Candid

Candid (formed from the 2019 merger of Foundation Center and GuideStar) helps social sector organizations advance their missions by sharing information, breaking down barriers, and improving giving. Candid maintains the most comprehensive set of data on U.S. nonprofits, foundations, grants, and philanthropy, and exposes that data through a family of developer APIs — Essentials, Premier, Charity Check, Demographics, Grants, News, Taxonomy, Eligibility, and PDF/Bulk variants — available through the Candid Developer Portal.

Candid publishes 9 API contracts indexed on the APIs.io network, including Lookup API, Essentials API, and 7 more. Tagged areas include Charities, Donations, Non-Profit, Philanthropy, and Foundations.

The Candid catalog on APIs.io includes 1 Spectral governance ruleset.

Candid’s developer surface includes engineering blog, authentication, support, and 16 more developer resources.

🌐 Visit website 📡 Profile data on GitHub

34.7/100 thin ▬ flat Agent 53/100 agent ready Front door AI 3/6 light Heartbeat 54/100 alive saas Full breakdown ↓
scored 2026-11-06 · rubric v0.27.0 · Show this score on your site →

AccessFreemiumSelf serve⚡ Free to try

1 published contract 1 MCP Servers

Charities Donations Non-Profit Philanthropy Foundations Grants990sDemographics

What this lets a business do 1

Business capabilities this provider's published APIs can perform, derived from its own contracts. Browse all capabilities →

Data & Reference Information Services

AE-230

Essentials

Kin Score

Kin Score How this is scored →
scored 2026-11-06 · rubric v0.27.0

Composite quality — 34.7/100 · thin

Contract Quality 10.1 / 19

Developer Ergonomics 5.7 / 15

Access Clarity 2.8 / 15

Operational Transparency 1.0 / 10

Contract Governance 1.2 / 9

Discoverability 5.6 / 8

Regulatory Posture 2.4 / 15

Create-or-Update Ergonomics 0.0 / 10

Agent readiness — 53/100 · agent ready

Machine-Readable Contract 18 / 18

Agentic Access Contract 10 / 10

Documented Reversibility 0 / 6

MCP Server 12 / 12

Machine-Readable Auth 10 / 10

Idempotency 0 / 9

Stable Error Semantics 8 / 8

Request/Response Examples 7 / 7

Rate-Limit Signaling 7 / 7

Typed Event Surface 0 / 6

Agent Skills 0 / 5

Well-Known Catalog 0 / 4

Consent & Bot Identity 0 / 3

A2A Agent Card 0 / 8

Dry-Run / Simulate Mode 0 / 4

Delegated User Identity 6 / 6

Protected Resource Metadata 5 / 5

Registration Without a Human 6 / 6

Agentic Commerce Well-Known Document 0 / 5

Pagination 0 / 5

Distinct Operations 3 / 3

MCP Tool Quality 6 / 6

Regulatory Posture applies to this provider. Its tags matched the Horizontal (data, software, accessibility, platform) regime, so Regulatory Posture carries 15 points of the composite. If this regime is wrong for your business, say so on your provider repo — the applicability map is public and we will correct it.

Create-or-Update Ergonomics applies to this provider. This API accepts writes, so it carries 10 points of the composite. It is scored from the published contracts themselves: whether a caller can create-or-update in one call, whether the write accepts a key the caller already holds, and whether the response says which branch ran. Without that, every write needs a search-and-branch in front of it, and the first time that check is skipped a duplicate record is created. Scored against the observed mean rather than raw — a provider at the catalog average is unchanged by this facet, not penalised by it.

The six quality facets above are damped to 75 points between them, because the conditional facet above carries the other 25. That is why each facet's contribution is shown against a damped maximum: raising a quality facet moves the composite by 75% of its nominal weight, not 100%. The full arithmetic is at apis.io/rating/.

