You have found a family foundation that funds literacy work in your county. Its website is one page with a contact form and a mission statement. No deadline, no grant range, no list of past grantees.
What you want is already public. Every private foundation files a Form 990-PF each year, and it holds the grant list, the payout math, the trustees, and lines where the foundation states whether it accepts applications. Six places in it beat a month of emails.
Why the 990-PF Beats the Website
Private foundations have no small-filer option. A public charity whose gross receipts are normally $50,000 or less files a 990-N e-Postcard and discloses almost nothing. A private foundation files the full 990-PF regardless of size, due the 15th day of the fifth month after its tax year closes, and the Form 990-PF instructions require e-filing. E-filing is available only for the current year and two prior periods, so anything older must go in on paper, which is why some back years lag.
These returns are also less redacted. A tax-exempt organization generally need not disclose its contributors, but the IRS says that exclusion does not apply to private foundations. Donor names come from Schedule B, triggered only when the foundation received $5,000 or more from one person that year, so a long-endowed foundation taking in nothing now names no donor. See also who can see your 990.
Where To Get It
ProPublica's Nonprofit Explorer is fastest; full filings go back as far as 2001. IRS Tax Exempt Organization Search is the authoritative copy, though the IRS warns of posting delays.
If the year you need has not appeared, ask the foundation. A private foundation must allow public inspection of its recent returns and provide copies on request for a reasonable fee, though it can decline to send copies when it has made them widely available, which posting on a third-party database satisfies. Ask as a request, not a demand.
Note the year. A return filed in 2026 covers 2025 at best, often two years back on extension. This is history, not a forecast.
The Six Places To Look
1. Part XIV, Line 2: Does It Say It Takes Applications
Part XIV is titled Supplementary Information. Line 1 covers foundation managers; 1a names managers who have cumulatively contributed more than $5,000 and more than 2% of all contributions the foundation ever received, often how you find the living donor. Line 2 is the one you want, and it opens with a checkbox: check here if the foundation only makes contributions to preselected charitable organizations and does not accept unsolicited requests for funds.
A checked box means do not send a proposal. It does not mean the foundation never funds anyone new, as the second example shows.
If the box is clear, lines 2a through 2d give the person applications go to, the form they should take, any deadline, and any restriction by geography, charitable field, or kind of institution. The instructions also ask for dollar limitations in 2d, so read it before guessing at a number. That is a request for proposals, filed with the federal government, by a foundation that never published one, and our guide to reading a grant RFP applies.
Two limits. Part XIV is required only of foundations with at least $5,000 in assets per books at some point in the year, and never of a foreign foundation meeting the 85% foreign-support test, so a blank Part XIV proves nothing about size. A clear checkbox is also not a yes: 2a through 2d can be empty.
2. Part XIV, Line 3: The Grant List
Line 3a lists grants paid during the year, 3b those approved that year but unpaid at year end. In most returns it is an attached schedule at the back.
Each entry gives the recipient and address, its foundation status as a code rather than plain English, any relationship between an individual recipient and a foundation manager or substantial contributor, the purpose, and the amount. Filter on that status column first: a scholarship-paying foundation's list can be almost entirely awards to named individuals, which says nothing about its organizational grants.
On what remains, drop the largest award and the token small ones, then take the median. That is the ask the foundation is used to approving.
Line 3b carries one trap. The instructions direct the foundation not to report grants approved in a prior year but still unpaid, so 3b shows only that year's new commitments, not the forward book. A multi-year pledge made in 2023 is invisible on a 2025 return, so pull two or three years of 3b lists before deciding next year's capacity is open.
3. Part I: Is Money Still Coming In
Line 1, contributions and gifts received, tells you whether a living donor is still funding the foundation, which bears on whether grantmaking grows or shrinks. Line 25 column (d) gives grants paid that counted as qualifying distributions, not the same as the 3a total: 3a also sweeps in non-qualifying payments and current-year payments of older set-asides.
4. Parts IX Through XIII: Ahead or Behind
Skip the arithmetic and read Part XII, line 6f: it states the undistributed income for the filing year and that it must be distributed the following year. That answers whether the foundation is under pressure to move money. If you want a ratio, the honest inputs are qualifying distributions from Part XI over the net value of noncharitable-use assets from Part IX, not grants over balance-sheet assets.
