One of those I found is the Greensboro Chamber of Commerce Foundation, EIN # 23-7181435, PO Box 3246, Greensboro, NC 27402 to which the Community Foundation gave $21,949 in 2012.
I assumed that was/is the Greensboro Chamber of Commerce but on the line just above is a listing showing a separate $5,000 donation to the Greensboro Area Chamber of Commerce, EIN # 56-024540, 342 N Elm Street, Greensboro, NC 27401.
Both contributions were listed as general support and both entities were listed as 501(C)3 non profits.
So I went to the NC Secretary of State website and searched for the Greensboro Chamber of Commerce Foundation only to find there is no such listing in North Carolina. Same goes for Federal Form 990s at Guidestar.org and FoundationCenter.org where I found no listings for the Greensboro Chamber of Commerce Foundation.
Then I did a web search for the address "PO Box 3246, Greensboro, NC 27402" and confirmed that the post office box is sometimes used by the Greensboro Chamber of Commerce but why no Federal Form 990 listings or listings with the NC Secretary of State?
So I did a web search for the EIN number and low and behold it lead me to the Greensboro Chamber Foundation at Guidestar.org and comfirms that the Greensboro Chamber Foundation, a wing of the City funded Greensboro Chamber of Commerce, is also City funded as well as funded by the City funded Community Foundation of Greater Greensboro.
This is the time and effort I went through to discover a single listing that several members of the Greensboro City Council claim is so easy for the public to find. And from what I can tell from the Form 990 of the Greensboro Chamber Foundation's records, their primary purpose is lobbying but their mission statement reads,
"This corporation is organized and shall be operated exclusively for religious, charitable, scientific, literary, or educational purposes."
