By Luke Rosiak


Nonprofits include:

  • Political “dark money” groups and activist groups that may as well be political

  • Unions

  • Sports leagues

  • Hospitals and universities

  • Corporate foundations

ANNUAL FORM 990S INCLUDE:

  • WHO’S ON THEIR BOARD AND TOP STAFF AND HOW MUCH THEY’RE PAID

  • WHO THEY GIVE GRANTS TO

  • ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS ABOUT CONFLICT OF INTEREST

  • HOW MUCH MONEY WENT TO ADMINISTRATION, FUNDRAISING, ETC

PREVIOUS OPTIONS

what citizenaudit has

  • Ten years of PDFs for every filer, obtained monthly from the IRS on DVDs and posted online.
  • Fully text-searchable. We did optical character recognition (OCR) on many millions of pages.
  • Can search within PDFs with CTRL+F
  • Staff, board members, vendors, dollar amounts, addresses, grants, answers to questions, anything that’s in the form.
  • Download spreadsheets of structured data

Just search... like google.

  • Type anything in the box.
  • There's a lot of data, so use quotes if you want to match an exact phrase, or if there are numbers involved.
  • The first tab "X Nonprofits found" is if you're looking for a given nonprofit's 990
  • The second tab, "X Tax Documents found" is if you're looking to learn who funded that nonprofit. This tab is the most interesting--if Nonprofit B mentions Nonprofit A within its 990, that is because Nonprofit B funds Nonprofit A.
A TYPICAL SEARCH: WHO'S FUNDING AMERICANS FOR PROSPERITY? 

Finding funders

  • Most novel and important use for CitizenAudit is if you want to find out who's funding a nonprofit.
  • Nonprofits don't disclose who gives to them, but they do disclose who they give to.
  • It's always been easy to ask for an organization's 990 and read it, but to see who's funding it, you'd basically have to read the grantee section of every other nonprofit in existence's forms. You wouldn't know where to look.
  • That's what CitizenAudit does. It should find almost all nonprofit-to-nonprofit grants. This technique won't tell you what companies and individuals are funding nonprofits, unless they're routing it through trusts, etc.

click an org name to go to a profile page


OCR'd text is on there too. CTRL-F can be helpful


Formatting of OCR'd text isn't always very clear, but there are page numbers, so you can click to open the PDF and see the real page. OCR'd text serves as a guide telling you exactly what normal (PDF) docs to look at.


use it for routine backgrounding

  • 990s are thorough disclosures. It's a chance to get paper on someone, more than you'll see in limited forms like incorporation documents.
  • If you're backgrounding anyone who's been active in the community, there's a decent chance they'll show up. Get in the habit of doing it even when your story has nothing to do with tax-exempt organizations.
  • Nonprofits can be shadow/sister organizations to companies and other groups. They can sometimes have almost no real-world presence, but search an address or a person's name and they may have one there.

Addresses and salaries

  • Just because it's called a nonprofit doesn't mean people don't get rich
  • Pulling a 990 the traditional way isn't enough because they could be getting paid by other, supposedly unrelated charities

Center for American Progress: Money in, money out

Before, you only had half the picture: money out. With CitizenAudit, you can piece together pass-throughs.

Tangled weBS

FOR SQL people and webdevs


API and CSV
  • Pass it an EIN, get back JSON: the structured data from the extracts and the OCR'd text