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Agent readiness — checks not met, largest first (exact, from this profile):

Idempotency +9 pts — OpenAPI mutating operations declare an idempotency key — a header, a request-body property, or a named de-duplication token whose own description says so (verified); else common[].type matches /idempoten/i (documented)
A2A Agent Card +8 pts — a2a/-a2a.yml manifest, graded on conformance.grade against A2A 1.0.0
Typed Event Surface +6 pts — AsyncAPI document, OR webhooks/callbacks objects in the as-published OpenAPI, OR common[].type includes Webhooks
Documented Reversibility +6 pts — a reversal operation in the contract, graded up when a window is documented too
Pagination +5 pts — share of collection GETs (an array, or one wrapped in data/items/results ...) that declare a page/limit/offset/cursor parameter, a Link header or a next/cursor field; na with no collection GETs
Agent Skills +5 pts — skills artifact present, graded by who authored it

4 more unmet checks in the Agent Readiness table above.

Kin Score — facets with the most composite points still available (weight × headroom):

Access Clarity scores 18.4 — up to +16.3 composite points
Developer Ergonomics scores 38.1 — up to +12.4 composite points
Operational Transparency scores 10.5 — up to +11.6 composite points

Each check links to what satisfies it. Publish the artifact, or tell us where it already lives, and the score moves on the next scoring run.

Improve this rating by publishing the missing artifacts — every area above can be raised, and the full rubric is at apis.io/rating/. Every facet and dimension name above is a link: it opens that measurement's own page — what it means, the exact checks that feed it, how the whole catalog distributes on it, and the providers at the top of it. This rating is computed from the provider profile at artifacts.apis.io/candid/apis.yml: open an issue on github.com/api-evangelist/candid to ask a question or point us at an artifact you publish. Submit an artifact on GitHub — free → Manage your own listing — the Influence plan, $499/mo →

Markets this provider is in provisional

The Kin Score Market layer reads a provider inside its market: its position, and how deep its integrations go. Depth is only comparable within a position. Provisional and unweighted: not part of the Kin Score or agent readiness.

Market	Position	Depth	Registered MCP server	Declares compatibility
Nonprofit and Fundraising	undeclared	-	-	-

Registered MCP server and declares compatibility are report only — not weighted. Undeclared means we found nothing we can read, so there is no number: we never infer integrations.

Standards implemented 4

Standards this provider implements or carries. De facto ones are profiled and measured by the API Commons; formal ones come from the standards directory and are linked by the provider's own tags. The evidence column says how each claim was established — not that it was made.

Model Context Protocol (MCP)

measured — observed by APIs.io (verified)

OAuth 2.0 Protected Resource Metadata

measured — observed by APIs.io (verified)

Dynamic Client Registration

measured — observed by APIs.io (published)

OpenAPI

measured — observed by APIs.io (published)

APIs 9

Individual APIs this provider publishes, each with its own machine-readable definition.

Candid Premier API

Deep nonprofit profile data. Returns comprehensive records for a given organization including financials, programs, leadership, board, grants received and awarded, operating det...

Candid Charity Check API

Real-time nonprofit verification and compliance screening used for due diligence, donation compliance, and tax-deductibility checks. Returns IRS 501(c)(3) status, revocation his...

Candid Demographics API

Structured demographic data voluntarily provided by nonprofits about their staff, board, and populations served. Enables funders and platforms to analyze equity, diversity, and ...

Candid Grants API

Access to Candid's global grants dataset — summary statistics, funders, recipients, and individual transaction records. Useful for philanthropic benchmarking, funder research, a...

Candid News API

Search and retrieve philanthropic news content from Candid's curated news database covering funders, grantees, sector trends, and policy. Supports customizable parameters for da...

Candid Taxonomy API

Returns Candid's philanthropic classification system (subject, population, support-strategy, and geographic area taxonomies) so integrators can consistently tag and query nonpro...

Candid Nonprofit Eligibility API

Evaluates whether a given nonprofit is eligible to receive a grant or donation based on configurable rules — IRS status, country, OFAC, custom program criteria — to automate gra...

Candid Lookup API

Operations for retrieving lookup values and filter metadata.

Candid Essentials API

The Essentials API from Candid — 4 operation(s) for essentials.

Scroll for all 9

Open Collections 3

Open, tool-agnostic API collections (OpenAPI-derived and Bruno).

