Adopt Candid Seals of Transparency as an eligibility requirement

A Candid profile is a simple way to showcase an organization’s work. Organizations can earn Candid Seals of Transparency and tell their full story on their profile by adding specific information about their programs such as measures of progress, operations–including diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) information—and financials.

Organizations can provide varying levels of details about themselves, corresponding to four different seal levels: Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum. Seals are accompanied by a year denoting when they were obtained. Organizations are required to update their information on a roughly yearly basis to keep their seals from expiring.

The Candid profile can be a powerful way to increase an organization’s fundraising success and visibility. Information provided via Candid profiles is sent to all major U.S.-based donor-advised funds and 200+ charitable sites, including Facebook and Network for Good.

It can also simplify the grant application process, reducing the burden faced by organizations applying for funding and providing you with a streamlined way of obtaining the information you need to make funding decisions (see Prepopulate your grant application for more information).

By recommending or requiring a Seal of Transparency in your grant guidelines, you are also helping increase and enrich sector-wide information about nonprofits–who they are, what they do, and why it matters.

For Funders

Funders who would like to incorporate a Candid Seal of Transparency requirement in their grant management workflows can use Candid's Premier API. The Premier API provides a real-time view of a Candid profile, which allows you to access all the data an organization has provided directly to Candid, including Seal level.

In order to build the eligibility requirements and verify that an applicant or grantee has a Seal of Transparency, we recommend integrating a process or workflow where you can:

Ask the organization for their EIN, or use the EIN already associated with their record in your system
Upon a submit or a refresh button on the record, call the Premier API to get their Candid Profile Level
Save their Candid profile level by using the gs_profile_update_level field returned in the Premier API and record the timestamp
Verify the response to see if they meet eligibility or not

The gs_profile_update_level will return one of the below statuses describing the organization's profile level:

a status indicating if their Seal of Transparency level is active by returning the level (bronze, silver, gold, platinum) and the year obtained (2023, 2024, etc.)
a status indicating if their seal of transparency has expired
a status indicating if their profile is basic (which means an organization claimed their profile, but did not provide enough information to earn a seal)
a status indicating if their profile is unclaimed

"gs_profile_update_level": "Platinum 2024"

"gs_profile_update_level": "Expired"

"gs_profile_update_level": "Basic"

"gs_profile_update_level": "None"

If the organization does not meet your eligibility requirements, we recommend you share the following with the applicant or grantee:

📘
We require funding applicants to claim their Candid profile by submitting the necessary information to achieve a {your eligibility requirement here} Seal of Transparency. It’s free and you can start here.

If an organization successfully claims and updates their profile, the Premier API will reflect the new profile level status the next day.

In addition to the profile level, you can incorporate all the data submitted through our profile update program into your applications. Please check out the Premier API for a full view of the data you can incorporate from the Candid profile.

For Grant Management Systems

To incorporate the Seal of Transparency as an eligibility requirement for the funders you serve, you can use the field gs_profile_update_level from the Premier API to pull in the profile level verification in eligibility questionnaires and grant applications.

In addition to the recommendations above, we recommend the following features when funders build eligibility questionnaires and grant applications that require a Candid Seal of Transparency:

Allow the funder to select which profile level meets their eligibility requirements
Share the status of the organization's profile level to the individual completing the questionnaire or application
Guide organizations to their Candid profile if they do not pass the eligibility requirement
Share with the funder if the organization meets their eligibility requirement in the grant application
Update the grant record reflecting the organization's profile level with a date and timestamp

Candid 2024 Profile Standard PDF

Fields we collect through our profile that are available in Candid's Premier API