Scale of Hardware
  • 100TB of storage

Subsection code
Described in 501(c)(3)?
Schedule B required?
Political activities?
Lobbying activities?
Subject to proxy tax?
Donor advised funds?
Conservation easements?
Collections of art?
Credit counseling?
Term or permanent endowments?
Land buildings and equipment reported?
Investments in other securities reported?
Program related investments reported?
Other assets reported?
Other liabilities reported?
Separate consolidated financial statement
Separate audited financial statement
Included in consolidated financial statements?
School?
Foreign office?
Foreign activities, etc?
More than $5000 to organizations Part IX, line 3?
More than $5000 to individuals Part IX, line 3?
Professional fundraising?
Fundraising activities?
Gaming?
Hospital?
Hospital audited financial statement included?
Grants to organizations?
Grants to individuals?
Schedule J required?
Tax exempt bonds?
Investment income?
Escrow account?
On behalf of issuer?
Excess benefit transaction?
Prior excess benefit transaction?
Loan to officer or DQP?
Grant to related person?
Business relationship with organization?
Business relationship thru family member?
Officer, etc. of entity with business relationship?
Deductible non-cash contributions?
Deductible contributions of art, etc?
Terminated?
Partial liquidation?
Disregarded entity?
Related entity?
Related organization a controlled entity?
Any transfers to exempt non-charitable org?
Activities conducted thru partnership?
Schedule O completed?
Number forms transmitted with 1096
Number W-2Gs included in 1a
Compliance with backup witholding?
Number of employees
Employment tax returns filed?
Unrelated business income?
Form 990-T filed?
Foreign financial account?
Prohibited tax shelter transaction?
Taxable party notification?
Form 8886-T filed?
Non-deductible contributions?
Non-deduct. disclosure?
Quid pro quo contributions?
Quid pro quo disclosure?
Form 8282 property disposed of?
Number of 8282s filed
Funds to pay premiums?
Premiums paid?
Form 8899 filed?
Form 1098-C filed?
Excess business holdings?
Taxable distributions?
Distribution to donor?
Initiation fees amount
Gross receipts amount
Gross income from members
Gross income from other sources
Form 990 in lieu of 1041?
Tax exempt interest in lieu of 1041
Qualified health plan in multiple states
Qualified health plan reserves required
Qualified health plan reserves on hand
Payments for indoor tanning
Filed Form 720 for tanning
Reportable compensation from organization
Reportable compensation from related orgs
Other compensation
Number individuals greater than $100K
Number of contractors greater than $100K
Total contributions
Program service revenue code 2a
Program service revenue amount 2a
Program service revenue code 2b
Program service revenue amount 2b
Program service revenue code 2c
Program service revenue amount 2c
Program service revenue code 2d
Program service revenue amount 2d
Program service revenue code 2e
Program service revenue amount 2e
Program service revenue amount 2f
Program service revenue
Investment income
Tax-exempt bond proceeds
Royalties
Gross rents -- Real estate
Gross rents -- Personal property
Rental expense -- Real estate
Rental expense -- Personal property
Net rent -- Real estate
Net rent -- Personal property
Net rental income
Gross sales -- Securities
Gross sales -- Other assets
Sales expense -- Securities
Sales expense -- Other assets
Net gain from sales -- Securities
Net gain from sales -- Other assets
Sales of assets
Gross fundraising
Fundraising expenses
Fundraising income
Gross income from gaming
Gaming expenses
Gaming income
Gross sales of inventory
Cost of goods sold (inventory)
Income from sales of inventory
Other revenue code 11a
Other revenue amount 11a
Other revenue code 11b
Other revenue amount 11b
Other revenue code 11c
Other revenue amount 11c
Other revenue amount 11d
Other revenue
Total revenue
Grants to governments/orgs in the US
Grants to individuals in the US
Grants to orgs and individuals outside the US
Benefits paid to or for members
Compensation of current officers, directors, etc 
Compensation of disqualified persons
Other salaries and wages
Pension plan contributions
Other employee benefits
Payroll taxes
Management fees
Legal fees
Accounting fees
Lobbying fees
Professional fundraising fees
Investment management feed
Other fees
Advertising and promotion
Office expenses
Information technology
Royalties
Occupancy
Travel
Travel/entertainment expenses to public officials
Conferences, conventions, meetings
Interest expense
Payments to affiliates
Depreciation, depletion, amortization
Insurance
Other expenses 24a
Other expenses 24b
Other expenses 24c
Other expenses 24d
Other expenses 24e
Other expenses 24f
Total functional expenses
Cash -- non-interest bearing -- eoy
Savings and temporary cash investments -- eoy
Pledges and grants receivable -- eoy
Accounts receivable -- eoy
Receivables from officers, directors, etc. -- eoy
Receivables from disqualified persons -- eoy
Notes and loans receivables -- eoy
Inventories for sale or use -- eoy
Prepaid expenses or deferred charges -- eoy
Land, buildings, & equipment (net) -- eoy
Investments in publicly traded securities -- eoy
Investments in other securities -- eoy
Program-related investments -- eoy
Intangible assets -- eoy
Other assets -- eoy
Total assets -- eoy
Accounts payable and accrued expenses -- eoy
Grants payable -- eoy
Deferred revenue -- eoy
Tax-exempt bond liabilities -- eoy
Escrow account liability -- eoy
Payables to officers, directors, etc. -- eoy
Secured mortgages and notes payable -- eoy
Unsecured mortgages and notes payable -- eoy
Other liabilities -- eoy
Total liabilities -- eoy
Unrestricted net assets -- eoy
Temporarily restricted net assets -- eoy
Permanently restricted net assets -- eoy
Retained earnings -- eoy
Permanently restricted net assets -- eoy
Paid-in or capital surplus -- eoy
Total Net Assets -- eoy
Total Liabilities + Net Assets -- eoy
Reason for non-PF status
Number of organizations supported
Sum of amounts of support
Gifts grants membership fees received (170)
Tax revenues levied (170)
Services or facilities furnished by gov (170)
Public support subtotal (170)
Amount support exceeds total (170)
Public support (170)
Public support from line 4 (170)
Gross income from interest etc (170)
Net UBI (170)
Other income (170)
Total support (170)
Gross receipts from related activities (170)
Gifts grants membership fees received (509)
Receipts from admissions merchandise etc (509)
Gross receipts from related activities (509)
Tax revenues levied (509)
Services or facilities furnished by gov (509)
Public support subtotal (509)
Amounts from disqualified persons (509)
Amount support exceeds total (509)
Public support subtotal (509)
Public support (509)
Public support from line 6 (509)
Gross income from interest etc (509)
Net UBI (509)
Subtotal total support (509)
Net income from UBI not in 10b (509)
Other income (509)
Total support (509)



Try it out

  • Questions?
  • Sample searches I can conduct for you right now?

Contact
miguel@citizenaudit.org
twitter: @lukerosiak
citizenaudit.org

Questions?

Want me to do a lookup for you right now?


Contact me at lrosiak@gmail.com
@lukerosiak

Navigating nonprofit data for reporters with CitizenAudit.org

By Luke Rosiak

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Navigating nonprofit data for reporters with CitizenAudit.org

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