· Private foundation
The Merwin Foundation
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 FY2018–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- $10k–50k2 grants · $45k
- $50k–250k4 grants · $300k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| COMPASS SCHOOL OF TEXAS | $100,000 |
| MCCULLOUGH FUND | $100,000 |
| MCLEAN COUNTY MUSEUM OF HISTORY | $50,000 |
| CRYSTAL CHARITY BALL | $50,000 |
| PEACE ACADEMY | $25,000 |
| AUTISM MCLEAN | $20,000 |
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.
Your human-services grants (FY18–18, $30k) land where the poverty rate runs at 16%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 100% of those 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.
Which US states your grants reach
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.
Where the work is directed
The same grants, placed two ways — where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose earmarks the money.
About 69% of The Merwin Foundation’s grant dollars are earmarked, by their stated purpose, for a different county than the recipient’s own address — money that lands at a nonprofit in one place but is meant to do its work in another. Read by recipient address, 22% of the giving stays in IL; read by stated purpose it is 9% — less of the work is directed home than the recipients' locations suggest.
Recipient view: each grant at its grantee’s ZIP, mapped to a county. Directed view: each grant at the county its stated purpose names, falling back to the recipient’s county when the purpose names no place; US grants only. A county shows only if it carries the top 95% of that view’s dollars. Purposes are read from the foundation’s own 990 grant descriptions.
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.
11 repeat relationships — 5 still active in FY2024, 6 since wound down; 1 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (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 FY2024, 71% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $100k 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
- TCTHE CRYSTAL CHARITY BALL3× · 2022–2024 · $250k · revenue +13%
- PFPARKLANDS FOUNDATION INC5× · 2018–2022 · $135k · revenue +31%
- PAPEACE ACADEMY INC2× · 2023–2024 · $50k · revenue +47%
Funded once
- TUTHE UNITY PROJECTone grant, 2022 · $100k
- LCLIBERTY COUNSEL INCone grant, 2022 · $100k
- FMFEED MORE INCgraduatedone grant, 2020 · $100k · revenue +29%
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.
Central indiana corporate partnership (cicp) is an alliance of indiana's business and research university leaders coming together to foster long-term prosperity for the region. cicp's mission is to transform the economy of indiana in order…
Organization's mission to improve health outcomes for children; be a leader in creating innovative solutions to pediatric healthcare problems; and excel in care, advocacy, research. as the nation's children's hospital, the mission of…
The primary mission of furman as a liberal arts institution is to provide a distinctive education in fine arts, humanities, social sciences, mathematics and the sciences, as well as selected professional disciplines.
The mcgillis school empowers children to become enthusiastic learners and ethical and active citizens as they each create their own place in the world.
The fsmb serves as the voice for state medical boards, supporting them through education, assessment, research and advocacy while providing services and initiatives that promote patient safety, quality health care and regulatory best…
Columbia college improves lives by providing quality education to both traditional and nontraditional students, helping them achieve their true potential.
The lincoln children's museum invites children to create, discover and learn through the power of play.
Provide an independent forum for those who dare to read, think, speak, and write to advance the professional, literary, and scientific understanding of sea power and other issues critical to global security.
Engage actively and continuously in medical research, education and training in the practice of medicine in conjunction with the department of family medicine of the indiana university school of medicine and indiana university…
To spark curiosity and creativity in all young children through positive, play-based learning experiences.
To make kids better today and healthier tomorrow.
Mclean school's small classes and abilities model prepare bright students in kindergarten through twelfth grade, including those with dyslexia, anxiety, and attention issues, for college success.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Children's Health Defense and the most unlike its peers is National Vaccine Information Center. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
12 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. 12 of the 17 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 UNITED WAY OF GREATER RICHMOND & PETERSBURG ↗
- Who funds THE CRYSTAL CHARITY BALL ↗
- Who funds MCLEAN COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds CHILDREN'S HEALTH DEFENSE ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL VACCINE INFORMATION CENTER ↗
- Who funds PARKLANDS FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds AUTISM MCLEAN ↗
- Who funds THE COMPASS SCHOOL OF TEXAS ↗
- Who funds FEED MORE INC ↗
- Who funds PEACE ACADEMY INC ↗
- Who funds ILLINOIS WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds HOSPICE OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 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: Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · 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 Merwin 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 Merwin Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Merwin 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.