The obligation has more moving parts than one paragraph holds, so treat your read as an estimate, not an audit. The minimum investment return is 5% of the fair market value of assets not held for exempt purposes, less the debt incurred to buy them and a 1.5% cash allowance. The amount that must go out, the distributable amount, is that figure reduced by the foundation's own income and investment-income taxes, then adjusted upward for recoveries and unspent set-asides. The real obligation usually sits below 5%, not at it.
What satisfies it is broader than grants. Qualifying distributions include the charitable share of reasonable administrative expenses, purchases of assets used directly in charitable work, program-related investments from Part XI line 1b, and project set-asides, which must be paid out within 60 months and qualify either under a suitability test, which needs advance IRS approval, or a cash distribution test, which does not. Grants to organizations the foundation or its disqualified persons control, and to other private non-operating foundations, generally do not count, so a long grant list can still sit below payout.
Enforcement is real: the tax on failure to distribute income is 30% of the undistributed amount, charged again each year it goes uncorrected, plus 100% more if it is not fixed within 90 days of IRS notice. That is timing information, not a promise the money moves to you.
One exception: a private operating foundation runs its own programs, completes Part XIII to prove it, and checks a box at the top of Part X, shared with certain foreign foundations, to skip Part X and parts of Part XII. The distribution requirement does not reach it, so blank parts and a short grant list there are structure, not a red flag.
5. Part VII: The People
Part VII line 1 lists every officer, director, trustee, and foundation manager with compensation, including zero. That list is always complete, and it is the one to circulate to your board. A trustee who shares a church, school, or former employer with one of your board members is worth more than a perfect letter of inquiry.
Lines 2 and 3 are capped and often read NONE: only the five highest-paid employees and five highest-paid professional-service contractors, and only those whose total compensation tops $50,000. A foundation whose program officer is paid under that names no employee.
6. Parts II and V: Size and Tax Base
Part II column (c) gives total assets at fair market value. Part V computes the excise tax on net investment income, 1.39% for tax years beginning after Dec. 20, 2019. Check line 1a first: exempt operating foundations pay none and enter N/A, and exempt foreign organizations pay 4% of gross investment income under section 4948.
Worked Example: The Open Small Foundation
A foundation reports $4.2 million in assets at fair market value. The preselected box is clear, 2c gives a March 1 deadline, and 2d limits awards to three counties. The 3a schedule lists 19 grants totaling $212,000, all to organizations, from $2,500 to $40,000; drop the outlier and two token grants and the median of the remaining 16 is $8,000. Part I line 1 shows $50,000 received, and Part XII line 6f no undistributed income.
The read: a live, open foundation with a working donor and no payout backlog. Ask for $8,000 to $12,000, not $40,000, and apply by March 1 in the form 2b specifies. The pattern matches recent foundation grant data on small foundations and operating support.
Worked Example: The One That Looks Open and Is Not
A foundation reports $30 million in assets. The preselected box is checked, but the 3a schedule lists 24 grants and three recipients do not appear in the prior two years' returns.
The read: it may fund organizations new to it, and not through applications. A new name can be a renamed existing grantee, so widen the lookback first. If the pattern holds, pull the trustee names from Part VII line 1 and find a path from your board rather than sending a proposal.
Edge Cases
A one-time spike in contributions received, often a bequest, makes a foundation look like it is growing when it is absorbing one event. A non-calendar fiscal year shifts the filing date but not the deadline in line 2c, which is free text: a June year-end foundation can run a March 1 deadline, so read the tax year at the top of the form rather than the year you downloaded it.
What the Form Will Not Tell You
It will not tell you why an applicant was declined, what the trustees care about this year, or whether the board has stopped funding your field. The 990-PF records decisions already made. Use it to qualify prospects and size asks, then do the human work our guide to how to find grants covers.
The Takeaway
Part XIV line 2 tells you whether to apply. Line 3 tells you who was funded and how much to ask, once you filter out individuals. Part I shows whether money is still coming in, Part XII line 6f whether payout is overdue, Part VII line 1 the names, Parts II and V the size. Twenty minutes with one return disqualifies most prospects.