeake Bay Trust · Community Foundation of Anne Arundel Co · Brown Advisory Charitable Foundation Inc · The Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation · Give Back Foundation · National Fish and Wildlife Foundation · Gs Donor Advised Philanthropy Fund for Wealth Management Inc · Ibm International Foundation · T Rowe Price Program for Charitable Giving Inc
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.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to The Merrill Foundation Inc?
Find your warmest path to The Merrill Foundation Inc 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.