Prospect Research Resources There are many sources of information on prospective donors. The following list provides some information resources for the U.S. and Canada by gift source (individual, foundation, corporation, government) and by type of resource. Foundations Tip: Check the foundation s Web site or ask for its annual report, philanthropic and community involvement report, and proxy statement. General Foundation Information: Prospect Research Online: Subscription-based Web research tool that helps nonprofits identify and qualify potential funders in individual giving, corporate giving and foundation giving. www.iwave.com *********** Canadian Foundations: Canadian Registered Charities: Search the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) list of registered charities. View the annual return (T3010) of a charity. FoundationSearch Canada: Fee-based online tool for researching foundations in Canada; search also available for the U.S., U.K., and Australia. www.foundationsearch.ca Imagine Canada Online Guide to Foundations and Grants: Using the user name and password to access this site, you can search by foundation name, grant recipient name, and for individuals (officers and directors). U.S. Foundations: *********** The Foundation Center Directory Online (FC Search): The directory is comprised of two searchable databases. The foundation database houses a collection of data of over 74,000 foundations, corporate giving programs, and grant-making public charities. The grants database is a collection of more than 250,000 grants awarded by the 1,300 largest foundations in the United States. This is a fee-based service requiring a user name and password to access the site. www.fdncenter.org FoundationSearch America: Fee-based online tool for researching foundations in the U.S.; search also available for the U.S., U.K., and Australia. www.foundationsearch.com GuideStar Plus: Excellent source of IRS 990 forms for both private and corporate foundations. Search GuideStar's database of more than 850,000 IRS-recognized nonprofit organizations. This site is free however, you must register for GuideStar Plus to access 990 forms. www.guidestar.org Chronicle Guide to Grants: An electronic database of all foundation and corporate grants listed in The Chronicle of Philanthropy since 1995. Subscription rates vary, depending on whether you are a subscriber to the Chronicle and how long you want to access the data. You can search by grant-maker, recipient or key word.
Corporations Tip: Always go to the corporate Web site first to see what the company says about itself. Canadian Corporations: Canadian Key Business Directory: The Canadian Key Business Directory provides information on 20,000+ Canadian companies both public and private. Companies are alphabetically arranged; information includes address, parent company, number of employees, sales volume, sales estimate, primary line of business, officers, and management contact names. Contact Toronto: Published by the Toronto Board of Trade, this directory profiles 2,500 of the largest employers in the GTA. Contact Toronto lists public and private companies, government agencies, colleges and universities. Presidents/CEOs and senior management are identified. Corporate address, line of business, parent company information, and ownership information are provided. Scott s Greater Toronto Business Directory: The Metro Edition: This volume contains information on 17,250 industrial and industry support companies located in Toronto, Etobicoke, York, North York, East York and Scarborough. The Boundary Edition: This volume covers 18,500 companies from Ajax, Whitby, Brampton, Oshawa, Pickering, Markham, Thornhill, Richmond Hill, Vaughan, Mississauga and Oakville. Both volumes include manufacturers, distributors, wholesalers, contractors, service companies and more. Globeinvestor: Select Quotes from menu options. Select Symbol lookup to search by corporate name. View brief corporate description, key personnel and financials. Click on Symbol code to view stock-trading price. www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor Sedar (System for Electronic Documents Analysis and Retrieval): Developed by The Canadian Depository for Securities to ensure Canadian public securities filings are accessible to the public. Select Company Profiles option to search by company name and view all filings (annual reports, proxy circulars, press releases) from January 1997 to present. www.sedar.com Sedi (System for Electronic Disclosure by Insiders): Search this site to view insider stock trading reports. Report on Business (ROB) Top 1000: This is a listing of the 1,000 largest publicly traded corporations measured by assets. It also includes the top 100 private companies, top 50 technology companies and 50 top paid executives. The Profit 100: Published by Profit magazine in June of each year. Ranks Canada s fastest-growing companies. Rankings are based on percentage sales growth over the past five years. Top 1000: Published by Report on Business magazine in July of each year. Ranks 1,000 largest publicly traded Canadian corporations by assets. Companies are ranked according to after-tax profit in the most recent fiscal year.
