Where our information comes from
We get asked this a lot, and it's a fair question — you're going to make decisions based on what we show you. Here is every source we use, in plain language, and the things we can't tell you.
The numbers on this page come straight from our own database, recounted every night — not typed in by hand.
The short version
Most of what's useful comes from funders themselves — the pages they publish about their programs, deadlines and staff. We read those regularly, because they change.
We add the public records that governments require funders to file. Those are reliable, but slow: they usually describe a year that ended a long time ago.
Then we put the two together, so you can see what a funder is doing now instead of what they did two years ago.
The sources, one by one
What funders publish about themselves
This is our biggest and most useful source. We read funders' own websites — 2.5M+ pages across 39,000+ funders so far — because that's where the current information lives: which programs are open, who they fund, when applications close, and who works there. It's also where the 47,000+ opportunities open right now come from. None of that appears in a tax filing.
The public records funders have to file
In the United States, a foundation files a return each year with the tax authorities called a Form 990. It's a public document that lists the grants they made, who sits on their board, and what they hold. We've read 786,000+ of them, which gives us 7.1M+ individual grants across 227,000+ funders.
Most countries have their own version, and we read those too: Canada's annual charity return, the UK's Charity Commission records, Australia's charity register, and the national registers used across Europe. That adds 1.0M+ grant records from outside the United States, covering funders based in 86 countries.
These records are trustworthy, but they are old by the time they become public — usually describing a year that ended 18 to 24 months ago. They will tell you who a funder supported. They will not tell you what that funder is doing now, or whether the person who championed your kind of work still has the job.
Government grant opportunities
Government funding is published separately from foundation money, and every agency does it its own way. This part of our coverage is United States only for now: the national grants portal plus 40 state and district sources. There is no single place these are listed, so we add them one at a time — which is why this grows steadily rather than arriving all at once. Government grant listings in other countries aren't covered yet.
The people who work at funders
Grants are decided by people, not buildings. We keep 1.5M+ staff and board records, and follow 299,000+ job openings posted by funders — when a foundation hires someone new for a program area, that is usually an early sign of where its attention is going.
For research on individual donors we use public information only: things like public company filings, giving that has already been reported publicly, and professional profiles. We don't buy personal data, and we don't hand you a list of wealthy strangers.
What we do with all of it
Collecting this is the easy part. The useful part is making it searchable the way you would actually ask — describe the work you do, and get back funders who fund that work, rather than funders whose website happens to use the same words.
- We read each funder's material and write a plain summary of what they genuinely fund and who they serve.
- We score how well each funder fits your organization in particular — where you work, your size, the kind of money you need. The same funder can be a strong match for you and a weak one for a similar group down the road.
- We go back and check the sources on a schedule, so programs and deadlines don't quietly go out of date.
What we can't tell you
A page about our sources that only lists the strengths wouldn't be worth much. So here is the other side.
- Some funders have far more detail than others. That follows the source, not the country — a funder we know only from a national register gets an honest but thinner profile, because the register itself says little. We would rather show you less than invent the rest.
- Public filings are always behind, and nobody can fix that. What we can do is be clear about which part of a funder's profile came from an old filing and which came from their website recently.
- We don't have everyone. Some funders have no website worth reading, many government sources aren't connected yet, and some foundations are private on purpose.
- Some of it will be wrong. Web pages are messy and deadlines change. Everything in a funder profile points back to where it came from, so you can check it — and checking before you rely on it is a good habit.
Why we go to this trouble
Because a search box over old tax returns doesn't solve the real problem. Knowing that a foundation exists has never been what stops a small, community-rooted organization from getting funded. What stops them is not knowing what that funder cares about right now, who inside it makes the decision, and whether anyone they know can make an introduction.
Information makes a funder visible. It doesn't make them reachable. The second part is the whole point.