How much does The Merz Family Foundation give?

The Merz Family Foundation reported 33 grants totaling $686,500 in its FY2025 IRS filing. It funded between 32 and 52 organizations a year over FY2020 to FY2024.

What does The Merz Family Foundation fund?

By grant dollars over FY2020 to FY2025, its largest causes are Health (44%), Environment (13%), Education (9%).

Who are The Merz Family Foundation's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2020 to FY2025: Willistown Conservation Trust Inc ($343k), Zoological Society of Philadelphia ($143k), Misty Meadows Mitey Riders Inc ($135k).

Does The Merz Family Foundation fund new organizations?

In FY2024, 19% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Does The Merz Family 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 Merz Family Foundation?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Chester County Community Foundation, Hamilton Family Foundation, Claneil Foundation Inc.

Where is The Merz Family Foundation based?

The Merz Family Foundation is based in FL.

The Merz Family Foundation

The Merz Family Foundation at a glance

· Private foundation

The Merz 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.

$687k

Granted FY2025still arriving

Grants FY2025still arriving

States reached

$128k

Largest

01What it funds

0195% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2020 to 2025.

Health$1.2MEnvironment$351kEducation$256kHuman Services$200kAnimals$172kScience & Tech$98kArts & Culture$84kRecreation & Sports$83kOther$0

02FY2025 · 33 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2025

Under $10k16 grants · $45k
$10k–50k13 grants · $290k
$50k–250k4 grants · $353k

$10,000

Median grant

States reached

$2.9M

Total assets

Largest grants
Recipient	Amount
WILLISTOWN CONSERVATION TRUST	$127,500
MAYO CLINIC	$120,000
PHILADELPHIA ZOO	$55,000
MISTY MEADOWS MITEY RIDERS INC	$50,000
EPISCOPAL ACADEMY	$49,500
BROOKS REHABILITATION HOSPITAL	$25,000
Individual grant recipient	$25,000
BAPTIST HEALTH FOUNDATION	$25,000
PAOLI HOSPITAL FOUNDATION	$25,000
QUINNIPIAC UNIVERSITY	$20,000
AMERICAN CANCER SOCIETY	$20,000
PENN MEDICINE	$20,000
THE FRANKLIN INSTITUTE	$20,000
CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL OF PHILADELPHIA	$20,000
CHILDREN'S SPECIALIZED HOSPITAL FOUNDATION	$20,000

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 (FY20–25, $150k) land where the poverty rate runs at 7%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 1% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Its grants skew toward lower-need ZIPs.

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.

94%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$1.9M · 57 repeat orgs$128k to everyone else

Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +39% since the first grant, against +25% for those funded once.

57 repeat relationships: 26 still active in FY2025, 31 since wound down; 5 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$1.9M

$100k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+39%

+25%

Still filing today

74%

62%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 95% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $28k went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

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

EducationHealthArts & CultureHuman ServicesAnimalsEnvironmentOther

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

WC
Willistown Conservation Trust Inc
6× · 2020–2025 · $343k · revenue +60%
ZS
ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF PHILADELPHIA
6× · 2020–2025 · $143k · revenue +7%
GR
GENESIS REHABILITATION HOSPITAL INC
3× · 2021–2025 · $105k · revenue +51%

Funded once

PS
Pennsylvania Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
one grant, 2023 · $15k · revenue +9%
CHARITY GLOBAL INC
one grant, 2024 · $13k · revenue -13%
UO
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA NEW BOLTEN CENTER
one grant, 2023 · $10k

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.

The Trustees of Princeton University

Research, education and general - princeton university is a private not-for-profit, non-sectarian institution of higher learning with approximately 5,700 undergraduate and 3,300 graduate students. 2,500 students graduated in the 2024-2025…

Education

University of New Haven

The University of New Haven is a student-centered comprehensive university with an emphasis on excellence in liberal arts and professional education. Our mission is to prepare our students to lead purposeful and fulfilling lives in a…

Education

Wilson College

Wilson college empowers students to be confident and critical thinkers, creative visionaries, effective communicators, honorable leaders, and agents of justice.

Education

University of Maryland Physicians Pa

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…

—

Boston Architectural College

The bac is committed to provide excellence in design education grounded in practice and accessible to diverse communities.

—

University of Maryland Anesthesiology Associates Pa

—

University Hospital & Clinics Inc

The organization provides medical care to improve, maintain, and restore the health of the people in the communities we serve.

Health

University of Maryland Pediatric Associates Pa

Health

Highmark Health

As the parent entity of a blended health organization, highmark health seeks to improve the health and well-being of the people and communities it serves by providing affordable, accessible and high-quality healthcare.

Health

University of Maryland Oncology Associates Pa

Health

Stony Brook Internists University Faculty Practice Corporation

Provide clinical instruction to and supervision of medical school students, interns and residents and, incident thereto, rendering professional services.

Health

University of Maryland Surgical Associates Pa

Health

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The Bryn Mawr Hospital Foundation; the most unlike its peers is Historic Sugartown Incorporated. 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

63 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2026.

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 2026, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 63 of the 90 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)

62/63

Grantees still filing

46/63

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Health$1,119,000Other$581,500Environment$350,300Education$218,300Animals$160,000Human Services$152,500Arts & Culture$142,500

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.

Chester County Community FoundationPA23.7× affinity9 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Chester County Community Foundation · Hamilton Family Foundation · Claneil Foundation Inc · E Murdoch Family Foundation · Chubb Charitable Foundation · Ethel D Colket Foundation · The William Penn Foundation · The Philadelphia Foundation · First Cornerstone Foundation Inc-Ima · Connelly Foundation · United Way of Greater Philadelphia and Southern New Jersey · Simkiss Family 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 Merz Family Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from The Merz Family Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

8get no government money at all

14report 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 Merz Family’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