Candid Essentials API

OPEN COLLECTION

Candid Essentials Lookup API

OPEN COLLECTION

Candid Essentials Lookup Search API

OPEN COLLECTION

MCP Servers 1

Model Context Protocol servers that expose these APIs to AI agents.

Candid MCP Server

Remote MCP server at mcp.candid.org over HTTP.

MCP SERVER

Candid API pricing

Not yet checked against Candid's own pricing page. Compiled by API Evangelist on 2026-05-04; confirm before you rely on a figure. A free plan or tier is listed.

Plan	Price
Free freemium	Free
Professional paid	Free
Enterprise enterprise	—

Plan details, limits and sources →

Rate limits

Free Tier Default: 10 requests per minute
Free Tier Monthly Quota: 1000 requests per month
Professional Tier Default: 100 requests per minute

Compiled by API Evangelist, not yet checked against Candid's documentation. All 5 limits →

Pricing Plans 1

Published pricing tiers and plan structures.

Candid Plans Pricing

3 plans

PLANS

Rate Limits 1

Documented rate limits and quota policies.

Candid Rate Limits

5 limits

RATE LIMITS

Service Levels 1

Uptime the provider promises or reports, as SLA4OAI. Read from its own pages; APIs.io runs no monitors.

Candid

SLA

FinOps 1

Cost, billing, and metering signals for API financial operations.

Candid Finops

FINOPS

Spectral Rules 1

Spectral governance rulesets for linting and validating these APIs.

Candid API Rules

52 rules · 50 errors 1 warnings 1 info

SPECTRAL

Security Posture 2

Authentication, domain security, vulnerability disclosure, and trust-center signals.

Candid Authentication

apiKey · 1 scheme

SECURITY

Candid Domain Security

TLSv1.3 · HSTS · DMARC

SECURITY

Agentic Access 1

Recommended x-agentic-access execution contracts for AI agents.

Candid Agentic Access

7 operations

7 operations · 0 acting

AGENTIC

Resources

Get Started 2

Portal, sign-up, and the first successful call

DeveloperPortal

DeveloperPortal

DataPortal

DataPortal

Agent Surfaces 2

MCP servers, agent skills, and machine-readable catalogs

AgenticAccess

AgenticAccess

LlmsText

LlmsText

Build 1

SDKs, sample code, and the tooling you integrate with

GitHubOrganization

GitHubOrganization

Access & Security 2

Authentication, authorization, and security posture

DomainSecurity

DomainSecurity

Authentication

Authentication

Operate 2

Status, limits, changes, and where to get help

RateLimits

RateLimits

Support

Support

Commercial 5

Pricing, plans, and the legal terms of use

Plans

FinOps

PricingAndAccess

PrivacyPolicy

TermsOfService

Company 3

The organization behind the API

Blog

Blog

LinkedIn

Website

Website

Other 2

Properties that don't map to a standard resource type

CapabilityMap

CapabilityMap

APIsOverview

APIsOverview

Source (apis.yml)

