NW Research Blog


Northwest Research Returns!

Thursday, January 29th, 2009

Just a quick note to to let new, old, and future clients know that I have returned to consulting full time and am actively looking for new projects. My contact information can be found in the “about me” section of this blog.

Funding Universe Company Histories

Tuesday, November 18th, 2008

Funding Universe Company Histories

has thousands of company histories and a handy search feature. Funding Universe appears essentially to be a tool for VC and angel inventors, but could be very useful for our prospect research purposes.

Blank Peer Screening Tool

Monday, August 18th, 2008

Hello-

A copy of my peer screening excel spreadsheet can be found here

I’ll write more about peer screening soon.

MSA-ZIP.com

Monday, August 11th, 2008

I found this amazing free tool, that I don’t think has been mentioned previously

http://www.msa-zip.com

It will give you zip codes for an entire Metropolitan Statistical Area at once! As well as getting the MSA for a particular zip code. It will also give you the MSAs for an entire state. This is great. I’m using it in combination with Reference USA from the library to identify individuals who are owners of small companies for peer screenings.

It is also helpful for travel planning.

Seattle Business Monthly Online Archives

Tuesday, January 8th, 2008

I tripped across Seattle Business Monthly website today, and found it has archives through 2007. It is a relatively new publication.

Seattle Magazine

published by the same company, also has some archives up, although the search interface is pretty simple and I can’t figure out how far back it goes.

Noza Charitable Foundation Records are now free

Thursday, December 20th, 2007

One of my favorite not very expensive resources is

NozaSearch

which I’ve reviewed in the past. Noza has now decided that foundation records (gifts given to foundations) are free for anyone, which is a great gift.

In addition Goodwin Deacon reported on the ‘L that Noza has bought GrantSmart, and is uploading its 990 information into the NozaSearch database.

Thanks Noza!

International Research Resources

Monday, December 17th, 2007

I get quite a few hits about international prospect research. I haven’t done a lot of international research, but two resources that keep being mentioned on the ‘L are

www.fresource.info

and

http://www.fundraisingresearch.info/

Both look very useful

Alliance of Area Business Publications

Tuesday, December 11th, 2007

I found this today

http://www.bizpubs.org/

The Alliance of Area Business Publications, an organization of over 70 publications dedicated to delivering customized regional business news to over 1.2 million business professionals in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Puerto Rico and Australia, provides links to various small business publications all over the country. I found several business publications, with archives, that I hadn’t known existed.

Enjoy!

Bizstats.com Sold!

Wednesday, December 5th, 2007

UPDATE–I WAS WRONG. Things are very hard to find with the new interface, but the Benmarking tool is still available at

http://bizstats.com/industry-financial-benchmark.asp

Bizstats

which has been an extremely useful tool for estimating small business net income to owner, has been sold to Bizminer.com. The company has changed the interface, and I previously reported that many of the previously useful tools were gone, but I was wrong and benchmarking is still available. Thank you Biztstats

Robert L. Weiner Consulting Resources

Tuesday, December 4th, 2007

Robert L. Weiner, a consultant who focuses on software and technology solutions for non-profits, shared his resources page on Prospect-l today. The page collects articles and information on donor databases, email marketing and online fund raising. I’m looking forward to diving into this and to sharing it with my clients. Thanks Robert!