Nonprofit Financial Data Scraper (ProPublica)

Extract nonprofit organization profiles and IRS financial filings from ProPublica's Nonprofit Explorer — the most comprehensive free database of US nonprofit financial records. No API key or proxy required.

What data can you extract?

• Organization name, EIN, address, city, state, ZIP
• NTEE category code and major group label (Arts, Education, Health, Legal, etc.)
• Revenue, asset amounts, tax filing period
• IRS subsection code, ruling date, deductibility code
• Direct link to ProPublica profile page
• Optional: full IRS 990 filing data — total revenue, expenses, assets, liabilities, net assets, officer compensation percentage

Use cases

• Nonprofit research and due diligence
• Grant prospecting — find organizations in a specific sector or geography
• Competitive analysis of nonprofits by NTEE category
• Financial benchmarking across peer organizations
• Legal and compliance research
• Academic research on nonprofit sector finances

Modes

searchOrganizations (default)

Search nonprofits by keyword with optional state and NTEE category filters.

Input:

{
  "mode": "searchOrganizations",
  "query": "food bank",
  "state": "CA",
  "nteeGroup": "K",
  "maxItems": 50
}

organizationDetails

Fetch full financial details for specific organizations by EIN (Employer Identification Number). Optionally include annual IRS 990 filing data.

Input:

{
  "mode": "organizationDetails",
  "eins": ["13-1837418", "52-1234567"],
  "includeFilings": true,
  "maxItems": 20
}

browseByNtee

Browse nonprofits by NTEE major group category (A=Arts, B=Education, E=Health, I=Legal, etc.).

Input:

{
  "mode": "browseByNtee",
  "nteeGroup": "I",
  "state": "NY",
  "query": "legal aid",
  "maxItems": 100
}

Input parameters

Parameter	Type	Description
mode	string	One of searchOrganizations, organizationDetails, browseByNtee
query	string	Keyword to search (organization name or topic)
state	string	US state abbreviation filter (e.g., CA, NY, TX)
nteeGroup	string	NTEE major group letter (A–Z)
eins	array	List of EIN numbers for organizationDetails mode
includeFilings	boolean	Include IRS 990 filing data (for organizationDetails)
maxItems	integer	Maximum results to return (1–500, default 20)

NTEE major group codes

Code	Category
A	Arts, Culture & Humanities
B	Education
C	Environment
D	Animal-Related
E	Health Care
F	Mental Health
G	Disease Research
H	Medical Research
I	Crime & Legal
J	Employment
K	Food/Agriculture
L	Housing
M	Public Safety
N	Recreation & Sports
O	Youth Development
P	Human Services
Q	International
R	Civil Rights
S	Community Improvement
T	Philanthropy
U	Science & Technology
V	Social Sciences
W	Public Affairs
X	Religion
Y	Mutual Benefit
Z	Unknown

Sample output

{
  "recordType": "nonprofitFinancial",
  "ein": "131837418",
  "strein": "13-1837418",
  "name": "Legal Aid Society",
  "city": "New York",
  "state": "NY",
  "zipCode": "10007",
  "nteeCode": "I71",
  "nteeGroup": "Crime & Legal",
  "revenueAmount": 150000000,
  "assetAmount": 80000000,
  "subsectionCode": "3",
  "taxPeriod": "202212",
  "rulingDate": "194908",
  "deductibilityCode": "1",
  "profileUrl": "https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/131837418",
  "sourceUrl": "https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/131837418",
  "scrapedAt": "2024-01-15T10:30:00+00:00"
}

With includeFilings: true

{
  "ein": "521234567",
  "name": "Example Foundation",
  "latestFiling": {
    "taxYear": 2022,
    "pdfUrl": "https://pp-990.s3.amazonaws.com/2022/...",
    "totalRevenue": 5400000000,
    "totalExpenses": 3200000000,
    "totalAssets": 53000000000,
    "totalLiabilities": 2100000000,
    "netAssets": 50900000000,
    "officerCompensationPct": 0.08
  }
}

Output fields reference

Field	Type	Description
ein	string	Employer Identification Number (9 digits)
strein	string	Formatted EIN with hyphen (XX-XXXXXXX)
name	string	Organization name
subName	string	Sub-name or care-of name
city	string	City
state	string	US state abbreviation
zipCode	string	ZIP code
address	string	Street address
nteeCode	string	NTEE classification code (e.g., I71)
nteeGroup	string	NTEE major group label (e.g., Crime & Legal)
revenueAmount	integer	Annual revenue in USD
assetAmount	integer	Total assets in USD
subsectionCode	string	IRS subsection code (3 = 501(c)(3))
taxPeriod	string	Tax period in YYYYMM format
rulingDate	string	IRS ruling date in YYYYMM format
deductibilityCode	string	Deductibility code
profileUrl	string	ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer URL
sourceUrl	string	Source URL
latestFiling.taxYear	integer	Tax year of most recent 990 filing
latestFiling.pdfUrl	string	PDF download URL for 990 form
latestFiling.totalRevenue	number	Total revenue from 990
latestFiling.totalExpenses	number	Total functional expenses from 990
latestFiling.totalAssets	number	Total assets at end of year
latestFiling.totalLiabilities	number	Total liabilities at end of year
latestFiling.netAssets	number	Net assets (fund balance)
latestFiling.officerCompensationPct	number	Officer compensation as % of expenses

Data source

Data is sourced from ProPublica's Nonprofit Explorer API — a free, public API containing data on more than 1.8 million nonprofits compiled from IRS 990 filings.

No API key, proxy, or login is required.

Frequently asked questions

How many nonprofits are in the database? ProPublica's Nonprofit Explorer contains over 1.8 million US nonprofit organizations with IRS 990 filing data going back many years.

How current is the data? ProPublica updates its database as new IRS filings become available, typically reflecting filings up to 1–2 years prior to the current date.

Can I filter by both state and NTEE category? Yes. All three modes support simultaneous state + NTEE filtering.

What is an EIN? An Employer Identification Number (EIN) is a 9-digit tax ID assigned by the IRS to identify nonprofit organizations. Format: XX-XXXXXXX.

What does NTEE stand for? National Taxonomy of Exempt Entities — a classification system used by the IRS and other organizations to categorize nonprofits by their primary activity (Arts, Education, Health, etc.).

Are the 990 PDF files accessible? Yes — when includeFilings is enabled, the latestFiling.pdfUrl field contains a direct link to the IRS Form 990 PDF hosted on ProPublica's AWS S3.

What is the rate limit? ProPublica's API is publicly accessible with no authentication. The scraper uses a 0.3–0.5 second delay between requests to be a good API citizen.