Private foundations in the United States are required to file Form 990s with the IRS. Form 990s can provide a wealth of information about a funder's assets, key personnel, and giving history, among other things. Instrumentl automatically imports these forms and transforms the data into easily digestible Funder Insights - tables, charts and graphs - so you can:

The actual Form 990 filings to the IRS are included as PDFs in 'Funder Profiles'.

Private foundations' Funder Profiles are labeled as '990 Reports'.

These 990 Reports are where you will find Funder Insights.

Note: Government and corporate funders are not required to file Form 990s to the IRS, so these funders will not have a 990 Report or any Funder Insights. Check if you see '990 Report' written next to 'FUNDER' to determine if we have funder's 990 data:

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Both Basic and Advanced Funder Insights are located in the Funder Profile (990 Report). There are a few ways to navigate to Funder Insights:

Both Basic and Advanced Funder Insights are located in the Funder Profile / 990 Report.

Find Funder Insights when reviewing both your Opportunity and Funder Matches. For Opportunity Matches, you'll need to navigate to the 'FUNDER 990 Report' tab on the far-right-hand side and scroll down.

You can open up fullscreen 990 Reports directly from your Matches as well!

Open up a saved opportunity in your Tracker, and then select Funder Profile from the left-hand side menu:

Select the "expand" button in the top-right-hand corner to view it in fullscreen:

If you'd like to quickly look up the Form 990 for a specific funder, use Instrumentl's Quick Find search feature to search through all private foundations registered with the IRS.

Locate the Quick Find search bar at the top left of your screen, directly beneath the Instrumentl logo.

You can locate a nonprofit recipient of grants either by selecting one of the Past Grantees listed in a funder's 990 Report (available on all plans) or via searching for a Recipient via Quick Find, i.e. "Reverse Search" (on Standard Plan and above).

At the top of the recipient nonprofit page, you may need to toggle to View Recipient Profile if the nonprofit is both a recipient and a funder.

From here, you can open up Funder 990 Reports from two different insights:

Available on all plans, the Past Awards Received section lists the recipient's awards with the respective funders hyperlinked to their 990 Reports.

On the Pro Plan and above, you can access a nonprofit's Funding History, which lists funders who've awarded the recipient in the past, each hyperlinked to a\ 990 Report.

Setting up a project and reviewing its matches is the best way to find "good fit" grants & funders on our platform. However, we do also have a Foundation Directory where you can see Top Foundations by Total Giving in the USA. You can also browse by State or City, as well as by giving category. When you select a foundation listed, you're taken to its 990 Report.

Researching a funder's Form 990 data is a great way to understand giving trends and make informed decisions about opportunities you pursue.

Reach out to our friendly Support team if you have any questions around finding Funder 990 data. Message us via the chat bubble when you're logged in, or email us at hello@instrumentl.com.