aid: candid
name: Candid
url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/candid/refs/heads/main/apis.yml
deliveryModel:
  model: saas
  open_source: false
  commercial: true
  callable_host: true
  label: Hosted service · you call their endpoint
  confidence: high
  source:
  - openapi
  - pricing
  generated: '2026-08-28'
  method: derived
accessModel:
  pricing: freemium
  onboarding: self-serve
  trial: false
  try_now: true
  public: false
  gated: none
  gated_source:
  - onboarding
  label: Freemium · Self-serve signup
  confidence: medium
  source:
  - plans
  - authentication
  - security
  generated: '2026-11-06'
  method: derived
image: https://kinlane-images.s3.amazonaws.com/shared/apis-json/icons/candid.png
type: Index
x-docs-platform: readme
x-docs-platform-confidence: high
x-docs-platform-checked: 2026-09-21
tags:
- Charities
- Donations
- Non-Profit
- Philanthropy
- Foundations
- Grants
- 990s
- Demographics
tags_raw:
- Charities
- Donations
- Non-Profits
- Philanthropy
- Foundations
- Grants
- 990s
- Demographics
access: 3rd-Party
created: '2025-03-01'
modified: '2026-10-06'
position: Producing
specificationVersion: '0.23'
description: Candid (formed from the 2019 merger of Foundation Center and GuideStar) helps social sector organizations advance
  their missions by sharing information, breaking down barriers, and improving giving. Candid maintains the most comprehensive
  set of data on U.S. nonprofits, foundations, grants, and philanthropy, and exposes that data through a family of developer
  APIs — Essentials, Premier, Charity Check, Demographics, Grants, News, Taxonomy, Eligibility, and PDF/Bulk variants — available
  through the Candid Developer Portal.
apis:
- aid: candid:premier-api
  name: Candid Premier API
  description: Deep nonprofit profile data. Returns comprehensive records for a given organization including financials, programs,
    leadership, board, grants received and awarded, operating details, affiliations, and FTA (Financial Trend Analysis). Supports
    a Profile PDF generation endpoint for building ready-to-share nonprofit briefs.
  humanURL: https://developer.candid.org/reference/welcome
  baseURL: https://api.candid.org/premier
  tags:
  - Non-Profit
  - Finance
  - Profiles
  - PDF
  tags_raw:
  - Nonprofits
  - Financials
  - Profiles
  - PDF
  - Financial
  properties:
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://developer.candid.org/reference/welcome
  - type: Portal
    url: https://developer.candid.org/
- aid: candid:charity-check-api
  name: Candid Charity Check API
  description: Real-time nonprofit verification and compliance screening used for due diligence, donation compliance, and
    tax-deductibility checks. Returns IRS 501(c)(3) status, revocation history, public-charity / private- foundation classification,
    OFAC watchlist screening, and more. Offers national and state-level endpoints.
  humanURL: https://developer.candid.org/reference/welcome
  baseURL: https://api.candid.org/charitycheck
  tags:
  - Compliance
  - Verification
  - IRS
  - Due Diligence
  properties:
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://developer.candid.org/reference/welcome
  - type: Portal
    url: https://developer.candid.org/
- aid: candid:demographics-api
  name: Candid Demographics API
  description: Structured demographic data voluntarily provided by nonprofits about their staff, board, and populations served.
    Enables funders and platforms to analyze equity, diversity, and inclusion across the social sector.
  humanURL: https://developer.candid.org/reference/welcome
  baseURL: https://api.candid.org/demographics
  tags:
  - Demographics
  - DEI
  - Non-Profit
  tags_raw:
  - Demographics
  - DEI
  - Nonprofits
  properties:
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://developer.candid.org/reference/welcome
  - type: Portal
    url: https://developer.candid.org/
- aid: candid:grants-api
  name: Candid Grants API
  description: Access to Candid's global grants dataset — summary statistics, funders, recipients, and individual transaction
    records. Useful for philanthropic benchmarking, funder research, and grant-market intelligence.
  humanURL: https://developer.candid.org/reference/welcome
  baseURL: https://api.candid.org/grants
  tags:
  - Grants
  - Funders
  - Recipients
  - Transaction
  tags_raw:
  - Grants
  - Funders
  - Recipients
  - Transactions
  properties:
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://developer.candid.org/reference/welcome
  - type: Portal
    url: https://developer.candid.org/
- aid: candid:news-api
  name: Candid News API
  description: Search and retrieve philanthropic news content from Candid's curated news database covering funders, grantees,
    sector trends, and policy. Supports customizable parameters for date range, topic, geography, and organization.
  humanURL: https://developer.candid.org/reference/welcome
