Sent to Members of GrantStation on 7/28/2023
I hope you have been enjoying your summer! Hopefully you are managing to fit in a little grantseeking with all the seasonal fun.
I wanted to let you know about an update on how we are linking to information on past awards from grantmakers. We’ve consolidated it into a Grants History section in a funder profile. Here’s an example from AccessLex Institute.
A key change is regarding the information on the IRS tax form 990 for funders in the U.S. We are now linking to ProPublica, a news resource that also publishes 990s. This is because they have a very nifty feature: They post 990s that the IRS doesn’t even have in their search section for PDFs. Rather, ProPublica looks at the data tables that the IRS posts, which have more current filings. They put that information into the picture of a 990 so that you, the gentle reader, can actually read it!
For example, the IRS has published the PDFs for AccessLex Institute up to March 2020. However, the IRS has posted the data for their filing up to March 2022, and ProPublica has it on their site.
For Canadian funders, we are still linking directly to their profile on the Canada Revenue Agency site. That includes links to their CRA T3010 and T1236 forms, which you can review for past grants. Here’s an example for the Turkstra Foundation.
As valuable as tax forms are, they still only give you information as of when the government publishes it. Sometimes a funder’s website can have much more current information. That is why we started adding links called Grants Awarded when a funder has a specific page listing their grant history. Here’s the page for the AccessLex Institute
As I’m writing this, our researchers have identified funders with similar pages on their websites. That number will grow as they find more in their routine updates and in their addition of new funders. This is one of the many benefits of having a team of experts curating and crafting our funder profiles.
For learning more about reading tax forms and reviewing grants history, we have a page on our site with details and explanation. On that page is a key point worth highlighting:
Keep in mind that funders’ priorities do change, so sometimes what they funded in the past does not inform the future. Always pay attention to their current priorities, which the research team updates regularly in GrantStation’s funder profiles.
If you need help with this or anything else with using our site, please reach out to us! You can contact us at info@grantstation.com or give us a call at (877) 784-7268, 8am to 4pm Central Time.
Happy grantseeking!
David Preis
Senior VP of Member Services & Technology