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Get started with Essentials

Overview

Essentials API is Candid's nonprofit search engine, where you can use the most common set of data about nonprofits to quickly find organizations relevant to your users, and then use those results to get more data from our other APIs.

  • Search by organization name or EIN to help users find nonprofits.
  • Research nonprofits most relevant to your users based on keyword search terms, location, financials & more.
  • Surface organizations with recently updated data to keep your records up to date. ​
  • Create advanced search capabilities for your users to search by cause area, within a location and radius, and between a range of revenue, assets and expenses.
  • Display results with nonprofit branding including mission, website, logo, and contact information to help users easily recognize their favorite nonprofits.
  • Identify organizations who have submitted demographic data to Candid.
  • Allow users to filter results based on Pub78 Verification, audits performed, and form types filed with the IRS.

Endpoints

The following endpoints are the most recent versions included with Essentials API:

Organization Search Endpoints

  • Essentials API v3 (Most Recent Version) - Search Candid’s most common set of data about nonprofits to quickly find organizations most relevant to your users, and use those results to get more data from our other APIs. API returns search result in JSON format.

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Easily Build Your Essentials v3 Search Query

Take all the guess-work out of building your search query by using the built-in query generator on the Essentials API v3 API Docs page.

Lookup Value Helper Endpoints

  • Essentials Lookup API - Provides a list of all the tables used as a filter_name with the Essentials Lookup endpoints. The tables and their contents can be used to generate dropdowns and filters in your system when using the Essentials API.
  • Essentials Lookup Filter Name API - Provides a list of all the human-readable search values within a specific filter_name table that can be used in search queries with the Essentials endpoints. Each array contains a table key, name value, and search value. The resulting search_value(s) can be passed as search values in the Essentials API.
  • Essentials Lookup Key Value API - Lookup details on a specific filter using the known filter_name and key_or_value. The resulting search_value can be passed as a search value in the Essentials API.

Essentials endpoint-specific user guides

Updated 9 months ago