  baseURL: https://api.candid.org/news
  tags:
  - News
  - Philanthropy
  - Content
  properties:
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://developer.candid.org/reference/welcome
  - type: Portal
    url: https://developer.candid.org/
- aid: candid:taxonomy-api
  name: Candid Taxonomy API
  description: Returns Candid's philanthropic classification system (subject, population, support-strategy, and geographic
    area taxonomies) so integrators can consistently tag and query nonprofit, grant, and funder records.
  humanURL: https://developer.candid.org/reference/welcome
  baseURL: https://api.candid.org/taxonomy
  tags:
  - Taxonomy
  - Classification
  - Metadata
  properties:
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://developer.candid.org/reference/welcome
  - type: Portal
    url: https://developer.candid.org/
- aid: candid:nonprofit-eligibility-api
  name: Candid Nonprofit Eligibility API
  description: Evaluates whether a given nonprofit is eligible to receive a grant or donation based on configurable rules
    — IRS status, country, OFAC, custom program criteria — to automate grantmaking and giving workflows.
  humanURL: https://developer.candid.org/reference/welcome
  baseURL: https://api.candid.org/eligibility
  tags:
  - Eligibility
  - Grantmaking
  - Compliance
  properties:
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://developer.candid.org/reference/welcome
  - type: Portal
    url: https://developer.candid.org/
- aid: candid:candid-lookup-api
  name: Candid Lookup API
  description: Operations for retrieving lookup values and filter metadata.
  humanURL: https://developer.candid.org/reference/welcome
  baseURL: https://api.candid.org/essentials
  tags:
  - Lookup
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/candid-lookup-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://developer.candid.org/reference/welcome
  - type: Portal
    url: https://developer.candid.org/
- aid: candid:candid-essentials-api
  name: Candid Essentials API
  description: The Essentials API from Candid — 4 operation(s) for essentials.
  humanURL: https://developer.candid.org/reference/welcome
  baseURL: https://api.candid.org/premier
  tags:
  - Essentials
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/candid-essentials-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://developer.candid.org/reference/welcome
  - type: Portal
    url: https://developer.candid.org/
common:
- type: CapabilityMap
  url: capabilities/candid-capability-edges.yml
  name: Candid Business Capability Map
- type: Plans
  url: plans/candid-plans-pricing.yml
- type: RateLimits
  url: rate-limits/candid-rate-limits.yml
- type: FinOps
  url: finops/candid-finops.yml
- url: https://candid.org/blogs/
  type: Blog
- type: AgenticAccess
  url: agentic-access/candid-agentic-access.yml
- type: DomainSecurity
  url: security/candid-domain-security.yml
- type: Authentication
  url: authentication/candid-authentication.yml
- type: GitHubOrganization
  url: https://github.com/CandidOrg
- type: LinkedIn
  url: https://www.linkedin.com/company/candiddotorg
- type: Website
  url: https://candid.org
- type: DeveloperPortal
  url: https://developer.candid.org/
- type: DataPortal
  url: https://data.candid.org/reference/welcome-to-candids-data-portal
- type: APIsOverview
  url: https://candid.org/use-our-data
- type: PricingAndAccess
  url: https://candid.org/use-our-data
- type: PrivacyPolicy
  url: https://candid.org/privacy-policy
- type: TermsOfService
  url: https://candid.org/terms-of-use
- type: Support
  url: https://help.candid.org/
- type: Integrations
  url: https://candid.org/partners/
- type: LlmsText
  url: https://developer.candid.org/llms.txt
integrations:
- name: Candid
- name: footer
- name: Candid's 2026 Platinum Seal of Transparency
maintainers:
- FN: Kin Lane
  email: kin@apievangelist.com

Candid API — frequently asked questions

Does Candid have an API?

Yes. APIs.io lists 9 APIs from Candid, including Candid Premier API, Candid Charity Check API and Candid Demographics API, and 6 more.

Is there an OpenAPI specification for the Candid API?

Yes. APIs.io indexes 2 OpenAPI specifications for Candid, each linked for download from this page.

How do I authenticate with the Candid API?

Candid documents its authentication (apiKey · 1 scheme). The details are profiled on APIs.io as Candid Authentication.

How much does the Candid API cost?

APIs.io lists 3 pricing plans for Candid, with each plan's price, limits and inclusions under Pricing on this page.

Does Candid have an MCP server?

Yes. APIs.io lists 1 MCP server for Candid: Remote MCP server at mcp.candid.org over HTTP.

Is the Candid API ready for AI agents?

Candid has a Kin Score of 34.7 out of 100 (thin) and an Agent Readiness score of 52.6 (agent-ready), scored by API Evangelist on 2026-11-06.

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