Benefacts V2!

After two years of unbroken service and 165,000+ visits, benefacts.ie has been updated.

We’ve added features in response to user feedback, found some new data, and added some organisations to scope. Have a look!

Spread the word
“Search” has moved up to the toolbar, and permits simple or advanced organisation search. Simple search gives you quick access to a nonprofit, if you know what you’re looking for – here’s an example. The new presentation format incorporates additional content about purposes and activities where the nonprofit is a charity, and smartens up the presentation of financial and governance data as well.

Have a look for your favourite nonprofit and if you like what you see, go to the bottom of the page and tweet a link to your followers!

Introducing advanced search
Use the advanced search function for more detailed results. For example, if you’d like to make a donation to an arts organisation that’s registered for tax-efficient gifts, check these boxes for the 103 arts companies; filter for SORP-compliance and the list goes down to 29.

You can also use advanced search to find nonprofits near you, or to find ones involved in specific kinds of activities.

Political parties
Which brings us to a group on nonprofits appearing on Benefacts.ie for the first time – political parties. Benefacts defines civil society organisations as all those that are neither part of the Government nor of the private sector. This includes political parties and - thanks to the Office of the Clerk of the Oireachtas (which registers them), and the Standards in Public Office Commission (which collects and publishes their financial statements) - we can provide these listings for the first time on Benefacts.ie.

Other non-charities in Benefacts Database of Irish Nonprofits include chambers of commerce, trade unions and sports bodies.

Cooperation with Fingal
This year, we are delighted to have had the cooperation of Fingal County Council and Fingal Public Participation Network (PPN) in introducing the contents of their register to the database, including valuable data on activities. Where a local nonprofit is part of the Fingal PPN, this is flagged at the foot of their listing – we hope other counties and PPNs will follow Fingal’s lead and we’re starting to explore this with them now. When they do, there will be information about at least 10,000 more local societies, clubs and associations to be found in our one-stop shop for information about all Irish nonprofits.

Benefacts model is to harvest data from many public sources, and put it to work in the service of nonprofits and their stakeholders. Nobody has to provide us with any additional information so we don’t add to the regulatory burden on the sector.

We’ve started to work with a group of public sector bodies and philanthropies to put the data to work in a way that should help to rationalise the heavy cost of duplicate filing that represents such a heavy administrative burden – on funders and nonprofits alike.

Contact us!
Meanwhile, any nonprofit listed on our site is welcome to ask us for a look at all of the data we have collected about your organisation to date – just get in touch.