Independent record of a foundation’s 990-PF. Your 990-PF, re‑done by someone independent.
Type the foundation’s name or EIN. Its e-filed return comes back from the IRS, every line re-done, and sealed: written once, and any rewrite shows. Free, in seconds, and checkable by anyone you send it to.
Independent by design: no return prepared, no grant paid, no asset held, no advice, no fee on assets, nothing paid to a firm for its clients. Whether any figure met a requirement is counsel’s question, not ours.
A family office? Start here.
- FC-1 Minimum investment return
- agrees
- FC-2 Excise tax
- agrees
- FC-3 Distributable amount
- agrees
- FC-4 Payout coverage
- reported
- FC-5 Payout deadline
- reported
- FC-6 Holdings tie-out
- not reported
- FC-7 The foundation's own answers
- reported
- FC-8 Filing timeliness
- reported
- FC-9 Year-to-year continuity
- not checked
Three systems act. A fourth reads.
Your CPA firm prepares the 990-PF. Your grant system pays the grants. Your custodian holds the assets. Each is a party to what it records. We are party to none of it. We check.
| What you run | What it does | What a second party adds |
|---|---|---|
| Your CPA firm | Prepares and files the 990-PF; monitors the payout it computed. | A second party that re-does the return it filed. |
| Your grant system | Pays the grants, runs the applications, reports the program. | The return's own figure for what was paid, set beside what it says was to be paid. |
| Your custodian or reporting platform | Holds the assets; keeps and reports the books. | A reading of the books by a party that does not keep them. |
| The record | Reads the filed return and re-does it exactly. Seals what the committee decided, the day it decided. Publishes a fingerprint anyone can check. | It is the second party to all three: it re-does the return, reads the books and seals the decisions. |
A preparer and a second party that re-does the return are two parties by definition. That is all independence means here; it says nothing about any firm’s own review. Every 990-PF is now e-filed by law (Taxpayer First Act, 2019), and the IRS publishes each return as data. That is what lets a stranger re-do 11,842 of them, and yours in seconds.
A trustee answers for decisions made years ago, on numbers nobody kept.
The public filing shows the figures. It does not show what the committee saw, decided or approved, or on which numbers. The record is the contemporaneous answer, kept where nobody, us included, can rewrite it.
The examination: The IRS asks about a year three chairs ago.
The new chair: Why is the spending rate what it is, and who set it?
The family: A dispute over a gift, and what the committee saw when it decided.
The auditor: How was that manager kept, on which numbers?
The attorney general: How was the restricted gift invested?
The next preparer: What did the last one file, and does this year's opening balance agree?
What the record holds when it is asked: the return as filed, re-done by a party that did not prepare it; each decision, the day it was made, the figures it rested on, and who approved it; a fingerprint anyone can check without us. It does not decide whether a standard was met. Counsel does. It makes sure the facts exist when counsel is asked.
Nine controls. Six words.
Agrees. Differs. Reported. Not reported. Not applicable. Not checked. Agrees or differs where the form’s own arithmetic can be re-done; reported or not reported where the return carries the figure or does not; not applicable where the form says the Part does not apply; not checked where a second sealed year is needed. Nothing else, so a trustee, an auditor and a partner read the same word the same way.
FC-1: Minimum investment return
FC-2: Excise tax
FC-3: Distributable amount
FC-4: Payout coverage
FC-5: Payout deadline
FC-6: Holdings tie-out
FC-7: The foundation's own answers
FC-8: Filing timeliness
FC-9: Year-to-year continuity
Compliant is a word we never use; it is counsel's, not ours. A line that differs is the return’s figure beside the recomputed one; the return may carry a reason the page cannot read, and it is not a finding. FC-9 needs two sealed years: a record is worth one more year every year, and a seal carries the day it was made; none can be dated earlier. What each control reads: for foundations.
A payout is owed on last year’s assets, whatever this year’s market does.
A year’s distributable amount is computed on that year’s assets and may be paid out through the end of the next. So what is to be paid this year was fixed last year. A fall this year does not lower it; it lowers next year’s. The calendar on every proof page states both, to the dollar and the date.
Carried to next year
Next year, projected
After a 20% fall
A projection under stated assumptions; the preparer computes the actual amounts. The full statement: for foundations.
Kept where any change shows. Checked by anyone, without us.
