Research & Resources
Grants & Nonprofit Info Center
Inside this Info Center:
- Grants & Nonprofit Info Center
- About the Grants & Nonprofit Info Center
- Grantseeking Basics: Free Library Workshop
- Local Training & Educational Opportunities
- Guide to Using the Grants & Nonprofit Info Center
Grants Databases
Info Guides
Grants Research
- Getting Started
- How to Find Out About Funding
- The Fit-Funding Match
- Local Funders
- Types of Funders
- Grantmaking Public Charities
- Government Grants
- Corporate Philanthropy
- Grantmaker Types of Support
- Requests for Proposals (RFP)
- Financial Aid & Scholarships
- Grants to Individuals
Grant Proposals
Nonprofit Resources
- Starting a Nonprofit
- Boards & Management
- Consultants
- Fundraising
- Prospect Research
- Program Evaluation & Outcome Measurement
- Finding a Nonprofit
- 990 Forms
- Giving to Charities
- Professional Associations
- Jobs in the Nonprofit Sector
- Starting a Foundation
- Economic Recovery and Nonprofits
- Technology & Social Networking Resources
The Grants Collection is a Cooperating Collection of the Foundation Center.
Prospect Research
On this page:
Individual Prospect Research
Individual giving makes up an estimated 75% percent of all charitable donations in the US yearly (Giving USA, 2010). Finding and maintaining individual donors to your organization are therefore activities that your nonprofit organization cannot afford to ignore.
Ilona Bray, author of the Nolo book Effective Fundraising for Nonprofits, 3rd edition, explains that "learning more about a supporter will help you find common interests and shared history between that person and your staff and board members, which, in turn, should help you decide who in your organization the supporter should meet and which projects are most likely to interest him or her."
View the NOZA Prospect Research Workbook [PDF] for a good overview of what prospect research is and how to conduct a thorough investigation of your potential donor.
Sample Prospect Worksheets
Biographical Information
Having a good grasp of your prospective donor's interests and background is vital when creating a prospect profile. The first thing to do is check your local newspaper for any mention of your prospect.
- NewsBank
- Arizona Daily Star & over 500 newspapers from across the country
- ProQuest Newspapers
- Arizona Republic and Wall Street Journal
- Tucson Local News Portal
- An up-to-the-minute news feed, with local jobs and obituaries from NewsBank
- Biography in Context formerly Biography Resource Center)
- Award-winning biographies from respected sources.
- Biography Reference Center
- A comprehensive collection of more than 450,000 full text biographies.
Real Estate
Use online county assessors databases to search for property values of your donors. If you know your donor or prospective donor has property elsewhere, use Google to search for the county's name and "assessor" to see if an online database is available.
- Pima County Assessor
- search using the name of your prospect for an estimated value of property owned in Pima County
- Maricopa County Assessor
- useful if your donor lives in Maricopa and you know the name of the street they live on
- Zillow.com
- gives estimated home values
Salary Information
- Arizona Republic
- This website has searchable databases for information on state university salaries, salaries of executives at Arizona-based publicly traded companies, state employee salary information, and home sales as well as other topics.
- Edgar
- The federal security laws overseen by the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission "require publicly traded companies to disclose information on an ongoing basis," including the company's top 5 executive salaries in form 10-K.
- Salary.com
- Estimates for salaries based on title and location.
Business Information
- A to Z
- Directory of 30 million businesses & 220 million residents. It provides estimates of business revenue, size, and names of executives.
- Arizona Corporation Commission
- This includes basic information on Arizona corporate ownership. You can search by business or use the "List Business Entities by Agent" search feature to search by prospect name.
- Market Watch
- Stock transaction information for officers, directors, and certain other insider owners of public companies.
- Yahoo Finance
- This site will tell you most of what you want to know about a publicly traded company, including who is on the board.
- Forbes
- Forbes maintains a variety of lists, including the 400 richest Americans and the top-earning CEOs.
- AnnualReports.com
- This website allows you to search for annual reports from both U.S. and international companies.
Professional Associations for Background Research
- Arizona Bar Association
- Contact and background information for lawyers in Arizona.
- Arizona Medical Board
- Arizona Medical Board licenses and regulates more than 20,800 physicians, of which10,000 practice in the state. Lists specialties, contact information, medical schools, residencies, and internships.
- FINRA
- Search for background information on a financial analyst or brokerage firm.
Other Sources
- Pipl
- Searches the "deep web" for references of individuals. Results can include hobbies, philanthropic donations, professional background profiles, and more.
- OpenSecrets.org Donor Lookup
- Lists political contributions from donors. You can search by donors' names.
Additional Prospect Research Resources
- Association of Professional Researchers for Advancement's Web Resources
- The organization for professional researchers. Most of their content is only available to paid members.
- David Lamb's Prospect Research Page
- This page has a diverse offering of good research websites organized by the type of prospect you are researching.
- Foundation Center on finding individual donors
- Internet Prospector
- This website stopped being updated in November 2008, but some of the resources offered here are still valid for use in today's prospect research.
- Portico: Web Resources for Advancement Professionals
- The University of Virginia hosts this website with many links for additional research.