People are already looking you up. What they find is up to you.
They’re looking at your IRS Form 990, the annual financial filing your organization submits to the Internal Revenue Service, and the first place anyone checks before they trust you with money. They’re reading your leadership, your finances, your public record. They’re doing it without you in the room.
Your filing is already published here, exactly as submitted. Public IRS filings, free, ungated, open to anyone. It’s also a cold compliance document prepared to satisfy an auditor by someone who has never met a donor.
Claiming is how you add your organization’s own description, your current contact information, your logo, and your giving options beside the filing.
Here’s why that matters.
Eleven Reasons To Claim
The Page Already Exists. The Only Question Is Who Speaks On It.
Claiming doesn’t create the page. It decides whether you’re the only party on it with nothing to say.
Someone Is Doing Quiet Due Diligence On You Right Now
One year of ratios, one compensation line, a revenue dip, no context, and a conclusion reached before you ever make your case.
Your 990 Shows What You Spent. Not What You’re Building.
The filing is backward looking by design. The campaign, the new program, the reason the numbers moved, none of it is there unless you put it there.
Announce That You Have A Legacy Giving Program
A legacy program says what no financial statement can. You expect to be here in twenty years, and you’re asking donors to plan on it. Organizations without one look like they’re funding this year.
Give Attorneys And Trust Officers What They Need
They pull the legal name and EIN off the filing before they draft. What isn’t on the filing is your preferred bequest language, your giving instructions, and a person to call. Add those and you remove the guesswork that sends gifts to a similarly named organization in another state.
You’re Already Being Compared
Donors, funders, board candidates, and journalists can put your filing beside organizations that look like yours in about four seconds. You can’t opt out of the comparison. You can opt into having an explanation on your side of it.
Give Interested Donors A Next Step
Someone researching your finances is further along than someone browsing your website. A claimed profile puts your giving page and a real contact in front of them while they’re still deciding.
This Page Is Often Found Before Your Website
People searching your organization’s finances land here first. For that visit, this is your front door.
AI Assistants Are Reading Your Filing Today
When AI tools draw on your profile, give them your organization’s perspective alongside the numbers.
The Board Members You Want Are Vetting You
Serious candidates look at the financials before they say yes. So do their advisors.
It Survives Your Staff
Development directors leave. The page doesn’t. Claimed context is institutional, not personal.
What It Costs
The profile is free. There’s no annual fee and no subscription. Verification is a one-time $10.
Everything you add is clearly labeled Provided by Organization, Not the IRS. The separation is the point. Your context sits beside the filing without borrowing from it.
Want more than the basics? A full organization page where you tell the story your 990 can’t, your own philanthropy.org/yourorganization address, and the chance to be featured in GIVING Magazine. See What’s Included.
Be Where Donors Research You
FreeWill will sell you a featureship. Trust & Will will sell you a branded page. What you’re buying is placement in somebody else’s estate planning business.
Meanwhile, donors, funders, and prospective board members are researching you whether or not they’re writing a will. They’re examining your finances, your leadership, and your public record. They’re deciding whether you’re worth their money, their time, or their name.
A will company rents you a slot. Philanthropy.org gives you a presence.
