I read every Form 990-PF the IRS has released so far this year to find out who funds literacy programs

Description and use

A small nonprofit uses the free Python tool pf‑grants to download and analyze public IRS Form 990‑PF data, identifying foundations that fund literacy and food assistance programs.

Problem

A small nonprofit wants foundation money but paid databases are expensive; free options are hard to use.

Outcome

From 79,686 returns, 834,120 grant rows were extracted; 1,589 literacy foundations and 2,575 grants totaling $74,169,330 paid and $28,534,633 approved; 8,270 food assistance foundations and 15,181 grants totaling $335,602,958 paid and $13,287,721 approved.

Workflow

• Download yearly index
• Fetch batch XML files
• Extract 990-PF returns
• Parse Part XIV grants into CSV rows
• Filter by keyword and pre-selected flag
• Generate summary CSV
• Export results

Evidence

The IRS publishes all e-filed returns as XML, monthly, at no cost and with no API key

Source

I wrote a small Python tool, MIT licensed, that downloads the yearly index, pulls only the 990-PF returns out of each batch, and turns Part XIV into one CSV row per grant

Source

From those filings the tool produced 834,120 grant rows (820,251 paid, 13,869 approved for future payment) from 60,879 filings

Source