Resources

Free grant data sources

Most of the data behind grant prospecting is published by the government and free to use. This page lists what exists, what it costs, how often it updates, and what each one is good for.

Published 2026-08-26 · every entry verified against its publisher's own page on 2026-08-26

The sources

IRS Form 990 series (bulk XML)

Internal Revenue Service

Full Form 990 filings as XML, in compressed archives.

Use it for: Researching a foundation before you approach it: what it gave, to whom, and how much, straight from its own filing.

Cost: Free · Updates: Monthly

IRS Publication 78 data

Internal Revenue Service

The list of organizations eligible to receive tax-deductible contributions, pipe-delimited text.

Use it for: Confirming an organization’s deductibility status — yours or a partner’s.

Cost: Free · Updates: Monthly

IRS Automatic Revocation list

Internal Revenue Service

Organizations whose exempt status was revoked for three consecutive years of non-filing.

Use it for: Due diligence on a fiscal sponsor or subrecipient before money moves. A revoked partner is a compliance problem you inherit.

Cost: Free · Updates: Monthly

Grants.gov Search2 API

U.S. General Services Administration

Programmatic search over federal funding opportunities: keyword, agency, eligibility, category, and status (forecasted / posted / closed / archived).

Use it for: Watching federal opportunities without paying for a prospecting subscription. Forecasted opportunities are the useful part — they surface programs before they post.

Cost: Free — no authentication required · Updates: Continuous

Grants.gov (web search)

U.S. General Services Administration

The human-facing search for the same federal opportunity data.

Use it for: Ad-hoc searching and saved-search email alerts, without writing code.

Cost: Free · Updates: Continuous

USAspending.gov

U.S. Department of the Treasury

Federal award data — the grants that got funded, by recipient and program.

Use it for: Seeing who has won a program you’re considering — award history is a better signal of fit than program text.

Cost: Free (bulk download + public API) · Updates: Continuous

Candid Foundation Directory

Candid

Curated funder profiles and grant history built on 990 data plus editorial research.

Use it for: Foundation prospecting with the research already done. Check your local library system before subscribing.

Cost: Paid — commonly available free at public libraries · Updates: Continuous

What the free sources don't do

Being honest about this matters more than the list above. Public data gives you raw material, not a workflow:

  • No matching. Nothing tells you which of these opportunities fits your organization. That judgment stays yours, or you pay a tool for it.
  • No alerting, unless you build it. The Grants.gov API will answer a query; it won't watch one for you. The web search does offer saved-search alerts.
  • Filing lag on 990s. A 990 describes a fiscal year that ended before it was filed. Good for patterns, not for "are they funding this quarter."
  • Nothing about managing what you win. None of these track deadlines, budgets against awarded lines, deliverables, or reports — that's the other half of the job.

Frequently asked

Is federal grant data really free?

Yes. Grants.gov publishes federal funding opportunities and exposes a public search API that requires no authentication or API key, and USAspending.gov publishes actual federal award data with both bulk downloads and a public API. Neither charges for access.

Can I research foundations without a paid subscription?

Largely, yes — it costs time instead of money. The IRS publishes bulk Form 990 filings monthly at no charge, and a foundation's 990 lists its actual grants: recipients, amounts, and purposes. Paid directories like Candid's add curation, search, and contact research on top of that same underlying data, which is a real service — but Candid's Foundation Directory is also available free at many public library systems.

What do paid prospecting tools add over the free sources?

Matching and alerting, mainly: eligibility profiling, automated matching against your organization, deadline alerting, and saved research on funders. Whether that is worth the subscription depends on where your pipeline comes from. If it comes from existing relationships and known programs, you may be paying for search you never run.

How current is IRS 990 data?

The IRS updates its bulk Form 990 and Publication 78 datasets monthly, but the filings themselves lag — a 990 typically describes a fiscal year that ended well before it was filed. For giving patterns and board composition that lag is fine; for "are they funding right now," pair it with the funder’s own site.

Using this page

You're welcome to cite or link this page. Every entry states the publisher's own terms as of the verification date above — if you find one that has changed, tell us at hello@fundmesa.com and we'll correct it and re-date the page.

FundMesa handles the half these sources don't: what happens after you win. What grant management software does explains that side, and the comparison page shows how the options differ.