This is the first in a series of posts with a focus on research on a very tight budgets.
The first thing I recommend to any researcher on a very limited budget is to make an appointment with the business librarian of your local library (or the largest regional library that you have access to). If you work at an educational institution it can be helpful to meet with your librarian as well.
I have found that librarians who specialize in business resources can be extremely helpful to donor researchers. Here in Portland, the library has a wonderful business section as well as online databases that can be accessed from home, including Reference USA, Gale’s General Business File, and several other databases that I use on a daily basis from home.
When I met with the business librarian, she shared several more local resources that have been really useful to me and was able to show me some advanced searching strategies that made my life much easier.