Reading an association's Form 990 before a sales call

For anyone who sells to associations · Published 2026-11-03

Almost every U.S. association files an annual return with the IRS, and the return is public. Ten minutes with it before a first call tells you how big the association is, who runs it, who signs, and which firms it already pays. This guide shows where to look on a full Form 990, and where the short forms say less.

Which form it files

• Form 990-N, the e-Postcard, for organizations whose gross receipts are normally $50,000 or less. It gives the name, address, website and one principal officer. Nothing else.
• Form 990-EZ, for gross receipts under $200,000 and total assets under $500,000. It lists officers, directors and key employees and gives revenue and expenses in summary, with no list of contractors and no breakdown of fees.
• Form 990, for everyone above those lines. This is the one worth reading.

Returns are free to read: the IRS publishes e-filed returns, and nonprofit databases such as ProPublica's Nonprofit Explorer and Candid show them by organization.

The six places to look

Part I, the summary. Lines 5 and 6 give the number of employees and an estimate of volunteers. No employees and dozens of volunteers is a board-run association. Line 12 is total revenue, the fastest read of what it can spend.

Part III, program service accomplishments. What the association says it does, in its own words, with the money spent on each program. A conference, a certification, a publication: each is a budget and often a vendor.

Part VI, governance. Line 1a gives the number of voting members of the board. Line 3 asks whether the organization delegated its management duties to a management company or another person. A yes means a firm runs it, and Part VII Section B usually names the firm.

Part VII, compensation. Section A lists every officer, director, trustee and key employee who held the post during the year, with title, hours and pay. It names the executive director, the president and the treasurer, the people who sign. Section B lists the five highest-paid independent contractors paid over $100,000, with what each did: the management company, the law firm, the software vendor, the event company.

Part VIII, revenue. Where the money comes from. Membership dues show up here, as contributions where members get nothing in return for them and as program service revenue where they do, beside conference and sponsorship income. An association that earns most of its money from one event buys differently from one that lives on dues.

Part IX, expenses. Line 11a is fees for management and line 11g other fees for services. Line 7 is other salaries and wages. Large fees and no salaries is an association run by contract; no fees and no salaries is one run by volunteers.

What a return cannot tell you

• What it runs. The return does not name the membership system, the website platform or how members pay. The website does.
• What changed this month. A return covers a year that ended months before it was filed, and filing is often extended. Officers on it may have left; a firm on it may have been replaced.
• Contracts under $100,000. Section B leaves them out, so a return that names no management firm does not mean the association has none.
• Anything about the smallest associations. A 990-N filer gives one name and nothing else.

Read the return for size, structure and who signs. Read the website for what is happening now.

How AIP uses the return

AIP keys every association to its IRS Employer Identification Number and reads its returns: the officers, directors and key employees a full return lists (shown on a record whose own pages list none, labelled with the return), how many employees and volunteers it reports, the firm it pays for management services, its revenue, and for the smallest a named principal officer. Each new filing is compared with the last, so a change of chief executive, chair, president or treasurer is recorded even for an association with no website, labelled with the return's year. The website, read about once a week, says what the return cannot.

See how a management company change shows up in a Form 990 for a worked example.