Nonprofits might not have to pay taxes, but they still have to file annual returns to the IRS. These documents, known as Form 990, contain lots of information about the money a nonprofit brought in (often via donations from people like you) and spent in a given year.
As an education reporter, I use these required filings to monitor private colleges, which aren’t held to the same transparency standards as state-funded schools. Form 990s can also help me understand foundations and other organizations that raise funds for purposes related to education.
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Nonprofits are required to provide a copy of their latest Form 990 if you ask. But often, you can skip this step and look up years of returns online. While some nonprofits post their 990s on their websites (I love when they do!), I often use ProPublica’s free Nonprofit Explorer tool, which contains tax filings from nearly two million nonprofits.
Reading Form 990s can take some getting used to, but the effort is worth it for the financial insights they contain.