🏛️ ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer Scraper

🚀 Export 1.8M+ US nonprofits in seconds. Search by keyword, state, or NTEE category, or look up any organization by EIN. Pull IRS Form 990 financials, addresses, NTEE codes, and filing history. No login, no scraping pipeline.

🕒 Last updated: 2026-05-23 · 📊 28 fields per record · 🏛️ 1.8M+ US nonprofits · 🇺🇸 50 states + territories · 🗂️ Search + EIN lookup

The ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer Scraper taps the ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer API and returns clean, structured records covering mission, address, officers, financials, IRS Form 990 filings, NTEE classifications, and tax-exempt status for every US 501(c) organization that has filed with the IRS. The underlying dataset is sourced directly from IRS 990 returns and Business Master File.

Coverage spans 1.8M+ tax-exempt organizations across all 50 states, DC, and US territories, with rich classification by NTEE category (Arts, Education, Health, Human Services, Environment, etc.). This Actor exports them as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML in under a minute, with two query modes: keyword search across the whole index, or batch lookup by EIN.

🎯 Target Audience	💡 Primary Use Cases
Investigative journalists, philanthropy researchers, board governance teams, due-diligence analysts, grant writers, academic researchers, foundation officers	Donor research, board diligence, grant-program analysis, 990 financials, peer benchmarking, FOIA backgrounders

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📋 What the ProPublica Nonprofit Scraper does

Two workflows in a single Actor:

• 🔍 Search mode. Keyword search across name, alias, and address. Optional state and NTEE category filters. Returns enriched profiles with full 990 data, not just search hits.
• 🆔 Lookup mode. Batch-resolve an array of EINs to full organization profiles, including filing history and asset / income / revenue.

Each record includes the organization name, address, NTEE classification, IRS subsection code, tax-exempt status, foundation type, financial totals from the latest 990, and a list of filings with and without supporting data files.

💡 Why it matters: investigative reporting, philanthropic due diligence, and grant analysis all start with structured nonprofit data. Pulling it manually means clicking through ProPublica one EIN at a time. This Actor batches the whole pipeline.

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🎬 Full Demo

🚧 Coming soon: a 3-minute walkthrough showing how to go from sign-up to a downloaded nonprofit dataset.

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⚙️ Input

Input	Type	Default	Behavior
maxItems	integer	10	Records to return. Free plan caps at 10, paid plan at 1,000,000.
mode	string	"search"	One of search or lookup.
searchQuery	string	"red cross"	Keyword. Searches name, alias, address.
state	string	any	2-letter US state code, e.g. "NY", "CA".
category	string	any	NTEE major category filter. 26 options.
eins	array of strings	none	EINs to lookup. Required for lookup mode.

Example: search for "youth" nonprofits in Texas.

{
    "maxItems": 50,
    "mode": "search",
    "searchQuery": "youth",
    "state": "TX"
}

Example: batch-resolve 3 EINs to full profiles.

{
    "maxItems": 10,
    "mode": "lookup",
    "eins": ["13-1644147", "53-0196605", "94-1156347"]
}

⚠️ Good to Know: 990 financials reflect the most recent IRS filing on record, which can lag the current fiscal year by 18-24 months depending on filing extensions. For real-time fundraising data, consult the nonprofit directly. Search results always include enriched profile data, not just match snippets.

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📊 Output

Each record contains up to 28 fields of organization metadata, financials, and filing history. Download as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML.

🧾 Schema

Field	Type	Example
🆔 ein	integer	131644147
🆔 strein	string	"13-1644147"
🏛️ name	string	"American Red Cross"
🏷️ subName	string | null	"American National Red Cross"
📍 address	string	"431 18th St Nw"
🏙️ city	string	"Washington"
📍 state	string	"DC"
📮 zipcode	string	"20006"
🔗 url	string	ProPublica profile URL
🏷️ subsectionCode	integer	3 (501(c)(3))
🗂️ nteeCode	string	"M20" (Disaster Prep)
📅 rulingDate	date	"1938-01-01"
🏛️ foundationCode	integer	15
🏷️ exemptOrganizationStatusCode	integer	1
💰 assetAmount	integer	4783000000
💵 incomeAmount	integer	3022000000
💸 revenueAmount	integer	3022000000
📅 taxPeriod	integer	202312
📅 accountingPeriod	integer	12
🏷️ dataSource	string	"BMF"
📋 filingsWithData	array	List of 990s with parsed financials
📋 filingsWithoutData	array	List of 990s on file only
📊 score	number | null	Search relevance score
🕒 scrapedAt	ISO 8601	"2026-05-23T00:00:00.000Z"

