Reading a 990-PF: the four numbers that matter
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A private foundation’s 990-PF answers questions its website will not. Most usefully, it tells you whether applying is worth a day of your time — before you spend the day.
You do not need to read the whole return. Four numbers do most of the work.
1. The grant list
This is the reason to open the filing at all. The 990-PF includes a schedule of grants paid: who received money, how much, and often for what.
Read it for three things.
Who is on it. Organizations like yours, or a different world entirely? A funder whose list is fifteen universities and two hospitals is telling you something clearer than any priorities page.
Where they are. Geographic patterns are strong and rarely stated as firmly as they are practised. A funder giving exclusively within one metro area is unlikely to make an exception for a strong proposal from outside it.
How much it repeats. Compare two or three years. A grant list that is 90% the same organizations year over year is a closed system funding existing relationships. New names appearing each year means cold applications get through. This one distinction should change how you spend your prospecting time, and almost nobody checks it.
2. The median grant, not the largest
Find the middle of the grant list, not the top.
The largest grant is usually a long relationship, a board member’s cause, or a capital commitment. It tells you almost nothing about what a first-time applicant receives.
The median tells you the funder’s normal size. Ask near it. A request at four times the median is declined on arithmetic, and most funders will not counter-offer to an applicant they do not know — reducing an ask by 75% takes a conversation they do not have time for.
3. Total grants paid, and assets
Two figures, useful together.
Total grants paid is the pool. Divided by the number of grants, it gives you the average, which alongside the median tells you whether the giving is evenly spread or dominated by a few large commitments.
Assets tell you the trajectory. Private foundations must distribute approximately 5% of the average market value of their investment assets annually, so asset size sets a rough ceiling on grantmaking. A foundation whose assets have grown substantially is likely to be granting more; one that has shrunk may be tightening. The calculation has exclusions and the requirement is not a promise about any individual grant — but the direction is informative.
4. Officers, directors and trustees
Part VIII lists them with titles.
Read it before every application, for one reason: someone on your board may know someone on theirs. That is not a scheme, it is how foundation giving has always worked, and the connection is only useful if somebody notices it exists.
It also tells you the size of the operation. A foundation with no paid staff and three family trustees runs differently from one with a program officer per focus area — the first is unlikely to take a call, the second may expect one.
What the filing will not tell you
Current priorities. Filings lag by one to two years. A new executive director, a strategic shift or a decision to sunset a program will not appear. Always pair the 990 with the foundation’s current website.
Why anyone was declined. You see grants made, never applications refused. A funder that gave to twelve organizations may have declined three hundred.
Whether they are accepting applications at all. Many private foundations do not accept unsolicited requests. If the website says so, believe it — the grant list is not an invitation.
Where to find them
The IRS publishes filings, Candid hosts them alongside foundation profiles, and ProPublica’s Nonprofit Explorer carries them too. All free.
The difference between free filings and a research database is structure. A PDF gives you one foundation at a time; you cannot ask “which funders in my state gave between $10,000 and $25,000 to youth programs last year.” That question is what a database answers, and it is the difference between researching a funder you already knew about and finding one you did not.
Candid’s Foundation Directory carries the most authoritative version of that data and is free on site at hundreds of Funding Information Network partner libraries — the full database, at the desk. For a small shop doing a research push before a fall application season, two scheduled afternoons replaces a subscription entirely.
Instrumentl puts the same 990 and giving-history data next to each funder inside a pipeline with deadline tracking, from $179/mo. That is worth it when you have ten or more applications in flight and worth much less when you have five. Our guide to the best grant research software has the volume math, and our 2026 survey found mean grant research spend of $250 a year for shops under $250K raised — which tells you where most of the sector actually sits.
The habit worth building
Twenty minutes per funder, before writing anything. Grant list, median, geography, repetition, trustees.
Most declines are fit problems rather than writing problems, and nearly all of them are visible in the filing beforehand. That is the whole return on learning to read one.
Common questions
Where can I find a foundation's 990-PF for free?
The IRS publishes filings, and Candid's website hosts them alongside foundation profiles. ProPublica's Nonprofit Explorer also carries them. For structured grant history you can sort and search rather than a scanned PDF, Candid's Foundation Directory is free on site at hundreds of partner libraries.
What is the difference between a 990 and a 990-PF?
The 990-PF is filed by private foundations and includes a schedule of grants paid — the recipient, the amount and often the purpose. That grant list is the single most useful document in foundation research. Public charities file a 990, which does not include the same grant detail.
How current is 990 data?
It lags. Returns are filed months after the fiscal year ends and take further time to become available, so you are typically looking at activity one to two years old. Recent priority shifts and new program officers will not appear. Pair the filing with the foundation's current website.
What does the 5% payout requirement mean for applicants?
Private foundations must distribute approximately 5% of the average market value of their investment assets each year. It gives you a rough sense of total grantmaking capacity from asset size, but it is not a promise about any individual grant, and the calculation has exclusions.
This post is part of the guide to the grassroots fundraising stack (under $250k raised).