The Texas Attorney General has finally gotten around to has a search tool previously available in most other states: a charities online database. The links to the other state Attorney General or Secretary of State pages with their charities search aren’t all current. For example, you’ll have to hunt for the Kansas Charity Check link, the Georgia charities search and the Florida “gift givers guide” — the name of their registered charities. A search using the Texas Tax-Exempt Entity Search returns a summary of the Texas organizations. sometimes with a revenue graph, and a link to the IRS 990 forms. As of this date none of the 990 forms were yet available. [Database can be searched at the Economic Research Institute tax-exempt organization lookup.] Search by these fields, individually or in combination: organization name or word in the name, city, state, type of activity and employer identification number. An information page explains how to read a form 990 and links to other charity lookups. [No longer available.] A complete list of tax-exempt organizations are searchable on the IRS website, but 990 forms are not here. Instead, search the IRS Form 990 filings by name, keyword, state or entity type at the ProPublica database.
Read about investigating charities in this article by Margot Williams.