📦 Sample records

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✨ Why choose this Actor

	Capability
🏛️	1.8M+ nonprofits. Every US 501(c) tax-exempt organization in the IRS Business Master File.
💰	Form 990 financials. Assets, income, revenue, tax period, plus links to filed 990 PDFs.
🔍	Two query modes. Free-text search across the whole index, or batch EIN lookup for due diligence.
🗂️	NTEE classification. Filter by 26 NTEE categories, from Arts to Public Safety.
🇺🇸	All 50 states + DC + territories. Filter by state for regional analysis.
⚡	Fast. 50 enriched profiles in under 30 seconds.
🚫	No authentication. Public dataset, no key needed.

📊 Nonprofit transparency starts with IRS 990 filings. This Actor makes 1.8M+ of them queryable from a single Actor run.

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📈 How it compares to alternatives

Approach	Cost	Coverage	Refresh	Filters	Setup
⭐ ProPublica Nonprofit Scraper (this Actor)	$5 free credit, then pay-per-use	1.8M+ orgs	Live per run	search, state, NTEE, EIN	⚡ 2 min
GuideStar / Candid Premier	$1,000+/year	Same dataset + extras	Daily	Many	🐢 Days
Manual ProPublica clicks	Free	Per-org	Manual	Limited	🐌 Slow
IRS bulk 990 downloads	Free	Annual flat-file	Annual	Heavy parsing required	🕒 Weeks

Pick this Actor when you want clean, queryable nonprofit data without subscribing to a premium platform.

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🚀 How to use

1. 📝 Sign up. Create a free account with $5 credit (takes 2 minutes).
2. 🌐 Open the Actor. Go to the ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer Scraper page on the Apify Store.
3. 🎯 Set input. Pick a mode (search or lookup), set keyword, state, category, or EIN list.
4. 🚀 Run it. Click Start and let the Actor pull enriched profiles.
5. 📥 Download. Grab your results in the Dataset tab as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML.

⏱️ Total time from signup to downloaded dataset: 3-5 minutes. No coding required.

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💼 Business use cases

📰 Investigative Journalism Background checks on nonprofits in a story Cross-state comparisons of advocacy groups Trace dark-money networks via EIN graphs 990 financials for nonprofit governance stories	🎓 Philanthropy & Grants Identify grant-eligible organizations by NTEE Benchmark grantees against peer nonprofits Pre-grant due diligence on candidate orgs Track funder peer-group financials over time
🏛️ Board Governance & Compliance Board background checks on candidate trustees Cross-reference officer EINs across nonprofits Validate 501(c) status before partnering Pull annual financials for audit planning	📊 Sector Research & Academia State-level nonprofit ecosystem mapping NTEE category market sizing Longitudinal asset / revenue studies Research on tax-exempt sector growth

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🔌 Automating ProPublica Nonprofit Scraper

Control the scraper programmatically for scheduled runs and pipeline integrations:

• 🟢 Node.js. Install the apify-client NPM package.
• 🐍 Python. Use the apify-client PyPI package.
• 📚 See the Apify API documentation for full details.

The Apify Schedules feature lets you trigger this Actor on any cron interval. Refresh a watched-EIN list nightly, or pull a state directory monthly.

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🌟 Beyond business use cases

Nonprofit transparency data feeds research, civic projects, classrooms, and personal investigations.

