Mission: To revolutionize information sharing in the social sector in order to better understand and track the flow of philanthropic dollars, enhance transparency around those flows, and improve the sector's effectiveness.

Background: There are an estimated ten million nonprofits, charities, NGOs, ONGs, and CSOs worldwide, but the majority do not have an online presence or a digital footprint. In the past, there was no standard for sharing information about these global philanthropic entities, which meant that in addition to being complex, the ecosystem lacked the infrastructure needed to connect information to action. Funded by Google Inc., the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, with additional support from the Markets for Good community, the BRIDGE (Basic Registry of Identified Global Entities) project, a partnership of Foundation Center, GlobalGiving, GuideStar, and TechSoup, aims to make data about nonprofits better by creating a way for currently disparate data sets to be more easily mashed-up. The BRIDGE Registry has information on more than three million of these nonprofits, NGOs, and philanthropic entities, each of which has been assigned a BRIDGE Number — a unique identifier or "numerical fingerprint" — with the aim of enabling a more effective flow of information and more effective philanthropy. 

Outstanding Web Features: The project has introduced a search tool that enables anyone with access to the Web to look up an organization's name, location, and/or BRIDGE Number, which themselves are sychronized with databases maintained by Foundation Center, GlobalGiving, GuideStar, and TechSoup. Foundation Center assigns a BRIDGE Number to every organization in its databases; GlobalGiving assigns a number to any organization that submits an application to become a partner; GuideStar assigns a number to all organizations with a GuideStar profile; and TechSoup assigns a number to any organization that registers through its donation program. If a nonprofit or NGO is not currently listed in the BRIDGE Registry, there are ways to get listed and obtain a BRIDGE Number. In addition, the tool also makes it easier for nonprofits to find their own unique BRIDGE Number, and for partners to obtain information from the registry in bulk for their own databases. To learn more about the BRIDGE Registry, see the FAQ.