Class exercise: reading what a foundation says about applying

• How to find and read Part XIV, line 2 of Form 990-PF, where a foundation says whether and how it takes applications.
• Why a filing is not an invitation: it describes a past tax year, and the foundation's website may say something else today.
• How to use an open dataset to build a short prospect list, and how to explain each choice on it.

It fits a grant writing, fundraising or nonprofit management course. Students can work alone or in pairs. Print this page for them or share the link.

Read the key findings of the report (five minutes). The short version: of the 11,279 private foundations in GrantCue's public directory, 7,888 checked the box on their latest Form 990-PF saying they give only to preselected organizations. About 27% (3,061) did not check it and gave application information, and that group paid about 40% of these foundations' grants in tax year 2024.

Download foundations.csv (about 3 MB, one row per foundation) and states.csv. Both open in Excel, Google Sheets or LibreOffice. Every column is explained in data-dictionary.csv.

1. Pick a state. In foundations.csv, filter the filer_state_2024 column to your state (two letters, such as OH). This is the state in the address on the foundation's 2024 return, not necessarily where it gives.
2. Count the classes. Filter the class column and count each of the four codes: preselected_only, preselected_but_info, application_info and no_info. Check your counts against your state's row in states.csv (the row where asset_band is all).
3. Choose three foundations, one from each of these classes: preselected_only, application_info and preselected_but_info. Some states have no foundation in the last class; if yours has none, take one from a neighboring state.
4. Open each one's profile. The profile_url column links to its free GrantCue page. Read the "How to apply" section, then follow the link to the IRS 990-PF filing on ProPublica. Open the return whose tax year matches policy_tax_year: that is the filing the class comes from.
5. Read Part XIV, line 2 (Part XV on returns before tax year 2021). Note whether the box for giving only to preselected organizations is checked, then what lines 2a to 2d say: who applications go to, what form they take and what to include, any deadlines, and any restrictions on awards. Write it in the worksheet below.
6. Compare. Does the class in the file match what you read? Look for lines that say only "N/A", "NONE" or "SEE STATEMENT". The report does not count those as application information (see its method).
7. Check the foundation's website. Search for it by name. Does the site say how to apply today, and does that agree with the filing? Many small foundations have no website. If you can't find one, write that down too.
8. Decide. For each foundation, choose one: apply, build a relationship first, or skip. Give two sentences of reasons, using what the filing says about restrictions as well as how to apply.

One column per foundation. Students can copy this table into a document or fill in the printed page.

• 231 foundations checked the preselected box and still described a form, a deadline or a web address. What might that mean, and how would you find out which statement holds?
• Among the ten states with the most foundations, 45.1% of Ohio's give application information and 12.5% of Delaware's. The state is the address on a return, which can be a trustee's office. What else could explain the gap?
• The share that gives application information rises from 20.6% of the smallest foundations (by assets) to 34.6% of the largest. What does that suggest for a small nonprofit building its first prospect list?
• Counting any text at all as application information, including "N/A", would put the share at 30.0% instead of 27.1%. Which count would you use, and why?
• A filing describes a tax year that ended a year or more ago. How would you keep a prospect list current?

• An unchecked box is not a "no". In the data the box is either marked or absent, so an unchecked box looks the same as a missing section. The report calls it "not recorded as checked".
• A listed contact is not an invitation. 324 of the 330 foundations in no_info list a contact but wrote only non-answers in the application lines.
• ProPublica may list newer returns than the one the class comes from. Students should open the tax year in policy_tax_year, and may note it if a newer return says something different.
• Only the first application program is stored. A return that lists several programs is classed by the first one, so students may find more on the filing than the file shows.
• A 30-minute version: choose three foundations yourself before class, one per class, and have students do steps 4 to 8 only.
• What to hand in: the worksheet and a one-paragraph memo recommending which of the three foundations the organization should approach first.

The files are a frozen snapshot of the report's data, licensed under CC BY 4.0. To cite the report:

GrantCue Team, Foundation Application Information 2026. GrantCue, 2026. https://www.grantcue.com/research/foundation-application-information-2026. Licensed under CC BY 4.0. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23475478

Questions or corrections: write to support@grantcue.com.