A record is worth one more year every year: a seal carries the day it was made, and none can be dated earlier. An open format anyone may build a checker for. A public log, one entry a day, with an independent timestamp. A verifier that needs nothing from us.
16 ledgers in which every row is tied to the one before, so an edit shows; one fingerprint over all of them a day on the public log, stamped by an outside timestamp authority since 24 September 2026. Kept 7 years where nobody, us included, can remove them, since 26 September 2026 (the charter). 32 controls on our own system, checked by machine; the last result and its date are on /trust.
Every answer sealed before anyone decides.
Take a sample answer's fingerprint to the checker and recompute it yourself.
32 controls, results published.
Each re-checked by machine on a schedule, with its last result and date, pass or fail.
The verifier, yours to download and run.
verify_proof.py, with verify.py beside it: standard library only. It fetches the sealed body itself and recomputes the hash.
The seal format · The public log · The same seven questions, for any vendor
Three layers. One price each.
Each layer holds what the one below cannot. A flat price by size, never a fee on assets.
Free, for any foundation from $10M: $0 The sealed 990-PF proof
The return re-done and sealed in seconds, the nine controls, the calendar ahead. Checkable by anyone you send it to. No account.
$2,600Direct, or through its firm at cost: $2,600 The Filing Record, a foundation, a year
Each filed year sealed on request beside the last; the due date as the return states it; a read seat for the firm; a verification page anyone can check. Invoiced to the foundation, or to its firm at cost with no margin. The foundation keeps the record and can take it anywhere.
$17,000–$35,000Direct, from $75M: $17,000–$35,000 The Foundation Record, a year
Everything above, plus the committee's decisions and the policy, sealed the day they are made; board packs. Over $1B by quote. Ten founding seats: nothing to pay for ninety days, then the band price locked for thirty-six months.
For the firm that prepares the return: one line on your year-end request list. For 990-PF preparers. What each layer includes.
JR BarbieriFounder
Eighteen years as CFO to multi-generational families. He built his own models because no platform could answer the questions they asked, then built ParetoAlpha so the next CFO does not have to.
No family he has worked for is named on this site, and none will be. Yours would not be either.
BA, San Francisco State University · MBA, UCAM (Murcia, Spain) · CFP® education program, UCLA Extension · Financial Engineering and Risk Management Specialization, Columbia · Finance & Quantitative Modeling for Analysts Specialization, Wharton
What you are already thinking.
We already use Foundation Source, Foundant or Archway.
Keep them. This is the record that reads them: the return re-done by a party that did not prepare it, the committee's decisions sealed the day they are made, and a fingerprint anyone can verify without us. It replaces nothing and prepares nothing.
Our CPA firm already prepares the return.
It does, and keeps doing so. We re-do the arithmetic of the return as filed and seal it; the firm reads the record, the foundation keeps it and can take it anywhere.
What if a control says “differs”?
Then the line as filed and the same line recomputed from the return's other figures do not agree, by the amount shown. The return may carry a reason the page cannot read: a schedule filed on paper, an election, a later amendment. It is a fact of the comparison, not a finding. The page is not indexed. It is read by whoever holds the link: the person who asked for it, and anyone the foundation sends it to, its preparer first.
If almost every return recomputes, what is the record for?
The differing line was never the product. 11,827 of 11,842 returns recompute, whole-dollar rounding included. What a foundation keeps is the record. The payout owed, to the dollar and the date. Each filed year sealed on request beside the last; a seal carries the day it was made, and none can be dated earlier. The committee's decisions sealed the day they are made. And a page a trustee, an auditor or an attorney general reads without asking the preparer or us.
Who else uses it?
Nobody is named. No client goes on this site without a signed release, and none is named today; the public foundations whose returns are sealed here are not clients. What is on the record instead can be checked without us: 11,842 returns re-done in the study, 32 controls checked by machine with the last result dated on /trust, a public log stamped by an outside timestamp authority every day, and a seal format anyone may build. No SOC 2 audit has begun; /trust says so. Ten founding seats on the Foundation Record are open.
What happens if you disappear?
The record is yours to export any day without asking us. The seal format is open, so anyone can build a checker; the daily fingerprint is published outside the system with an independent timestamp, so a proof stays checkable whether or not we exist.
Seal the return first. Decide after.