from The Chronicle of Philanthropy:

IRS Takes Step to Make Charity Data More Accessible

The Internal Revenue Service took a major step this week toward making financial data about the nonprofit world more broadly accessible to the public.

The data released by the IRS doesn’t include everything on the informational returns filed by charities and foundations. Mostly it includes figures on sources of financial support, total assets and revenue, spending on overhead and programs, and compensation paid to a group’s top-paid officials. It also lacks the names and locations of the organizations, instead just offering a federal employee identification number for each group’s form.

… The [National Center for Charitable Statistics at the Urban Institute] plans to post the IRS data on its Web site by early next week in a format that makes it easier for people to search and manipulate the data by an organization’s name and its state. Additionally, the center will work to consolidate documents in cases in which nonprofits file more than one tax form in a year or make revisions to their forms.