Foundation Center APIs
The most trusted and comprehensive data about philanthropy worldwide
Foundation Center APIs put philanthropic data about organizations and funding around the world at your fingertips. Quickly and easily incorporate our data into your internal systems and applications.
You can use these APIs to:
- Generate a list of funders, recipients or grants based on specific criteria (e.g., issue area, location, population served, etc.)
- Get summary statistics on philanthropic funding based on specific criteria
- Autoclassify your data according to Foundation Center’s Philanthropy Classification System (PCS), the OECD DAC’s purpose codes, and/or the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
- Incorporate Foundation Center’s PCS taxonomy and geographic taxonomy into your products or internal systems
- Look up basic information about an organization
Getting Started with Foundation Center APIs
For more information about Foundation Center APIs, please contact api@candid.org.
- Review available APIs.
- Register for an API key.
You will receive a confirmation email with your API key within two business days. This API key will give you access to our free API endpoints (disaster philanthropy, code lookups), which can be used to test our APIs. These free APIs work the same way as the corresponding credit-based endpoints, so you can use them to fine-tune your API calls before incurring any charges. - Start coding!
- Purchase credits via an API subscription
to get access to premium API data endpoints.
Make sure to review our attribution guidelines and Terms of Use.
Attribution Requirements
Licensee may include information obtained from Foundation Center APIs in reports provided to its users in fulfillment of its mission. Within said usage, for each screen display and printed representation thereof that incorporates the Licensed Materials, Licensee shall include the following attribution:
Powered by Foundation Center. api.foundationcenter.org.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are Foundation Center APIs?
Foundation Center APIs (Application Programming Interface) enable you to access worldwide grant data, including grantmakers and their recipients. Quickly and easily incorporate our data into your internal systems and applications.
Can I test out the APIs?
What is the source of data in Foundation Center APIs?
Foundation Center compiles data from a number of sources, including direct reporting of grants by foundations, IRS information returns (Forms 990 and 990-PF), foundation web sites, and other public sources. In all, Foundation Center's staff monitors more than 35 diverse information sources to verify the details in our databases.
How often is the data in Foundation Center APIs updated?
The data set is updated weekly as new data becomes available. Foundations that wish to submit grants data to Foundation Center are encouraged to join our Electronic Grant Reporting program. For more information, e-mail us at egrants@foundationcenter.org.
What is a Dataset Summary?
Understand the overall funding based on a set of criteria. Data Summaries generates summary totals for:
- Number of grantmakers
- Number of recipients
- Number of grants
- Dollar value of grants
Are enterprise/custom plans available?
Please e-mail us at api@foundationcenter.org to discuss enterprise or custom plan options.
Who can I contact for more information?
For more information about Foundation Center APIs, please contact api@foundationcenter.org.