ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer Scraper

ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer Scraper

Scrape IRS 990 tax filings and financial data for any US nonprofit from ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer. Search by name, state, or NTEE category, or look up specific organizations by EIN. Export revenue, expenses, assets, and officer compensation to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML.

ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer holds IRS 990 filings for over 1.8 million tax-exempt organizations, but manually searching and downloading each filing is slow. This scraper reads the public search results and full organization profiles directly, returning structured financial data for every match. No API key or registration is required.

Who uses it	What they scrape ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer for
Grant researchers	Compare revenue and expense trends across nonprofits applying for the same grant.
Donor due diligence teams	Verify a charity's assets, liabilities, and officer compensation before recommending a major gift.
Journalists	Pull IRS 990 data for a set of EINs to investigate executive pay or financial irregularities.
Nonprofit analysts	Build a dataset of organizations in a specific NTEE category and state for sector benchmarking.

What it does

This Actor collects US nonprofit financial data from ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer by keyword search, state, NTEE category, or direct EIN lookup, and returns each organization as a flat row with its latest IRS 990 figures.

• 🔍 Search mode: Find nonprofits by keyword, state, and NTEE major category, then collect their full financial profiles.
• 🎯 Lookup mode: Supply a list of EINs and pull the complete IRS 990 summary for each one in a single run.
• 📊 Structured financials: Each row includes total revenue, expenses, assets, liabilities, and officer compensation from the latest filing.
• 📄 Filing metadata: Get the tax period, submission date, and PDF link for every available Form 990.

Results export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML, or straight from the API.

What you can do with ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer data

📈 Benchmark nonprofit financial health.

A grant researcher scrapes all organizations in NTEE category 'Health' across California to compare revenue growth and expense ratios before shortlisting applicants.

🕵️ Screen charities for donor due diligence.

A foundation's due diligence team looks up 50 EINs to check each nonprofit's assets, liabilities, and top executive compensation against their grant thresholds.

🗞️ Investigate executive compensation.

A journalist pulls IRS 990 data for a set of related nonprofits by EIN to trace officer pay across affiliated entities over multiple tax years.

🏛️ Map the nonprofit landscape in a state.

An academic researcher scrapes all organizations in Texas with no keyword filter to build a complete dataset of the state's tax-exempt sector for a policy paper.

Why choose this scraper

	What you get
No API key needed	Reads the public ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer pages directly, with no registration or rate-limit headaches.
Two collection modes	Search broadly by name and category, or target specific organizations by their EIN.
Full financial picture	Revenue, expenses, net assets, liabilities, and officer pay, all in one row per organization.
Bulk export ready	Outputs clean CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML for immediate analysis in any tool.

How it compares

Three other Apify actors also scrape ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer. Here is how this one compares on the capabilities their listings describe.

Feature	ParseForge	Nonprofit Explorer - IRS 990 Tax-Exempt Org Search	ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer - Tax Data	ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer - IRS 990 & 501(c)(3) Data
Search by organization name	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Filter by state	Yes	Yes	Not listed	Yes
Filter by NTEE category	Yes	Yes	Not listed	Yes
Lookup by EIN list	Yes	Not listed	Not listed	Not listed
Officer compensation data	Yes	Not listed	Not listed	Yes
Filing PDF links	Yes	Yes	Not listed	Yes

Configure the run

Drive the Actor with a keyword search, a state and NTEE category filter, or a list of EINs. Filters apply during collection so only matching organizations reach your dataset. The Input tab lists every parameter.

A first run with the defaults:

{
 "maxItems": 10,
 "mode": "search",
 "searchQuery": "red cross"
}

A larger pull:

{
 "maxItems": 200,
 "mode": "search",
 "searchQuery": "red cross"
}

Pricing

Pay-per-result: $0.02667 per result collected. You pay only for the results written to your dataset.

Results collected	Approximate cost
100 results	$2.67
1,000 results	$26.67
10,000 results	$266.70

New Apify accounts start with $5 in free credit.

Free users

Free-plan runs return up to 10 results as a preview. Upgrade your Apify plan to collect up to 1,000,000 results per run.

