GuideStar
For General Operating Support
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Amount$800,000
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Program
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Date Awarded3/16/2015
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Term24.0 Months
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Type of SupportGeneral Support/Organization
Overview
GuideStar serves as a hub of information about U.S. nonprofits, collecting information from multiple sources (primarily IRS Form 990 tax returns filed by nonprofits) and distributing it through multiple channels. GuideStar’s new strategic plan includes an array of innovations and pilot projects to develop new lines of work that could increase impact and diversify revenue streams. This is critical as 990 data will soon be freely distributed in digital form, which will impact GuideStar’s current revenue model. GuideStar was an anchor grantee of the Philanthropy Program’s Nonprofit Marketplace Initiative. We announced in March 2014 that we would be responsibly winding down that Initiative. This is the final grant in that process.
About the Grantee
Grantee Website
www.guidestar.org
Address
4801 Courthouse Street, Suite 220, Williamsburg, VA, 23188-2678, United States
Grants to this Grantee
for understanding the connection between nonprofit organizations and their intended beneficiaries
GuideStar is an information service specializing in reporting on US nonprofit organizations. GuideStar’s operations include data digitization, database management and development, nonprofit services, web site operations, research and verification of 501c3 public charity status. Those interested in reviewing a nonprofit’s recent Forms 990 can register at GuideStar.org and download them for free; additional information is available in various fee-based packages. With this grant, GuideStar will make improvements to its taxonomy of the target population(s) served by nonprofits and to its collection mechanisms for additional data from nonprofits about the composition of their populations served.
for support of exploratory project to assemble data on nonprofits’ participation in politics
GuideStar works to "gather and disseminate information about every single IRS-registered nonprofit organization." As such it is potentially in a unique position to assess the increasingly important role that nonprofit organizations are playing in American politics -- both in serving as advocates for particular points of view and, more and more, as institutional entities serving to route contributions from individual and institutional donors to political campaigns. The purpose of this exploratory project is to ascertain whether and how GuideStar, working with other Madison Initiative grantees, could use its core capabilities to illuminate the origin, destination, intent of politically-oriented funds flowing through nonprofits.
