About Form 990

Scanned images of Forms 990 are now available on the Internet through a joint effort of the National Center for Charitable Statistics (NCCS, at the Urban Institute's Center on Nonprofits and Philanthropy) and GuideStar, the web site for Philanthropic Research, Inc. (PRI). The general public, state charity officials, researchers, media representatives, and others interested in the scanned images can access these tax returns through the Guidestar and NCCS web sites. Search options enable users to locate charitable organizations by name, key word, city, state, zip code, revenue size, or type of organization.

The creation of this internet-accessible database of scanned images of Form 990 involves a unique public/private partnership of PRI and NCCS in cooperation with the Internal Revenue Service. Starting in July 1998, the Internal Revenue Service began scanning the paper Forms 990 submitted by charitable organizations. The IRS then forwards the scanned images to Guidestar and NCCS, where they are formatted for access on the internet. On October 18, 1999, these scanned images were posted through the web sites of Guidestar (http://www.guidestar.org) and NCCS (http://nccs.urban.org). Approximately 220,000 Forms 990 will accessible by the end of 1999 and will be up-dated as new scanned images are received.