Run it

1. Create a free Apify account with $5 in credit.
2. Open the ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer Scraper.
3. Set your inputs and any filters, then click Start.
4. Export the results as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML from the Dataset tab.

Run it programmatically through the Apify API (run-sync-get-dataset-items) or the ApifyClient for JavaScript and Python.

Use with AI agents (MCP)

Give an AI agent live access to ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer through the Model Context Protocol. Add the Actor to Claude, Cursor, or any MCP client:

$claude mcp add --transport http apify "https://mcp.apify.com?tools=parseforge/propublica-nonprofit-explorer-scraper"

Then prompt it in plain language to run the scraper and read back the results.

Troubleshooting

Why am I getting no results for my search?

Check that your search query matches an organization name or alias on ProPublica. Try a shorter keyword or remove the state and NTEE filters to broaden the search. Some very small nonprofits may not appear if they have not filed recently.

The Actor returns fewer organizations than my maxItems setting.

This is expected when your search or EIN list has fewer total matches than the maximum you set. The Actor collects all available results and stops. Try broadening your filters if you need more data.

Some EINs in my lookup list return no data.

Verify the EIN format includes the dash, like '13-1644147'. Also confirm the organization has filed a Form 990 that ProPublica has indexed. Organizations that have not filed recently or are very new may not appear.

The financial fields are empty for some organizations.

Not every organization reports all financial fields. Smaller nonprofits may file a 990-N or 990-EZ with less detail. The scraper returns whatever ProPublica displays on the organization's summary page.

The run is taking a long time with a large EIN list.

Each EIN lookup loads a separate organization page. For large lists, set a reasonable maxItems limit and consider splitting the list across multiple runs. The Actor processes requests sequentially to be respectful to the source.

FAQ

Question	Answer
What data does this scraper return from ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer?	Each row includes the organization's name, EIN, city, state, NTEE code, total revenue, total expenses, net assets, total liabilities, and officer compensation from the most recent IRS 990 filing. It also returns the tax period, submission date, and a link to the PDF filing.
Can I search by organization name and filter by state at the same time?	Yes. In search mode you can combine a keyword with a state filter and an NTEE category to narrow results. All three filters work together.
How do I look up specific nonprofits by EIN?	Switch the mode to 'Lookup by EIN' and paste a list of EINs, one per line, in the EINs field. The Actor will pull the full profile for each EIN you provide.
Does this scraper get historical IRS 990 filings or only the latest year?	It returns the financial summary from the most recent filing available on ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer. For a full history of filings per organization, you would need to follow the PDF links in the output.
Do I need a ProPublica API key to use this Actor?	No. This scraper reads the public web pages of ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer directly. No API key, registration, or authentication is required.
What is an NTEE code and how do I use the category filter?	NTEE codes classify nonprofits by their primary mission, such as Health, Education, or Arts. The category filter lets you select a major NTEE group to restrict your search to organizations in that sector.
How many organizations can I scrape in one run?	You set the maximum number of organizations per run, up to one million. The Actor stops collecting once it reaches that limit.
What export formats are supported?	Your dataset can be exported in CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML from the Apify platform after the run completes.
Can I run this on a schedule to track changes over time?	Yes. You can set up a recurring schedule in Apify to run the Actor weekly or monthly and collect updated financial data as new IRS 990 filings are posted.
Does this cover all US nonprofits or only 501(c)(3) charities?	ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer includes data on all tax-exempt organizations that file Form 990, not only 501(c)(3) charities. This includes 501(c)(4) social welfare organizations, 501(c)(6) trade associations, and others.

Related actors

Browse the full ParseForge collection for more scrapers.

🆘 Need help? Email parseforge@protonmail.com with your run ID, your input, and what you expected.

⚠️ Disclaimer. This Actor is unofficial and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by ProPublica, Inc. It collects only publicly available data. You are responsible for using the collected data in compliance with the source's terms of service and applicable data-protection laws, including GDPR, CCPA, and PIPL. Do not use it to collect personal data unlawfully.