FP 500: Special issue published by National Post Business magazine in June of each year. Lists Canada s largest companies ranked by revenue. Canada NewsWire: Search online for press releases from companies and the government for the past 24 months. Search by keyword, organization name, date, subject, or industry. Canadian Business Magazine: Links to ranking lists: Tech 100, Investor 500 (Canada's top corps), and the Rich 100. Profit Magazine: Links to Profit 100: Canada's fastest growing private companies and Profit W100: Canada's Top Women Entrepreneurs. Report on Business Magazine: Links to ROB Top 1000 Corporations, Top 40 under 40, Top paid CEOs, and other special editions. *********** U.S. Corporations: American City Business Journals: Search 40 business journals from cities throughout the United States. Click on the News by Markets box in the upper right-hand corner of the home page to select a business journal from a specific city. www.bizjournals.com NewsBank Full-Text Newspapers: Full-text news from a wide range of U.S. newspapers. Includes major metropolitan newspapers and smaller newspapers from several states. www.newsbank.com Hoovers: Covers more than 12 million companies. Free access to a brief company profile, a link to the company s Web site, general financial information and the names of key executives. Pay a fee to become a subscriber and access more detailed information. www.hoovers.com Yahoo! Finance: Provides current stock prices and charts, news articles, company profiles and SEC information for public companies. Access Edgar from this site and download actual formatted proxy statements (DEF 14) to your computer. Proxy statements are an excellent source for biographical and financial information on company directors. http://finance.yahoo.com DataTimes: Smaller, regional newspapers, magazines and journals. DunsLink: Business information reports on private companies. Dow Jones News Retrieval: Major financial resources such as Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Barron s. Lexis-Nexis: Property holdings and Secretary of State records from throughout the U.S. NewsNet: Newsletters including Foundation Giving Watch and Corporate Giving Watch. Government Canadian Government: Canadian Assistance Programs Directory: www.can-grants.com
******** U.S. Government: The Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance: A directory of thousands of federal programs, projects, services, and activities that provide assistance or benefits to the American public. It contains information on financial and non-financial assistance including grants, loans, and scholarships. The Subject Index is the most commonly used index to look for government sources that would be interested in an organization s program or project. Federal Assistance Program Retrieval System: A system which uses key-word search to match the user with appropriate CFDA grant programs. The Federal Register: Announces all government granting programs. It is available online via Government Printing Office access and is linked to the Foundation Center Web site. Commerce Business Daily: Announces the accepting of bids on government contracts, another source of funds for nonprofits. This is also available online. Newsletters from specific government agencies Federal Assistance Monitor: A review of federal grants announcements published twice a month. Federal Grants and Contracts Weekly: Provides announcements of availability of federal grants. Federal Money Retriever: A Windows-based version of the Catalog of Domestic Assistance issued twice a year with information on programs administered by 53 federal agencies. Individuals Canadian individuals: Directory of Directors: Alphabetical list of Canadian corporate directors and public companies. The Personal Listing section lists title, directorships, career, education, etc. The Alphabetical Company Listing section lists address and executive officers and directors. Canadian Who's Who: A standard biographical reference providing access to concise biographical entries of prominent living Canadians in all sectors. Biographies reveal business title and address, phone & fax numbers, directorships, birthdate, family, education, honours, career, professional affiliations, and personal interests. Who s Who in Canadian Business: Lists Canadian professionals (VP to CEO), each with a detailed biography and contact information. Entries include: title, business address, phone & fax numbers, directorships, birthdate, family, education, honours, career, professional affiliations, and personal interests.
