Research Tools: IRS Now Offers Bulk Download of Some Non-Profit Data (Form 990) in XML Format
From the The Chronicle of Philanthropy:
The Internal Revenue Service opened a gusher of information on nonprofits Wednesday by making electronically filed Form 990s available in bulk and in a machine-friendly format.
The material will be available through the Public Data Sets area of Amazon Web Services. It will also include information from digital versions of the 990-EZ form filed by smaller nonprofits and form 990-PFs filed by private foundations.
In response to a lawsuit filed by Mr. Carl Malamud [President of Public.Resource.org], a federal court ruled in January 2015 that the IRS must release data from 990 forms in a machine-readable format upon request. Last June, the agency announced it would make all data from electronically filed returns generally available.
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From IRS Data Page (via Amazon Web Services)
Machine-readable data from [our emphasis] certain electronic 990 forms filed with the IRS from 2011 to present are available for anyone to use via Amazon S3.
Form 990 is the form used by the United States Internal Revenue Service to gather financial information about nonprofit organizations. Data for each 990 filing is provided in an XML file that contains structured information that represents the main 990 form, any filed forms and schedules, and other control information describing how the document was filed. Some non-disclosable information is not included in the files.
This data set includes Forms 990, 990-EZ and 990-PF which have been electronically filed with the IRS and is updated monthly in an XML format. The data can be used to perform research and analysis of organizations that have electronically filed Forms 990, 990-EZ and 990-PF. Forms 990-N (e-Postcard) are not available withinthis data set. Forms 990-N can be viewed and downloaded from the IRS website.
Direct to Form 990 Data (via Amazon Web Services)
See Also: Current Valid XML Schemas and Business Rules for Exempt Organizations Modernized e-File (via IRS)
See Also: Additional Data Sets Available on Amazon Web Services
Filed under: Associations and Organizations, Data Files, News

About Gary Price
Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area. He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit. Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com.