· Private foundation
The Meyer Levy Charitable Trust
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.
Read this first · the figures below need context
53% of The Meyer Levy Charitable Trust’s FY2025 grant dollars went to The Dallas Foundation, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2025 names 5 organizations directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it. Everything below is therefore FY2021, the last year The Meyer Levy Charitable Trust named its own grantees at scale: 10 organizations, $162k. It is dated, not current.
Organizations named directly on the return
Amber years are those where most dollars went to a sponsor.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2020–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2021
- Under $10k11 grants · $50k
- $10k–50k7 grants · $112k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| DALLAS FOUNDATION | $39,500 |
| BOYS AND GIRLS CLUB OF GREATER FORT WORTH | $15,000 |
| CHALLENGE AIR FOR KIDS & FRIENDS | $15,000 |
| HEARTGIFT FOUNDATION | $12,500 |
| SHALOM AUSTIN - GENERATIONS CAMPAIGN | $10,000 |
| THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS MD ANDERSON CANCER CENTER | $10,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $10,000 |
| I LIVE HERE I GIVE HERE | $8,000 |
| TREE FOLKS INC | $7,500 |
| HEBREW FREE LOAN OF AUSTIN | $5,000 |
| COMMUNITIES IN SCHOOLS OF CENTRAL TEXAS | $5,000 |
| RONALD MCDONALD HOUSE CHARITIES OF CENTRAL TEXAS | $5,000 |
| ANTI-DEFAMATION LEAGUE - AUSTIN | $5,000 |
| FIREFLY FUND | $5,000 |
| LONE STAR CIRCLE OF CARE | $5,000 |
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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY20–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 98% 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 +48% since the first grant, against -56% for the ones you funded once.
18 repeat relationships — 16 still active in FY2021, 2 since wound down; 7 grantees were first funded in FY2021 (too recent to call). Read against FY2021, the last year this funder named its own grantees directly; its giving has since run through a sponsor, which reports no donor behind each grant.
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 FY2025, 56% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $39k 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
- BGBOYS & GIRLS CLUBS OF GREATER TARRANT COUNTY INC6× · 2020–2025 · $90k · revenue +50%
- COCARITAS OF AUSTIN3× · 2020–2024 · $80k · revenue +40%
- CICOMMUNITIES IN SCHOOLS OF CENTRAL TEXAS4× · 2020–2024 · $71k · revenue +39%
Funded once
- CFCenter for Women and Their Work Incone grant, 2020 · $5k · revenue -56%
- CDCOMPADRES DEL RANCHO GRANDEone grant, 2020 · $1k
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.
Leadership austin connects and develops leaders to courageously engage and transform our communities.
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The mission of austin street center is to provide emergency shelter and related services to the homeless. programs provide crisis intervention, substance abuse awareness information and opportunities to improve present life situations to…
The foundation is committed to serving charitable needs both domestically and abroad through charitable grants and services at the discretion of the board of trustees.
RAISE Texas advances equitable policies and programs that foster financial security and economic mobility for low- and moderate-income Texans. We equip, innovate and advocate to reduce disparities, remove barriers and build opportunities…
Good Work Austin's mission is to foster healthy careers in the local food and beverage industry through professional development and advocacy for more equitable practices.
To provide family services and to provide residential child care for dependent children where there is a need to assist children and families disrupted by problems.
To lead a unified effort for a hunger-free texas.
Klru is a leader in public media, distinguished by its energetic engagement with the community and for the quality and creativity of content. klru illuminates the wider world of knowledge; the importance of discourse; and the many…
Trinity episcopal school (trinity) is a not-for-profit independent school whose mission is to provide an enriched academic curriculum in a christian environment. trinity is not affiliated with or sponsored by any parish. we will nurture…
Carter bloodcare saves lives by making transfusion possible.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Austin Community Foundation Inc and the most unlike its peers is Spinehope Fka Spinal Deformity Foundation Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
18 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. 18 of the 29 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 THE DALLAS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds BOYS & GIRLS CLUBS OF GREATER TARRANT COUNTY INC ↗
- Who funds CARITAS OF AUSTIN ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITIES IN SCHOOLS OF CENTRAL TEXAS ↗
- Who funds RONALD MCDONALD HOUSE CHARITIES OF CENTRAL TEXAS INC ↗
- Who funds CHALLENGE AIR FOR KIDS AND FRIENDS INC ↗
- Who funds I LIVE HERE I GIVE HERE ↗
- Who funds HEARTGIFT FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds TreeFolks Inc ↗
- Who funds LONE STAR CIRCLE OF CARE ↗
- Who funds MOBILE LOAVES & FISHES INC ↗
- Who funds SPINEHOPE FKA SPINAL DEFORMITY FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds ST MARK'S SCHOOL OF TEXAS ↗
- Who funds AUSTIN COMMUNITY FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds AUSTIN CLASSICAL GUITAR SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds Center for Women and Their Work Inc ↗
- Who funds THE ACTORS' FUND OF AMERICA ↗
- Who funds BRIDGES TO LIFE ↗
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: Austin Community Foundation Inc · Shield-Ayres Foundation · The Powell Foundation · Better Business Bureau · Topfer Family Foundation · Meadows Foundation Inc · Shell USA Company Foundation · Texas Mutual Insurance Company · Greater Houston Community Foundation · National Philanthropic Trust · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust 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.
Government reliance of your grantees
Every dot is one organization The Meyer Levy Charitable Trust 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.