Instead of having to comb through 990 data yourself, Advanced Funder Insights does all the data analysis for you. Now you can easily spot "big picture" trends of funders to save even more time when prospecting.

Advanced Funder Insights are available on select plans—check our Pricing page.

In addition to the Key Financial Stats in the Basic Funder Insights (year-by-year total giving, number of grants and assets), with Advanced Funder Insights, you can view the timeline of a funder's average and median grant amount ($).

Looking at the Gates Foundation, the funder's median giving has stabilized at around $500k from 2017 to 2023. This may influence future applicants to hover around that same grant amount to follow past trends.

We've parsed 990 data to display an easy-to-read graph of a funder's grant amounts. You can see the distribution of the monetary value of their past awards by award amount ($), and the number of grants in each range.

By default, you'll see a "Snapshot" of the last three years of available 990 data, but you can zero in on specific years as well. Additionally, you can hover your cursor over the bar graph to see exact numerical data.

You can see above that the Ford Foundation's most common award amount in 2023 was between $150K and $500K—specifically, 1,249 of the 3,545 grants that year.

Now you can browse through all of the individual past grantees in the 'All-time' tab. Instead of cross-checking between each calendar year tab, you can see the full list of past grantees. From there, you can search for a grantee and/or filter by state and country.

Click on the tabs for individual years (2023, e.g.) to populate the column 'New Grantee?'. A checkmark under the 'New Grantee?' column signifies that the organization was a first-time recipient of an award from this funder.

In the example below, 516 Arts was a first-time grantee of the Ford Foundation in 2023.

You can even use the search bar to parse through the Grant Purpose descriptions. In the example above, searching for 'art' returns organizations whose grant purposes include the word 'art'. Use the columns Amount, Purpose, Location, and New Grantee. to see if this funder has funded similar organizations in your area, as well as how much was awarded.

The Past Grantees list can even give you ideas for organizations you can reach out to for tips or advice on building a relationship with the funder. You might even ask them for an introduction!

You can download All-time or select years of Past Grantees data as a CSV file by clicking this button:

Evaluate how much a funder gave to New Grantees vs. Repeat Grantees over the years, so you can prioritize which funders should be at the top of your focus list.

See the breakdown of total awards that were given to New vs. Repeat Grantees over time. In the example above, this funder awarded 26% of its grants to New Grantees over the last 3 years for which 990 data are available.

Hover over each bar to compare the exact percentage of grants awarded to New vs Repeat Grantees (and the total number of grants awarded that year). If you find another foundation where the % given to New Grantees was higher in recent years, then you may consider prioritizing that funder's opportunities over the first funder's.

Use the Openness to New Grantees - Grant Amounts to estimate how much you should ask for as a new applicant. As seen above, New Grantees were awarded a median of $110,000 by the Ford Foundation in 2023.

The breakdown of funding between New vs. Repeat Grantees can also help you assess the ROI of building a relationship with a funder. Look at the grant amounts awarded to Repeat Grantees in recent years as an indicator of potential funding your org may receive from a long-term relationship with this funder.

Returning applicants can use this data to determine whether to ask current funders for more money next year based on the median grant size to Returning Grantees. In the chart above, Repeat Grantees were awarded a median of $110,1000 in 2023 -- the same for New Grantees.

By using IRS classification codes for nonprofits, spot trends like giving by category to understand which cause areas a funder likes funding most.

In the example below, see how 'Philanthropy, Voluntarism & Grantmaking' Foundations were the most funded area over the last three years. However, in the most recent year, 'Arts, Culture & Humanities' surpassed all other NTEE Codes with $75,508,379 awarded in 2023.

Dig deeper into sub-classification data by expanding each NTEE Code. For example, within 'Education': 'Alliances & Advocacy' median grant in 2023 was $66,000, vs 'Universities' was $81,000. You can view the total amount ($) and number of grants awarded, as well as the average and mode.

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The faster you can identify patterns, the faster you can prioritize the best-fit funders and start focusing on building those funder relationships. Interested in seeing how you stack up against your peers? Learn about Peer Prospecting!

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