Merced Foundation

IMPORTANT DATA CAVEAT: the record for this foundation (EIN 47-1473335) carries a website, mission, and application process (mercedfoundation.org, "philanthropic hub of Merced County") that verified research shows actually belong to a different, unrelated organization — the Community Foundation Merced County (CFMC), EIN 86-1151358, a California grantmaker. ProPublica and GuideStar confirm EIN 47-1473335 is a small private independent foundation (NTEE T22, ruling date November 2014) led by the Cahill family — Calvin Cahill (President, unpaid), Marguerite Cahill (Secretary, unpaid), and Daniel Cahill (Treasurer, paid $80,000 in FY2023) — operating out of the Houston, TX area, with a registered mailing address of PO Box 1532, Pennington, NJ 08534. Every tracked grant recipient (11 grants, $325,000 total) is a Texas nonprofit; none are in Merced County, California. This is a closed, trustee-directed family foundation, not a community foundation with a public grants program. There is no evidence of a competitive RFP, LOI portal, or published deadline. Grantmaking instead flows to a small, stable set of well-established Houston and Central Texas human-services organizations — food banks, United Way, Catholic Charities, Ronald McDonald House, and a prison-reentry nonprofit — almost all as unrestricted general operating support rather than restricted project funding. Nine of the ten purpose codes in the tracked grantee sample read "UNRESTRICTED GENERAL"; the lone exception funds a named initiative ("Be Real") at Lutheran Social Services of the South. First-time, unsolicited applicants from outside this network should expect very low odds of success. The realistic path in is relational: board overlap, a warm introduction through a current grantee, or engagement through Philanthropy Southwest, the regional philanthropy-serving association the foundation has itself supported with a small membership-style grant. Organizations should also calibrate expectations on scale — this is a sub-$4M-asset foundation giving away $85,000-$220,000 a year, not a major funder, and its giving has been trending down, not up.

Total assets have declined from $5,500,158 at the end of FY2014 (the year of the foundation's only recorded contribution, $5,506,525) to $3,844,736 at the end of FY2023 — a roughly 30% drawdown over nine years with no new money coming in, indicating a spend-down trajectory rather than an actively fundraising foundation. Grants paid have fluctuated year to year: $0 in the 2014 founding year, $250,000 in 2015, $127,835 in 2019, $220,000 in both 2020 and 2021, then falling to $105,000 in 2022 and $85,000 in 2023 — a 61% decline from the 2020-2021 peak. Total giving (which runs somewhat higher than grants paid alone) ranged from $221,736 to $369,787 across the same recent years. Investment performance has been volatile and clearly drives the giving pace: net investment income was $258,698 in 2021, collapsed to $68,660 in 2022 (a year total revenue was actually negative, -$165,042, due to market losses), then recovered to $242,288 in 2023. Per the foundation's own IRS Form 990-PF grant schedule, typical grant size runs from a $10,000 minimum to an $85,000 maximum across 8 recorded grants, with a median of $17,500 and an average of $27,500. The tracked grantee sample (11 grants totaling $325,000, average $29,545) is consistent with this: Catholic Charities of Central Texas is the largest single recipient at $140,000 across two grants (43% of tracked dollars), followed by Ronald McDonald House Charities Central TX at $70,000 across two grants. The remaining recipients each received a single grant of $5,000-$40,000: Lutheran Social Services of the South ($40,000), Greater Houston Community Foundation ($25,000), Prison Entrepreneurship Program ($15,000), United Way of Greater Houston ($10,000), Houston Food Bank ($10,000), San Antonio Food Bank ($10,000), and Philanthropy Southwest ($5,000). By program type, human-services safety-net organizations — food banks, United Way, Catholic Charities, Ronald McDonald House, Lutheran Social Services — account for roughly 85% of tracked dollars, with reentry/justice work and philanthropy-sector infrastructure making up the balance. Geographically, 100% of tracked grants go to Texas organizations concentrated in Houston and Central Texas (Austin/San Antonio), with zero grants to Merced County, California — a further confirmation that the foundation's on-file "geographic focus" of Merced County is mismatched data belonging to a different organization.

