Complete 990 Search
Giving Compass holds the complete record of Form 990, 990-EZ and 990-PF returns filed electronically since 2007: every part, every schedule, every field. Compass Explorer, the AI analyst in the Giving Compass app, searches and queries all of it from a question in plain English.
Every filing. Every field.
Each return is parsed from the IRS’s e-file data into a warehouse Compass Explorer can query, and the parts people ask about most are kept as tables of their own.
Not in the record: Schedule B’s list of contributors and the itemized rows of Schedules H and J; paper returns and anything before 2007. About 1.2 million of the 1.9 million active nonprofits have never filed a 990 at all, and for them Giving Compass has only the IRS’s basic record of the organization.
Compass Explorer
A 990 question needs no query syntax and no knowledge of the form. Compass Explorer does the looking up, then shows how it got the answer.
Your question is matched against a catalog describing all 3,476 fields, so you never need to know where a figure sits on the return.
It runs SQL over the returns themselves: one organization or a whole sector, one year or every year since 2007.
Answers come as prose, tables and charts. Every table says how it was calculated, and with Giving Compass Pro a Research Record sets out each choice behind the analysis.
Which large nonprofits are running the biggest operating deficits?
Compass Explorer report
Large nonprofits running the biggest operating deficits
Largest operating deficits
How this was calculated
Scope:
Data source:
Calculation:
Operating deficit, by organization
How this was calculated
Compass Explorer
Each one opens in Compass Explorer and runs on the filings, across every organization that answers it.
Name it in the question, and ask what you would ask of every nonprofit on a docket.
For grantmakers
Every organization on a docket faces the same questions about finances, governance, leadership and track record. Ask them in plain language and the answers come from each organization’s own IRS filings, so every figure can be checked against the public record before it reaches the board.
When each number comes from the organization’s own return and each table says how it was calculated, there is far less to re-verify before a recommendation goes to the board.
No navigating the IRS website, no learning where a field lives inside a return. Ask the way you would ask a colleague, and the question finds the organizations, the filings and the fields that answer it.
Most nonprofit data tools pull out a fixed set of headline numbers. Here you can ask about lobbying, endowments, transactions with insiders, donor-advised funds, fundraising events or grants abroad.
Ask for a ranking, a median, a share or a multi-year trend across a group you define: a sector, a place, a revenue band or a list you have saved. Each organization’s figures come beside the total, in one table.
From the organizations’ own IRS filings. The IRS publishes e-filed returns as structured data, and Giving Compass takes in each return whole: every part, every schedule, every field, by the organization’s EIN and tax year. Where a return was amended, the amended version is the one used.
As current as the newest return the IRS has released for each organization. Nonprofits file once a year, often on extension, and the IRS releases returns after that, so a recent change at an organization shows up only once its next return is out.
Any of the 3,476 fields on an e-filed Form 990, 990-EZ or 990-PF and its schedules, from 2007 on. A few itemized lists are not in the data: Schedule B’s contributors and the item-by-item detail of Schedules H and J. Paper returns are not included.
Both. Ask for rankings, medians, shares and multi-year trends across any group, whether a list you have saved, a sector, a place or a revenue band, and you get each organization’s figures along with the total.
Organizations under the filing threshold send the IRS a 990-N postcard, which carries no financial detail, and others file late or not at all. About 1.2 million of the 1.9 million active nonprofits have never filed a 990; for them Giving Compass has the IRS’s basic record of the organization and no filing history.
Not individual donors: Schedule B, where contributors are listed, is not in the data. You can see an organization’s total contributions and, often more useful, the foundations and charities that reported grants to it on their own returns. Ask which funders have supported an organization and you can see what else they funded.
An answer reflects what the organization filed with the IRS for a given tax year. Annual reports and websites often cover different periods or entities, or use unaudited figures. Ask which form and tax year a figure came from, then compare like with like. Giving Compass structures filing data; it does not audit it.
You can ask Compass Explorer a few questions a month without an account, and more with a free one. Giving Compass Pro adds Deep, its most thorough level of research, a Research Record with every answer, CSV export of the tables, and many more questions a month.
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.