Funder profiles

A funder profile is a structured reading of the funder's own public filings. It does not add opinion. When a filing does not say something, the profile says so.

The header

• Name, city, state from the IRS master file (the IRS Exempt Organizations Business Master File, the IRS's list of every tax-exempt organization). When an organization is not in the master file, the city, state and ZIP code are the ones it wrote on the latest return that we have read, and the header says so: "City and state as stated on its FY2024 return". We do not copy the street address from a return to a profile, because that line can name a person.
• EIN, the funder's tax id, shown as 12-3456789.
• Type: private foundation, public charity, company, adviser, fund or agency.
• Website, when the funder wrote one on its filing.
• Application posture: "Accepts applications", "Funds preselected organizations only" or "Not stated in filings". See the Search guide.
• IRS standing, for foundations and charities, when we hold the IRS lists. See IRS standing below.

How to apply

Private foundations report this in Part XV of Form 990-PF. When it is there, you see:

• the contact name and mailing address the foundation gave,
• the form and information it asks for,
• submission deadlines,
• restrictions and limits on awards.

We show the text as filed. We do not rewrite it.

Email addresses and phone numbers appear only when the record is a role inbox, such as grants@, that the filer published and that the record allows us to show. Named people's addresses are never shown.

IRS standing

The IRS publishes lists that show whether it recognizes an organization as tax-exempt today. We read three of them: the IRS master file, IRS Publication 78 data, and the IRS Automatic Revocation of Exemption List. The profile shows what the lists say, with the date of each list.

Keep these points in mind:

• "Automatically revoked" has one meaning. The IRS revokes tax-exempt status by law when an organization files no annual return or notice for three years in a row. The list holds only that kind of revocation. An organization that lost its status in another way is not on it.
• A revocation is not a statement that the organization has shut down. Some revoked organizations kept filing returns. When we hold a return for a tax year after the revocation date, the chip says "returns on file for later years", and the statement gives the year of the latest return we hold. An organization that loses its tax-exempt status must still file, so later returns do not show that the IRS reinstated it.
• An older copy is not a disagreement. We hold a copy of each IRS list, and each copy has a date. When our copy of the IRS master file is older than the day the IRS posted a revocation, the copy still names the organization only because it is older. The profile then shows "Automatically revoked by the IRS", and the statement gives both dates. "IRS lists disagree" is kept for a real conflict: for example, IRS Publication 78 data still lists the organization.
• A reinstatement date before the revocation date is not counted. A few rows on the IRS list carry a reinstatement date that is earlier than the revocation date. The profile shows that date, and does not count it as a reinstatement.
• Every statement has a date. It is the date of the IRS list we read. The IRS replaces these lists about once a month, so its own search is the current record. Click the chip to read the full statement and to open the IRS Tax Exempt Organization Search.
• Some revocation dates are corrected. The IRS says that the revocation dates it lists from April 1 to July 14, 2020 should read July 15, 2020. We show the corrected date, and the chip shows the date on the list too.
• A revoked foundation can still have application details. Its latest return may say that it accepts applications. The "Can I apply?" section then shows both facts: the IRS sentence with the date of the list, and the application details with the year of the return they come from. We do not tell you what to do with them.
• No lists, no chip. When we do not hold the lists for an organization, the profile shows no standing. It never shows "On the IRS list" as a default.

"The basics" shows two rows: IRS standing (the same chip) and Deductibility class (Pub 78), the IRS's own class for the organization in Publication 78 data. Many eligible organizations are not in Publication 78 data, so an organization that is not in it has not lost anything for that reason alone.

How it has answered about applications

The badge in "Can I apply?" shows what the latest Form 990-PF says. Under it, the lines called "What its returns show" count the foundation's other Form 990-PF returns too. For example:

• "Stated the same way on all 5 Form 990-PF returns on record (FY2019 to FY2023)."
• "Stated this way on 3 of 5 Form 990-PF returns on record (FY2019 to FY2023). 2 returns said: Accepts applications. The most recent of them is the FY2021 return."
• "The latest Form 990-PF return (FY2023) does not state an application policy. The FY2022 return said: Accepts applications."

How to read them:

• They count Form 990-PF returns that the IRS has published as data. An amended return replaces its original. This number can differ from "Returns on record" in "The basics", which counts every form.
• A return that says nothing is counted as "does not state a policy". It is not an answer for or against.
• When the latest return says nothing and an earlier return did answer, the profile shows the earlier answer with its year. We cannot tell from a blank section whether the earlier answer still holds.
• The profile does not pick words out of the instructions for you. A return can say that the foundation accepts applications and also say "by invitation" in its instructions. Read the instructions in "How to apply". They are shown as filed.
• A foundation with one return, or one that states nothing on every return, has no such line.
• The lines describe past returns only.

