The Seattle Foundation started a new program on Wednesday to provide access to its data, research and evaluations of almost 700 local nonprofit groups in and around the city and King County.

Such information was previously available only to clients who maintained “giving accounts,” known as donor-advised funds, but is now available through the foundation’s Web site free to anyone.

“We know that when we can engage our donors with this information and help them understand the local context of an issue and give them information we have from site visits and other interaction with nonprofits, they give more,” said Jared Watson, vice president for grant making and knowledge management at the Seattle Foundation. “We’re hoping to have the same kind of impact with the information we’re now offering anyone who visits our Web site.”

Donors, unlike investors, typically have little information on which to base their giving. Charity tax forms, which are publicly available, are difficult to understand and disclose little about an organization’s effectiveness, and efforts to provide more comprehensive information, like the Better Business Bureau’s Wise Giving Alliance, are limited because they lack financial support from donors.