Every filing. Every field.
Every organization on your docket is evaluated using the same set of questions about finances, governance, leadership, and track record. Ask those questions in plain language and get answers drawn from the organizations’ own IRS filings, tied to the form and filing year they came from. Every figure is checkable against the public record before it reaches the board.
“Has this organization ever reported a diversion of assets?”
“Does this nonprofit have a conflict-of-interest policy, a whistleblower policy, and a document-retention policy on record?”
“Show me this organization’s revenue and net assets, year by year, for the last five years.”
“Compare executive compensation at youth development nonprofits with revenue between $5M and $10M.”
“Which foundations have reported grants to this organization, and what else did they fund?”
“Was this organization’s financial statement audited, and did the audit surface any material weaknesses?”
Confidence is what slows a docket down — not the research itself. When every number comes from the organization’s own IRS filing and carries the form and filing year it came from, there’s nothing left to re-verify before the recommendation goes to the board. You can move from question to decision without a second pass.
No query syntax, no navigating the IRS website, no learning where a field lives inside a return. Ask the way you’d ask a colleague — “which of these organizations grew program spending fastest since 2020?” — and the question finds the organizations, the filings, and the fields that answer it.
Most nonprofit data tools extract a fixed set of headline numbers. Here, the questions aren’t limited to what someone decided to pull out in advance: lobbying spend, endowment restrictions, insider transactions, donor-advised fund activity, fundraising event economics, foreign program spending. If an organization put it on a filed return, it’s a fair question.
Comparison is the point, not an afterthought. Ask for a ranking, a median, a share, or a multi-year trend across a group you define — a hand-built list of candidates, a sector, a geography, or a revenue band — and get the per-organization figures alongside the aggregate, in a single table on screen.
Supporting schedules
| Free account | Pro subscription | |
|---|---|---|
| Nonprofit directory — identity, classification, headline financials | Included | Included |
| Charity Navigator ratings in answers | Included | Included |
| Full financials and multi-year trends | Included | |
| Leadership and reported pay | Included | |
| Grants and programs | Included | |
| Schedule-level detail | Included | |
| Deeper analysis for complex, multi-step questions | Standard only | All levels |
| Ask questions across a saved list of nonprofits | Included |
From the organizations’ own IRS filings. The IRS releases nonprofit returns as structured data; Giving Compass ingests the complete returns — every part, every schedule, every field — keyed to each organization’s EIN and filing year. Answers cite the organization, form, and filing year the numbers came from, and link to the nonprofit’s profile where you can inspect the same filings yourself.
As current as the newest released filing for each organization — typically one to two years behind today. Nonprofits file annually, often on extension, and IRS release adds further delay. Very recent changes at an organization won’t appear until its next filing is released.
Any field on an electronically filed 990, 990-EZ, or 990-PF and its schedules, for the years the IRS has released. E-filing has been mandatory for all 990 filers since tax years beginning in 2019; earlier years cover organizations that e-filed voluntarily, reaching back more than a decade. A paper-only filing from before the mandate may be absent or partial.
Both. Ask for rankings, medians, shares, and multi-year trends across any group — a list you’ve built, a sector, a geography, or a revenue band — and you’ll get the per-organization figures along with the aggregate.
Organizations under the filing threshold submit the 990-N postcard, which carries no financial detail. Others may be behind on filing, or their newest return may not have been released yet. Where the public record is thin, you’ll be told so rather than given an estimate.
Not from public 990 data. Schedule B, which lists individual contributors, is redacted from IRS public releases, so no source can name individual donors. What you can get: total contribution revenue for any organization, and — often the more useful path — the funders who reported grants to it on their own 990-PF filings and Schedule I. Ask which foundations have funded an organization, and you can also see what else those funders supported.
The answer reflects what the organization filed with the IRS for a specific fiscal year. Annual reports and websites often cite different periods, consolidated entities, or unaudited figures — and amended returns can revise previously filed numbers. Ask which form and filing year a figure came from, then compare like with like. Giving Compass structures filing data; it doesn’t audit it.
Ask about an organization’s filing history, its governance record, or what it pays its leadership — and get an answer you can trace to the filing it came from.
