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The Foundation Center Online: Your Gateway to Philanthropy on the World Wide Web

Since its launch in December 1994, the Foundation Center's Web site has grown steadily in size and scope, driven by the Center’s mission of fostering public understanding of the foundation field and related subjects. Today, with its outstanding collection of searchable databases and funding resources, the Foundation Center Online is widely recognized as the premier source of information on U.S. foundations and corporate giving, and has become one of the most popular ".org" destinations on the World Wide Web.

Applying one of our core competencies – the gathering, classification, and analysis of information on domestic foundation and corporate giving – to the Web, Foundation Center staff continually canvas new and existing grantmaker Web sites for information of interest to the Center’s many audiences. Those efforts, in conjunction with our day-to-day work with the entire universe of 990-PFs (the reporting document that all private foundations must file with the IRS), feed an array of resources that are available free of charge through the Center’s Web site, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. These include:

  • Foundation Finder, a free lookup tool that provides basic facts (address, contact person, phone and fax numbers, foundation type, assets and total giving) on more than 67,000 private and community foundations;

  • Private Foundations on the Internet — a free searchable directory of the 620+ private foundations with a Web site or presence;

  • Corporate Grantmakers on the Internet — a free searchable directory of the 400+ corporate grantmakers with a Web site or presence;

  • Grantmaking Public Charities on the Internet — a free searchable directory of the 650+ grantmaking public charities with a Web site or presence; and

  • Philanthropy News Digest — the Center’s award-winning digest of philanthropy-related news summaries and features culled from grantmaker Web sites and electronic and print media outlets nationwide. Using the PND search engine, you can searchDigest abstracts dating to January 1995.

But that’s not all. The Center’s Web site offers a range of valuable resources for grantseekers, including:

  • The Center's award-winning Online Librarian, a free electronic reference service developed by the Center’s librarians to respond to your need for factual information on foundations, philanthropy, and other issues related to nonprofits and fundraising research;

  • a comprehensive collection of answers to frequently asked questions on such subjects as the funding research process, corporate philanthropy, nonprofit organizations, and grantseeking by individuals;

  • an orientation to the grantseeking process with two tracks – one for nonprofit organizations and one for individual grantseekers;

  • links to more than 600+ (mostly) nonprofit Web resources organized by type, as well as links to a dozen common grant application forms; and

  • our proposal writing short course -- widely recognized as one of the best treatments of the subject on the Web.

Want more? We’ve got it, including:

  • a searchable database of the literature of philanthropy with more than 20,000 bibliographic citations, of which nearly 14,000 have descriptive abstracts;

  • key findings and excerpts (in HTML and PDF formats) from our research on foundation development and grantmaking patterns;

  • regularly updated lists of the top U.S. funders by asset size and by total giving;

  • an RFP (Request for Proposals) Bulletin in Philanthropy News Digest conveniently organized by subject area;

  • an NPO Spotlight feature; and, also in Philanthropy News Digest,

  • a Job Corner, with some of the most interesting current job openings in the foundation field.

With all this already available at the Center’s site — and more content and features on the way — it’s easy to see why some 11,000 organizations and individuals provide a link from their sites to the Foundation Center Online.

So when you leave this page, make a quick trip to the Foundation Center's home page and add it your bookmarks. After a few visits, we think you’ll agree: The Foundation Center Online is "your gateway to philanthropy on the World Wide Web."