About A.C. Fitzgerald
A.C. Fitzgerald & Associates is a national consulting firm providing business solutions for charities and other nonprofit organizations. Our principal goal is to help client organizations achieve their vision by developing strategies to increase income and effectiveness.
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| November 30, 2011 |
Volume 6, Number 11 |
Get to Know Your Donors Better by Using (Free!) Prospect Research Tools
The starting point for authentic donor relationships is knowledge of their background, interests, capacity to give, and philanthropic intent. In a prior Nonprofit Partner, we outlined the importance of gathering this information into donor profiles in order to better understand their interests and their potential to support your organization.
But how do you find this information on donors and prospective donors? The good news is there are some excellent free resources to help you build donor profiles. We recommend the following tools:
Contact and Basic Biographical Info
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www.google.com/alerts: set up an email alert on Google’s site to receive messages about an individual’s newsworthy activities
Business Profiles
- zoominfo.com: verified, in-depth profiles on millions of businesses and employees
- muckety.com: maps relationships among people, businesses and organizations, including information about board affiliations
- www.forbes.com: searchable databases of Forbes Most Wealthy, Forbes 400, 800 American CEOs, and executives affiliated with publicly-traded corporations. This is a particularly helpful source for corporate bios.
Corporate Financial Information
- www.hoovers.com: corporate information including SEC documents; some information is free, some can only be accessed via subscription
- http://finance.yahoo.com: company histories, stock prices and financial status. This helps you find important information about prospects who run big public companies or who own a great deal of stock.
Political Contributions
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www.opensecrets.org and www.fec.gov: find political contributions made by individuals or companies on these two sites. Searches often produce the occupation or employer with which the individual is affiliated.
Philanthropy
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www.philanthropy.com: news and information about foundations and donors, including recent grants and gifts
These free websites will give you a fuller picture of a prospective donor to guide your solicitation strategies and face-to-face meetings.
Do you have websites you use frequently for prospect research? Please email them to us (
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
) and we’ll include them in a future edition of the Nonprofit Partner.
Contact Us
A.C. Fitzgerald & Associates, LLC
Ann C. Fitzgerald, President
www.acfitzgerald.com
(877) 528-5775
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