Northwest Research

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!

I found

Access My Library

while I was looking for an obituary from a New Mexico Newspaper that wasn’t available either through my usual sources or the Multnomah County website.

As the service, which is a part of the Gale Group,

The Free Library

has recently added periodicals. I found it has a great number of business magazines, including the LA Business Journal from at least 1991 to the present. A wonderful and FREE! resource.

Here

Is a list of the publications available.

An interesting article about Silicon Valley Millionaires can be found here

“When chief executives are routinely paid tens of millions of dollars a year and a hedge fund manager can collect $1 billion annually, those with a few million dollars often see their accumulated wealth as puny, a reflection of their modest status in the new Gilded Age, when hundreds of thousands of people have accumulated much vaster fortunes.”

I received an very odd call yesterday about Allbusiness.com from a woman who identified herself as a journalist and researcher.

The person I spoke to appeared to believe that Allbusiness.com was somehow breaking copyright law. I’m still not entirely clear who this person was or why they were calling me.

However, a quick look at Allbusiness shows it has a business relationship with Reed Elsevier and Proquest, both major information providers and repackagers who aggregate thousands of journals and periodicals including the Wall Street Journal. Proquest is responsible for ABI-Inform as well as numerous specialty databases. Major companies like Proquest are usually very very careful about copyright infringement.

In addition, I would like to clarify that I received no compensation for reviewing Allbusiness.com on this blog. I put together this blog because it is more expedient than posting resources on the Prospect-L, the researchers’ listserv, and I hope that it will be helpful to people, especially people in the non-profit arena.

The following is a reprint of part of my review.

AllBusiness.com is an online media and e-commerce company that operates one of the premier business sites on the Web. Founded in 1999, the site has received critical acclaim from The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Business 2.0, Fortune, and other publications. AllBusiness.com helps entrepreneurs, small and growing businesses, consultants and business professionals save time and money by addressing real-world business questions and presenting practical solutions. The site offers resources including how-to articles, business forms, contracts and agreements, expert advice, blogs, business news, business directory listings, product comparisons, business guides, a small business association and more.

Allbusiness.com is particularly useful for prospect researchers as it provides a great range of full-text searchable free business periodicals. I found an excellent biography of a potential donor from the October 2001 edition of Inside Business.

You do have to sign up, and make sure you don’t accidently deluge yourself with newsletters, but I think this is a wonderful resource.

Periodicals by title can be found here

http://www.allbusiness.com/periodicals/

And appear to go back quite a bit (for example the ABA Journal goes back to 1989). The search interface isn’t the best, but is adequate.

Enjoy!

The newest issue of APRA Connections is available to non-members for 30 days here

There is some great information and articles on data mining, and campaign screening!

Enjoy.

I just added the Stanford Development Research Blog to my sidebar. It looks highly informative for both beginners and for more advanced researchers.

Manta is a business database that offers free and pay-as-you-go business information.

According to the marketing materials, Manta gives Web users access to data and analysis from the most trusted business publishers in the world, including D&B, Newstex, Snapdata, Datamonitor, and ICON.

I’ve registered for Manta, and I’ve found the free information very useful. The sales numbers for privately held companies appear to come from Dun and Bradstreet, and I’ve found company information I haven’t been able to find using other free resources. It even appears that the slice of D & B that Manta is using is fresher than some other fee-based sources.

I re-found this very interesting link today

Mongabay

This organization provides information on wealthiest and poorest zip codes, cities and states. Very interesting for data mining your own database. It is also broken down by state for wealth. All information appears to be based on IRS data.

Enjoy!

I haven’t found a simple page for Washington State assessor, but you can find all county pages here:

http://www.mrsc.org/countyprofiles/profilesmenu.aspx