If you want to know whether a foundation is worth approaching, the most reliable document available is one they did not write for you: their Form 990-PF.
Every private foundation files one every year with the IRS, and it is public. It states how much the foundation holds, how much it gives away, who received the money, and in what amounts. There is no marketing in it.
That makes it the fastest way to answer the question every grant seeker actually has, which is not "does this foundation exist" but "does this foundation give money to organizations like mine."
Why the 990-PF is the source of truth
A foundation's website will tell you what it cares about. Its 990-PF will tell you what it did.
Foundations describe broad priorities and fund a narrower set of things. A foundation that says it supports "youth and education" may give exclusively to a handful of long-standing grantees in one city. Only the filings show that.
Two cautions. The form reports the year it covers, so it is a picture of the past, not a promise about next year. And a foundation that pays out to few organizations may simply be a small family foundation with one trustee and a clear, narrow interest.
Where the money appears
On the 990-PF, the grants a foundation paid are listed in the supplementary information section of the form, under a heading for grants and contributions paid during the year or approved for future payment. In recent versions of the form that is Part XV. Form layouts change when the IRS revises them, so if the part numbers do not match, look for that heading rather than the number.
For each grant you will typically see the recipient's name, their location, and the amount. Some foundations list a purpose or a category for each grant. Where they do, that column is the most useful one on the whole document.
If you are reading the 990 of a public charity that makes grants, rather than a private foundation, the equivalent list is on Schedule I.
Where to find filings
You do not need to buy anything. The filings are free:
- The IRS Tax Exempt Organization Search hosts filed forms for most organizations.
- ProPublica's Nonprofit Explorer presents the same filings with the grant lists in a readable format, which is much faster to scan than a scanned PDF.
- Candid and similar databases index foundations and their giving, and some of their search features are free.
Start with the last two or three years. One year is a snapshot; three years is a pattern.
Read for patterns, not for one grant
Four things are worth extracting from each year's list.
- The size of grants. If a foundation's grants are all between $5,000 and $15,000, an application for $75,000 is not a stretch, it is a different conversation. Look at the median, not the largest.
- The geography. Many foundations fund a single city, county or state. If no recipient in three years sits in your area, geography is the reason, and a good proposal will not overcome it.
- The type of recipient. Are they funding direct service organizations, or universities, hospitals and intermediaries? A foundation that funds research institutions is not a prospect for a small community nonprofit.
- Repeat recipients. If the same names appear year after year, the foundation has a set of established relationships. That does not make it impossible to join, but it tells you how competitive the door is.
Judging mission alignment honestly
With the recipient list in front of you, ask whether your program looks like the work this foundation already pays for. Not whether they might be interested in principle, but whether anything on their list resembles you.
If the answer is no, set it aside and move on. A carefully researched list of fifteen real prospects will outperform a list of two hundred names from a directory every time, and the research is the work that makes the list real.
Turn the research into a pipeline
Once a foundation passes the geography, size and mission tests, you have something worth recording: who they fund, at what level, and when they accept applications. Some foundations take proposals on a rolling basis, some by invitation only, and some run a single annual cycle. The 990-PF will not tell you the process, but their website or a phone call will.
Then rank your prospects by fit rather than by deadline, and work the top of the list properly.
Where this fits in GrantSlate
Research is the part of grant seeking that software handles worst and diligence handles best, which is why GrantSlate does not maintain a funder index. Its free grant finder searches for currently active opportunities matching what your organization does, and its drafting starts once you have chosen a funder and know what they are asking for.
The 990-PF is the step in between: the check that an opportunity is real before you spend a week writing.