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How to Verify a Nonprofit by EIN Using an API

Send the organization's EIN to Pactman Nonprofit Check Plus API. The response can combine IRS Business Master File status, Pub. 78 deductibility data, automatic revocation information, and OFAC screening signals so your application can make a verification decision from one request.

Updated September 13, 20266 min readFor developers, compliance teams, donation platforms & fintech and nonprofit software teams

Direct answer

Send the organization's EIN to Pactman Nonprofit Check Plus API. The response can combine IRS Business Master File status, Pub. 78 deductibility data, automatic revocation information, and OFAC screening signals so your application can make a verification decision from one request.

For a basic verification workflow, confirm that the EIN is found, review the organization's current IRS status, check whether it appears in Pub. 78 when deductibility matters, check for automatic revocation, and review OFAC screening before allowing the transaction or workflow to continue.

  1. Normalize the EIN. Remove spaces or dashes so 12-3456789 becomes 123456789.
  2. Send the EIN to the Nonprofit Check Plus API.
  3. Confirm the organization. Verify that the organization returned by the API matches the entity your user intended to check.
  4. Review the IRS BMF and Pub. 78 signals. Evaluate the fields relevant to your use case.
  5. Check automatic revocation status.
  6. Review OFAC screening results.
  7. Apply your business rules. Retain the result for audit or downstream processing when appropriate.

Example request

curl --request POST \
  --url https://api.pactman.org/nonprofitcheck \
  --header 'Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY' \
  --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  --data '{
    "ein": "411787097"
  }'

Implementation note: Endpoint names and authentication shown here are illustrative developer-documentation examples. Your production implementation should use the current Pactman API reference as the source of truth.

What your application should evaluate

Signal Why it matters Typical application decision
EIN / organization match Confirms you are evaluating the intended entity. Continue only when identity is sufficiently matched.
IRS BMF Provides IRS organization and tax-status data. Use for organization status and related IRS attributes.
Pub. 78 Indicates IRS-recognized deductibility information. Use when determining eligibility for tax-deductible contributions.
Automatic revocation Identifies organizations appearing on the IRS revocation list. Flag or stop based on your compliance rules.
OFAC screening Helps identify sanctions-related risk. Escalate or block according to your compliance policy.

Example decision logic

A simple implementation might treat a nonprofit as verification-passed only when:

  • the EIN resolves to the expected organization;
  • the required IRS eligibility signal for the workflow is present;
  • the organization is not currently flagged by the revocation rule your company uses; and
  • the OFAC screening result does not require review.

Important: Do not hard-code a universal definition of "verified." A donation platform, grant-management system, bank, payroll-giving product, donor-advised fund, and compliance team may need different acceptance rules.

Why use a consolidated nonprofit verification API?

Without a consolidated API, developers may need to ingest, normalize, refresh, compare, and interpret multiple government datasets independently. A consolidated service reduces that integration burden and gives the application one normalized response to evaluate.

This is especially useful when verification must happen inside onboarding, donation processing, grantmaking, vendor due diligence, donor-advised fund workflows, or recurring compliance checks.

One normalized response

Keep downstream application logic simpler and easier to test.

Separate source signals

Preserve source context instead of hiding meaningful differences behind one opaque score.

Reusable compliance rules

Apply the same policy across onboarding, donations, grants, and recurring reviews.

Developer-friendly automation

Move verification into the product workflow instead of relying on a manual lookup.

Frequently asked questions

Is an EIN by itself proof that an organization is a valid 501(c)(3)?

No. An EIN is an identifier. Your application should evaluate the relevant IRS status and eligibility data rather than treating possession of an EIN as proof of charitable status.

Should I use IRS BMF or Pub. 78 for deductibility?

Use the source that matches the question you are answering. Pub. 78 is especially relevant to deductibility, while BMF contains broader organization and filing-related information. If sources appear inconsistent, surface the conflict instead of silently discarding it.

Can I verify multiple nonprofits at once?

For high-volume workflows, use Pactman's bulk verification capability rather than sending one request at a time. Keep batch size and rate-limit behavior aligned with the current API documentation.

Should OFAC screening be part of nonprofit verification?

If sanctions screening is relevant to your organization's compliance program, include it as a separate decision signal. IRS tax status and OFAC sanctions screening answer different questions.

Next step

Use the Pactman API reference to implement the request and response model, then connect the returned signals to the business rules your application actually needs.

Ready to build the verification flow?

Use Pactman Nonprofit Check Plus API to connect nonprofit verification directly to your application.

Get an API Key →