🎓 Research and academia Nonprofit-sector papers in public policy journals Sociology of philanthropy coursework Reproducible datasets for civic-tech studies Open-data exercises on tax-exempt sector	🎨 Personal and creative Personal donor decision-making spreadsheets Family foundation grant trackers Hobbyist civic-tech dashboards Newsletter research for nonprofit beats
🤝 Non-profit and civic Local community nonprofit ecosystem maps Watchdog projects on advocacy funding Investigative civic journalism on charities Voter-guide nonprofit cross-referencing	🧪 Experimentation Train fraud-detection ML on 990 anomalies Prototype an AI agent that drafts grant memos Build a "is this org legit?" Slack bot Test data warehouse loaders on nonprofit schemas

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🤖 Ask an AI assistant about this scraper

Open a ready-to-send prompt about this ParseForge actor in the AI of your choice:

• 💬 ChatGPT
• 🧠 Claude
• 🔍 Perplexity
• 🅒 Copilot

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❓ Frequently Asked Questions

🧩 How does it work?

Pick search or lookup mode. In search mode, supply a keyword plus optional state and NTEE category. In lookup mode, supply an array of EINs. Every record returns full profile data.

📏 How accurate is the data?

The data is sourced directly from IRS 990 filings and the Business Master File. Financials reflect the most recent filing on record (typically 18-24 months behind the current fiscal year).

🔁 How often is the dataset refreshed?

ProPublica refreshes the Nonprofit Explorer on a regular cadence (multiple times per year, sometimes monthly). Every run of this Actor pulls the latest snapshot.

🔎 Can I batch-resolve hundreds of EINs?

Yes. Pass them in the eins array. The Actor automatically rate-limits to stay friendly with the source.

🗂️ What is NTEE?

The National Taxonomy of Exempt Entities. 26 major categories (Arts, Education, Health, Human Services, etc.) and finer subcategories used by the IRS and research community.

⏰ Can I schedule regular runs?

Yes. Use Apify Schedules to trigger this Actor on any cron interval.

⚖️ Is this data legal to use?

Yes. IRS Form 990 filings are public record. ProPublica publishes them under permissive terms for research and journalism.

💼 Can I use this data commercially?

Yes for analytical and editorial use. Review ProPublica's terms and the underlying IRS public-record rules for redistribution scenarios.

💳 Do I need a paid Apify plan?

No. The free Apify plan handles small runs (10 records). Paid plans lift the cap and unlock scheduling.

🔁 What happens if a run fails?

Apify retries transient errors automatically. Failed runs preserve partial datasets so no progress is lost.

🛬 What if I need full 990 PDF parsing?

Each record includes filingsWithData URLs to the actual 990 PDFs on the IRS portal. For automated PDF extraction, request a companion PDF parser via the contact form below.

🆘 What if I need help?

Reach our support team through the Apify platform or the Tally form linked below.

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🔌 Integrate with any app

ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer Scraper connects to any cloud service via Apify integrations:

• Make - Automate multi-step workflows
• Zapier - Connect with 5,000+ apps
• Slack - Get nonprofit alerts in your channels
• Airbyte - Pipe nonprofit data into your warehouse
• GitHub - Trigger runs from commits and releases
• Google Drive - Export datasets straight to Sheets

You can also use webhooks to trigger downstream actions when a run finishes. Push enriched profiles into your CRM, or alert your editorial team in Slack when a new filing appears.

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🔗 Recommended Actors

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• 📈 SEC EDGAR Scraper - Public-company filings and financials
• 🏛️ FINRA BrokerCheck Scraper - Broker and investment adviser histories
• 📊 Indexmundi Scraper - Global demographic and economic indicators
• 🗺️ Nominatim OSM Scraper - Geocode nonprofit addresses via OpenStreetMap

💡 Pro Tip: browse the complete ParseForge collection for more reference-data scrapers.

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🆘 Need Help? Open our contact form to request a new scraper, propose a custom data project, or report an issue.

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⚠️ Disclaimer: this Actor is an independent tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by ProPublica, the Internal Revenue Service, or any nonprofit organization. All trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners. Only publicly available IRS-disclosed nonprofit data is collected.