About the Philanthropy Classification System
The Philanthropy Classification System (PCS) is Candid’s (formerly Foundation Center and GuideStar) taxonomy, describing the work of grantmakers, recipient organizations and the philanthropic transactions between those entities. Candid’s Classification System is based on the National Taxonomy of Exempt Entities (NTEE) and has been expanded over the last three decades to include the emerging work we have evidenced while capturing and indexing the work of the sector on a global scale.
The facets of the PCS illuminate the work and answer the following questions about philanthropy:
- Who? = Population Served
- What? = Subject and Organization Type
- How? = Support Strategy and Transaction Type
This site lets you explore each facet of the taxonomy through Quick Search, A-Z search, or a hierarchy view.
You can also learn more about the history of the PCS in the Resources section of the site.
Candid also formerly maintained a taxonomy for geographic area served known as GeoTree. While Candid continues to code organizations and transactions for geographic area served, we no longer use the GeoTree taxonomy. Instead, Candid relies on GeoNames as its gazetteer of place names and identifiers. To help ensure the consistency of geographic data, we only use a subset of GeoNames places. If your organization is interested in providing data on geographic area served using GeoNames, or has questions about how to transition from GeoTree to GeoNames, please reach out to taxonomy@candid.org for more guidance.