New recipients

For some foundations, "What its returns show" has one more line. For example: "On its FY2023 Form 990-PF return this foundation listed grants to 10 named recipients. 4 of 10 are not on its FY2020 to FY2022 grant lists."

• It is a count from past returns. It does not say that the foundation will consider a new request. It is not a score.
• How it is counted. We compare the names on the newest grant list with the foundation's own grant lists for the three years before. Names are compared as written on the returns, without "The" at the start, without endings such as "Inc" or "LLC", and without spaces and punctuation. A recipient also counts as already listed when our records link it to the same organization as an earlier recipient, or when its name is almost the same as an earlier name. The state on the grant row is not compared, because one recipient is often written under different states.
• Grants to individuals are left out. A return has a box for the status of each recipient. When the foundation wrote "individual" there (many scholarship funds do), the grant is not counted in either number. When most of a foundation's grants are marked this way, the profile shows no line, because a count of the few other recipients would not describe the foundation. A person whom the foundation did not mark as an individual is still counted as a recipient.
• It can be wrong in both directions. A recipient can look new when its name is written very differently from year to year, or when the list names people and does not mark them. Two different recipients with almost the same name can be counted as one.
• It is shown only when we can count it. The foundation must have named grant rows that are not marked as individuals in that year and in each of the three years before. If an earlier list has a row such as "see attached" in place of a name, the line is not shown, because recipients could look new only for that reason. When we cannot count, the profile shows no line. It never shows a zero in its place.

Money

Money comes from the latest filing that the IRS has published and we have parsed, with a year-by-year series below it.

Rules we keep:

• A missing line reads "Not available". It never reads "$0". A real zero reads "$0".
• Amended filings replace the original. You see the latest version. The older one is kept, marked superseded, and never double-counted.
• Numbers are shown as filed. Filers make mistakes. We do not correct them.

Grants paid

Each row is one grant from the funder's filing: the recipient as written, the city and state, the purpose text, the amount and the year. Where we could match the recipient to an organization by EIN, the row links to it. The count in the header ("N grants on file"), the table, the "What they fund" panel and the AI fit analysis all count the same rows: grants paid, leaving out any row from a filing that a later amended return replaced.

Public charities report grants on Schedule I of Form 990. Private foundations report them in Part XV of Form 990-PF. Both appear here.

Matched recipients

A Form 990-PF names each grant recipient but gives no EIN for it. Charities that make grants and file Schedule I of Form 990 do write the recipient's EIN. We use those returns as witnesses. When three or more of those charities wrote the same name and state with one EIN, and the city on the foundation's row matches, we link the foundation's row to that organization.

A row that is linked this way has a small line under the recipient's name. For example: "Matched to this organization because 5 grant-making charities wrote this name with its EIN. Source: Schedule I of their Form 990 returns, fiscal years 2021 to 2023. Counted Oct 8, 2026."

• The name on the row is still shown as the foundation wrote it.
• The line says "with its EIN". It does not say "is the same organization". A school's name is sometimes written with the EIN of its parish or of its sponsor, so a link can point at a parent body.
• A match can be wrong. No person has checked these links one by one. Open the filing from the source line before you rely on a row.
• A link says nothing about whether the funder wants to hear from anyone.

Officers and trustees

Names, titles and compensation as reported on the filing. Corporate trustees are listed separately from people.

Similar funders

A list of funders whose filings look like this one. It is computed from the text of the filings. It is a lead, not a fact.

Provenance: the source line

Every fact on the page carries a source line. Click it to see:

1. The dataset. For example "IRS 990-PF e-file".
2. The filing year.
3. The file fingerprint, when we have it: the first characters of the sha256 hash of the exact file we read. Facts that come from a filing carry it; the identity line from the IRS master file and the public contact channels do not, and the source line then leaves it out rather than showing a blank.
4. A link to the filing or dataset, when one exists.

This is the same chain the database keeps: dataset → source URL → hashed file → ingestion run → row. Anyone can download the same file, hash it, and check. See Data sources and license.

When something looks wrong

Funder data comes from government filings. We publish what the filing says. If a profile looks wrong:

1. Open a data correction issue.
2. Give the funder name, the EIN, the profile link, what is wrong, and what you checked.

We trace the fact to its file and either fix our parser, load a newer filing, or leave the fact as filed with a note. We never edit a fact by hand to differ from the source.