How to Read a Nonprofit Form 990 (With Examples)
A plain-English walkthrough of the five lines on a Form 990 that matter most to donors — revenue, program expenses, salaries, reserves, and Schedule J.
Read article →Updated April 2026
Nonprofit Research and Analysis
NonprofitTruth's research articles draw on a database of 1,200 U.S. nonprofits and $1126.4B in combined annual revenue, all sourced from IRS Form 990 filings. Articles range from explainers (how to read a 990) to category rankings (most efficient healthcare or education charities) to sector analyses (CEO compensation patterns across the dataset).
Latest Articles
Healthcare Charities Ranked by Efficiency Score (2026)
Healthcare nonprofits sorted by Efficiency Score from IRS 990 filings, with notes on how hospital systems and disease-specific charities differ.
Read article →Education Charities Ranked by Efficiency Score (2026)
Education nonprofits ranked, from university foundations to literacy programs and tutoring nonprofits, by program-spending ratio.
Read article →Environment and Animal Charities by Efficiency (2026)
Conservation, climate, and animal-welfare nonprofits ranked on the same financial dimensions: program spend, reserves, and CEO compensation.
Read article →Arts and Culture Charities by Efficiency Score
Museums, theaters, symphonies, and cultural organizations sorted by Form 990 financial structure rather than fundraising rank.
Read article →Lowest Efficiency Score Charities (By the Data)
Organizations whose 990s show low program ratios and high overhead. We describe what the filings reveal without making impact claims.
Read article →How Much Do Nonprofit CEOs Make? Schedule J Data
Reported CEO compensation across major nonprofits, drawn from Form 990 Schedule J. Includes seven-figure earners and how comp scales with revenue.
Read article →Top Efficiency Score Charities (2026)
The highest-ranked organizations on the NonprofitTruth Efficiency Score, with the program ratios and reserves that put them at the top of the table.
Read article →How We Source the Numbers
All financials on this page come from each organization's IRS Form 990 — the federal information return that 501(c)(3) public charities, private foundations, and most other tax-exempt organizations must file annually. The Form 990 is a public document. We ingest it primarily through the ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer feed, which mirrors the IRS Tax-Exempt Organization Search dataset. Original e-file XML and PDF copies of any return can be looked up directly at the IRS, ProPublica, or the Candid (formerly GuideStar) directory.
For deeper verification, anyone can pull the original e-file XML from the IRS or browse historical filings on ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer. The IRS Tax Exempt Organization Search is the authoritative listing of every active 501(c)(3), and Candid hosts the GuideStar mission-and-program profiles that organizations write about themselves.
The NonprofitTruth Efficiency Score is a 0–100 composite that summarizes four signals from the Form 990: program-spending ratio (50% of the score), revenue-growth consistency over multiple years (20%), months of fund reserves on the balance sheet (20%), and CEO compensation as a share of revenue (10%). The grade A–F mapping is purely descriptive — it summarizes the financial structure that the 990 reveals, not the social impact, program quality, or outcomes of the work the organization does. Donors evaluating impact should pair these financial signals with program-level evaluations from sources like Charity Navigator, GiveWell, or the organization's own audited reports.
Editorial Standards
We do not accept payment from any organization to be ranked, profiled, or removed from a list. The articles describe what the public 990 filings show. Where an organization disputes a figure, we link to the original filing so readers can compare; where a 990 has been amended, we update on the next data refresh.
Articles do not provide donation advice. Donors choose where to give based on a mix of mission, evidence of impact, personal connection, and financial efficiency. NonprofitTruth covers only the financial-structure part of that picture — the rest is up to the reader, and supplementary sources like Charity Navigator program reviews, GiveWell impact research, or the organization’s own annual report fill in the other dimensions.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does NonprofitTruth research cover?
Articles fall into three buckets: explainers that walk donors through a specific section of Form 990, sector rankings that sort nonprofits within a category by Efficiency Score, and analyses that look at sector-wide patterns (executive compensation, reserves, growth). Every article is sourced from the public IRS information return — no scraped or proprietary data.
Are the rankings opinion or data?
Rankings are mechanical: we sort organizations by the same composite Efficiency Score we use site-wide (50% program ratio, 20% revenue-growth consistency, 20% reserves, 10% CEO-comp ratio) and publish the top of the list. The Score itself is descriptive — it summarizes financial structure on the 990, not program impact. The articles flag this in every ranking piece.
How current are the rankings?
Each ranking lists the filing year drawn for every organization in the table. The ProPublica feed we ingest typically lags real time by 6–18 months, since the IRS publishes 990 e-file data in batches. The dataset behind the most recent articles was last refreshed in April 2026.
Why publish "lowest efficiency" articles?
Donors regularly search for the worst-performing charities by reported financials. We answer that question with the data, not with editorial judgment. The article does not tell readers to avoid any organization — it simply lists the bottom of the Efficiency Score table and explains what specifically pulled each organization down (program ratio, reserves, comp ratio). Readers who want to dig deeper can pull the full 990 from the IRS or ProPublica.
Can I use these articles for my own research or reporting?
Yes — every article cites the underlying Form 990 fields, the filing year, and the data source (IRS Tax Exempt Organization Search and ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer). Quote any figure with attribution back to the original 990. For academic or journalistic work, reach out via the contact page if you want machine-readable extracts.
NonprofitTruth's research articles draw on a database of 1,200 U.S. nonprofits and $1126.4B in combined annual revenue, all sourced from IRS Form 990 filings. Articles range from explainers (how to read a 990) to category rankings (most efficient healthcare or education charities) to sector analyses (CEO compensation patterns across the dataset).