How can I find information about a particular nonprofit organization?

If you are looking for information on nonprofit organizations (whether you have only the name of an organization or you are looking for a list of nonprofit organizations operating in a particular geographic or subject area), there are a number of resources that may be consulted. Some contain detailed descriptive information, while others provide only the most basic contact information. Be prepared to look at several resources, and be aware that there may not be any information available on the organization you have in mind. It may be that the organization is not a nonprofit or is too new to be listed in the resources below.

Refer the following resources for information about nonprofit organizations:

• The IRS' Publication 78, Cumulative List of Organizations Described in Section 170(c) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, is a list of organizations eligible to receive tax-deductible charitable contributions.

• The Foundation Center's 990 Finder can be used to search for Forms 990-PF of private foundations and Forms 990 of public charities.

• Economic Research Institute's web site has a search tool to find nonprofit information, including links to Forms 990. This company provides compensation, benefits, and human resource research for private and public organizations in the form of published reports and software database products.

• GuideStar is a searchable database of nearly one million nonprofit organizations. Records include the basic purpose of an organization, financial data and in some cases the Form 990 tax return (in PDF format) filed by nonprofit organizations. In Guidestar's advanced search you can search by name, keyword, city, and state.

• Action Without Borders' Idealist hosts one of the largest searchable listings of U.S. and international nonprofit organizations. You can search by organization name, mission (keyword), area of focus, country, state or province, and city or town. You can also browse the listings by country.

• Hunt, Kimberly N. (ed.) Encyclopedia of Associations: National Organizations of the U.S. Detroit, MI: Gale Research, annual. Provides detailed information on more than 22,000 American nonprofit organizations of national scope.

• Baker, Deborah J. (ed.) National Directory of Nonprofit Organizations. Farmington Hills, MI: Taft Group, annual. Provides brief informational profiles for more than 260,000 tax-exempt organizations.

• The Foundation Directory Online has associated grants files of hundreds of thousands of grants awarded to nonprofit organizations by some of the largest independent, corporate, and community foundations in the United States. The Foundation Directory Online and additional electronic and print resources that may be useful in researching individual nonprofits may be found at Center Libraries and at some Cooperating Collections.

• Foundation Finder is a quick look-up tool to obtain contact and basic financial information for more than 73,000 private and community foundations. You must have all or part of an organization's name in order to use Foundation Finder.

• Use the Archives at the Philanthropy News Digest (PND), our weekly news compendium service, to locate abstracts of national news stories on particular foundations and nonprofit organizations that have been covered in the print and electronic media.

• The Foundation Center also highlights innovative nonprofit organizations in its NPO Spotlight. "Spotlight On...", a feature on each of the Center's libraries home pages (Atlanta, Cleveland, New York, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C.), highlights local nonprofit organizations and their programs.

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