Case Study: GrantSmart achieves a searchable, indexed database of 60,000+ tax forms with ABBYY FineReader Engine

GrantSmart Inegrates ABBYY FineReader Engine in Its Searchable Database of Tax Forms

GrantSmart is an informational and interactive resource for the nonprofit community that maintains a searchable database of IRS Form 990-PF filings for more than 60,000 private foundations. The challenge was to convert TIFF images of tax returns into indexed, searchable text so users could quickly find key fields and grant-related data across thousands of filings.

To solve this, GrantSmart integrated the ABBYY FineReader 4.0 OCR engine into a custom application to extract text from IRS-provided TIFF files, enabling fast indexing and searchability. The integration produced accurate OCR results, accelerated development (the program was built in roughly three weeks), and made foundation tax data widely accessible for grantseekers, philanthropies, and donors.

GrantSmart

Jamie Sue Winkelman

Director of Communications