November 4, 1999 | Read Time: 2 minutes
At the end of last month, Philanthropic Research posted more than 190,000 Forms 990, the informational tax returns that charities file with the Internal Revenue Service, on its GuideStar Web site — but had to take them down after some documents were found to include information about donors.
The organization is now reviewing each document, removing the confidential donor information, and re-posting the returns. So far, more than 25,000 Forms 990 are back on the site.
The Williamsburg, Va., non-profit organization has been working with the National Center for Charitable Statistics at the Urban Institute, in Washington, to acquire scanned images of the documents from the I.R.S., enter the information into a data base, and convert the images into a form that can be presented on line. The Forms 990 are also available on the center’s Web site.
Both organizations plan to add new features to their sites that will allow visitors to use the information to create spreadsheets using financial data from different charities.
Eventually, the organization plans to post Forms 990 for all of the approximately 220,000 charities that it estimates are required to file the document. Religious organizations, federally chartered groups such as the American Red Cross, and charities with annual revenues of less than $25,000 are not required to file a return.
The GuideStar site does not, however, include any Forms 990-PF, informational tax returns that private foundations are required to file, and Philanthropic Research has no plans to post them. “We just have our hands so full right now handling the 990s,” said Arthur (Buzz) Schmidt, president of Philanthropic Research.
The site has proved quite popular. It recorded more than 650,000 hits before noon on the first day the charity documents were posted — at times overwhelming the site’s server. “This has far exceeded our expectations,” says Mr. Schmidt.
To get there: Go to http://www.guidestar.org and http://nccs.urban.org/990.
