candid.org

What It Is

Candid is a platform focused on U.S. nonprofits, foundations, and grantmaking data. It is not positioned as a general-purpose CRM, but rather as a data search, fundraising research, compliance verification, and data API service for the social sector. Its core value lies in making information on 1.9 million U.S. nonprofits—along with grant records, financials, and contact data—available to fundraisers, donors, companies, and research institutions.

Core Features and Integrations

The product offers organization search, full profiles, funding history, received/issued grants, open funding opportunities, financial details, impact metrics, key staff and LinkedIn profiles, revenue and expense charts, and peer benchmarks. For teams, it includes personalized dashboards, favorites, collections, prospect lists, saved searches, and fundraising projects. Ultimate adds stronger compliance capabilities, covering sources such as BMF, Pub78, Automatic Revocations, IRB, OFAC, and California AB 488, with support for daily verification and report downloads. AI features include an LOI writer, funder recommendations, and RFP recommendations.

Pricing and API

The free plan is suitable for basic searches, claiming organization profiles, and the Transparency Seal. Premium costs $219/month when billed monthly, or starts at $1,199/year when billed annually; Ultimate starts at $1,699/year with annual billing; Enterprise is customized for teams of more than 10 users and large organizations. Its API offering is fairly comprehensive, covering nonprofit search, compliance checks, grants, news, demographics, and taxonomy. Pricing starts from $2,750 to $9,900 depending on the API, and a 30-day API trial is available.

Pros and Cons

Strengths include broad data coverage, detailed fields tailored to the nonprofit sector, clearly identified compliance sources, and support across web SaaS, custom datasets, and real-time APIs. This makes it suitable for embedding into donation platforms, grants management systems, or corporate CSR workflows. Downsides are that higher-tier subscriptions and APIs are not cheap, Enterprise details require contacting sales, and public materials do not disclose payment methods, SLA, permission models, or security certifications. The data is also clearly centered on the U.S. nonprofit ecosystem.

Who It’s For and Access from China

Candid is best suited to fundraising teams, foundations, DAFs, donation platforms, financial services firms, university libraries, and researchers working with the U.S. nonprofit market. If your primary focus is researching Chinese nonprofits, Candid’s direct value is limited, and it may be better used alongside local public sources such as Charity China and the China Foundation Center. The source text does not specify access or payment availability from mainland China, so its accessibility status should be considered unknown.