Who s Who of Canadian Women: Guide to the most powerful and innovative women in Canada. Biographies reveal business title and address, education, career, affiliations, interests, and honours. Women in the Lead: Published by the Richard Ivey School of Business. A national directory listing the professional background, responsibilities, contributions, and recognitions of Canadian career women. The Rich 100: Published annually by Canadian Business magazine. Profiles 100 of Canada s wealthiest individuals (minimum estimated net worth is Cdn$200 million). Members must be citizens of Canada. Who Earns What: Published annually by Toronto Life magazine. Top 40 under 40: Published in April of each year by the Globe & Mail s Report on Business magazine. Profiles young business leaders. Individuals included on this list are selected by a panel of prominent business and community leaders. CEO Scorecard: Published in November of each year by National Post Business magazine. Ranks the leaders of Canada's 150 largest companies by their firms three-year share-price return. College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario: Select the Doctor Search option. Select the Advanced Doctor search option to search for active and retired doctors by surname to identify hospital privileges, education and current employment. Canadian Medical Directory: Go to the UHN Corporate Intranet Directory page. Under Physician Search, click on CMD Online. The Canadian Medical Directory lists certified Canadian physicians, their education and current employment. Martindale-Hubbell Lawyer Locator: Search for a lawyer by surname or firm in Canada, U.S. and other countries to find current employment, education and practice areas. The Law Society of Upper Canada: Search for a lawyer by surname to find current employment in Ontario. Canadian Marketing Association: Search the Online Membership Directory by product & services, region, company or contact. Appointment Notices (Globe and Mail): Use the search boxes to find appointments for a specific company or person (appointee) from 1996 to present. Birth & Death Notices (Globe and Mail): Search for birth and death notices from 1998 to present. Lives Lived and Obituaries are also available to search. Death Notices (Toronto Star): Search today's notices only (default) or search the past seven days. Remove the checkmark to search for the past seven days. U.S. Individuals: ********* Who s Who in America: Information on more than 95,000 of the nation's most noteworthy people. Current Biography: Monthly magazine containing profiles of prominent individuals.
AMA Physician Select: Compiled and published by the American Medical Association as a reference source of demographic and professional information on individual physicians in the United States. Includes more than 690,000 medical doctors (MD) and doctors of osteopathy or osteopathic medicine (DO). http://webapps.ama-assn.org/doctorfinder Martindale-Hubbell: Biographical profiles of lawyers and law firms. Search more than one million lawyers and law firms in 160 countries by a variety of criteria, including name, geographic location, practice area, firm size, and languages. If it s not here, try West Legal Directory. http://lawyers.martindale.com Social Security Death Index: Search more than 70 million death records. Claims to be the most full-featured and up-to-date SSDI Internet search. http://ssdi.genealogy.rootsweb.com Other Resources Address and Phone Searches: Canada411: Search individual or business directories. Only have a phone number? You can search that here too! InfoSpace: Search White and Yellow Pages for Canada, U.S. and the U.K. Anywho: Phone numbers, reverse look-up, and the ability to search for international phone numbers. www.anywho.com Langenberg: Phone numbers, zip codes, dictionaries, a variety of search engines, and more. Great one-stop access to general research tools. http://whitepages.langenberg.com Internet Discussion Groups: Prospect-l: Tools, techniques and issues for prospect research. Web Sites Related to Prospect Research: Association of Professional Researchers in Advancement. www.aprahome.org The Prospect Research Page by David F. Lamb, a prospect research consultant. www.lambresearch.com Books on Use of the Internet for Prospect Research: Where the Information Is: A Guide to Electronic Research for Nonprofit Organizations by Helen Bergan (BioGuide Press, 1996). The Nonprofit Guide to the Internet, 2 nd edition by Michael Johnston (John Wiley & Sons, 1999). Fundraising on the Internet: The ephilanthropy Foundation.org s Guide to Success Online (Jossey-Bass Publishers, 2002).