No news coverage specific to this foundation (EIN 47-1473335) was found in any of the four web searches conducted. Every "Merced Foundation" search instead surfaced the unrelated Community Foundation Merced County (CFMC) — which itself reported distributing $254.1K to 33 grantees in 2024 and was not accepting new applications as of the last check for 2025 — or UC Merced philanthropy stories, such as the Campos Foundation's 2025 $5 million gift for a track-and-field facility and STEM scholarships, a $3 million Gates Foundation grant advancing UC Merced college-pathway programs, and a $38 million MacKenzie Scott gift that made 2025-26 UC Merced's biggest fundraising year on record. None of these involve the Cahill family's foundation. The most recent verified activity for this specific EIN is its FY2023 Form 990-PF filing, reporting $85,000 in grants paid, $221,736 in total giving, $274,743 in total revenue, and $3,844,736 in year-end assets — a partial rebound in revenue after FY2022's investment-driven loss year. Secondary aggregator data (via ProPublica/GuideStar) referenced a more recent filing showing roughly $217,000 in revenue, $328,000 in expenses, and $3.73 million in assets, suggesting the foundation's slow asset decline and giving in the $150,000-$250,000 range have continued. Leadership has remained stable and unchanged across all filings reviewed (Calvin Cahill as President, Marguerite Cahill as Secretary, Daniel Cahill as compensated Treasurer). No leadership transitions, new program announcements, or notable large one-time grants beyond the $140,000 cumulative commitment to Catholic Charities of Central Texas were identified.

This foundation has no discoverable public application process, so standard grant-writing advice about portals and LOI templates does not apply here — the most important "tip" is to avoid the trap this data record itself illustrates: do not apply through mercedfoundation.org or frame a proposal around Merced County, California eligibility, since that website and process belong to the unrelated Community Foundation Merced County. Nothing in this foundation's actual 990-PF grant history involves California; every tracked dollar has gone to Texas nonprofits. Because the foundation is run by three family officers (Calvin Cahill, Marguerite Cahill, and paid Treasurer Daniel Cahill) with no evident program staff, expect informal, relationship-based decision-making rather than a structured review cycle — there is no evidence of scheduled board meetings, published deadlines, or a competitive RFP. The realistic way in is a warm introduction: reach out through a current grantee's board or leadership (Catholic Charities of Central Texas, United Way of Greater Houston, Houston Food Bank, San Antonio Food Bank, Ronald McDonald House Charities Central TX, Lutheran Social Services of the South, or Prison Entrepreneurship Program) or through Philanthropy Southwest, the regional philanthropy-serving association the foundation has itself funded — either can plausibly connect a new organization to the Cahill family's giving circle. If a direct approach is attempted, send a concise one-to-two-page letter of inquiry (not a full proposal) by mail to the foundation's registered address, PO Box 1532, Pennington, NJ 08534, addressed to Calvin Cahill as President, while noting that officers appear to operate out of the Houston, TX area per IRS filings. Ask for unrestricted general operating support — that is the purpose code on 9 of 10 tracked grants — rather than a restricted project budget; the sole exception in the record funded one named program ("Be Real") at Lutheran Social Services of the South. Calibrate the size of the ask to the foundation's actual capacity: open with $10,000-$25,000 for a first-time relationship, since the median tracked grant is $17,500 and the minimum on record is $10,000; reserve larger asks for established, multi-year relationships like the $140,000 cumulative total to Catholic Charities of Central Texas. The most common mistake an outside applicant would make is treating this as a large, actively growing community foundation — in reality assets have shrunk from $5.5M (2014) to $3.84M (2023) with zero new contributions, and annual grants paid have fallen from $220,000 (2020-2021) to $85,000 (2023), so the funder's giving capacity is contracting, not expanding.