For our last #ResearchPride post of Pride Month 2024, Kelly Labrecque polled the HBG team to find out our go-to prospect research resources. She added her favorites as well and presents this article with hopes you’ll share yours with others this month as well! ~Helen
by Kelly Labrecque, Senior Consultant
Kelly Labrecque
It never ceases to amaze me, when it comes to the prospect research community, how resourceful we are. So, it is only fitting that in honor of Research Pride month we reflect on some of the inexpensive tools that not only make our jobs easier, but that frankly, we couldn’t get by without. I asked my colleagues to share which resources they love and why. Here are the highlights of (mainly) free or low-cost resources.
Biographical and Contact Information
Ancestry is a great place to find birthdates, marriages, and divorces. And if you are asked to compile a family tree for a Carnegie, Walton, or Rothschild, you can’t beat this resource.
Hunter.io and RocketReach have both been phenomenal for finding and confirming email addresses. Best of all they both offer a limited number of free searches each month. A client recently had a big push to find emails for some high-profile donors for which no contact info was in the database. These tools helped tie up those loose ends.
Although it’s not low cost, LexisNexis for Development Professionals (LNDP) takes the blue ribbon when it comes to comprehensiveness. Amongst my colleagues, this resource was a solid winner when it came to getting an overall sense of who your prospect is and to estimate a capacity quickly. It’s also a great starting off point when you have very little information to go on and it can provide several leads on where to research next.
Another great but underused resource is the Wayback Machine, an internet archive that can help you find historical company biographies and board connections.
Companies
OpenCorporates and the state-specific Secretary of State websites are key resources to help find and confirm the ownership of LLCs. You can often uncover property holdings, businesses, and other assets that no one knew about.
A number of my colleagues are big fans of The Business Journals, in particular the Los Angeles and Boston Business Journals’ Book of Lists. These lists provide information on top companies in a given region and their stakeholders. Unfortunately, both of these resources require a paid subscription or a one-time fee for the list.
Compensation
Now here is one I was really excited to learn about! Built In, an online community for national startups and tech companies. This site does a great job of breaking down tech industry salaries by job title and location and provide some information on the equity stakes offered to employees.
Alternative Assets
Christie’s and Sotheby’s offer information regarding the potential value of a prospect’s art collection by allowing you to search recent sales. Another favorite resource is the ARTnews’ Top 200 Collectors list, an annual list that showcases the most prominent art collectors. It’s a reliable representation of the trends in the art world and includes a diverse list of important names. For more art-related resources, be sure to read HBG’s Kristina Gropper’s Intelligent Edge blog post from February 2024.
A blog post written by me wouldn’t be complete without at least referencing horses. For those of you that don’t know me, I am an amateur rider, and my daughter is a competitive equestrian in the hunter and jumper disciplines. So I thought I’d share some nuggets with you for finding the value of these majestic creatures.
For prospects who are the owners or breeders of racehorses, Equibase provides you with the career statistics (placings and cash winnings) of thoroughbred racehorses. Another resource, if your prospect owns horses that participate in the hunter, jumper, or equitation disciplines is BigEq. This website can give you an idea of how much a horse is worth based on experience, job, breeding, and age – or what they cost based on the farm they come from. If you do a lot of research on grand prix jumping riders and owners, a Hippomundo subscription might be your best bet.
(Note: I’m actually writing this blog post while sitting at a horse show in Florida waiting for my daughter to enter the ring.)
Philanthropy
For finding foundation IRS 990 filings, ProPublica’s NonProfit Explorer, has proven to be the most reliable, free resource in our arsenal. Other 990 aggregators are catching up, but this source consistently has the most current information.
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention HBG’s newest paid resource, DAFinitive. Want to know if your prospect has a donor advised fund or where that fund has made gifts? Look no further. We currently have more than 75,000 funds and add new ones weekly.
Recently, I was asked to compile a list of European philanthropists, I couldn’t have done this without Philanthropy Europe Association (Philea), Fundraiso, and the Sunday Times Giving List. The latter is a paid resource that comes with a Sunday Times subscription, but it provides an annual list of the top 100 most charitable people in the UK.
My colleague Grace Chandonnet loves Perplexity. “This AI search tool helped me to find the answer to a question regarding the donation amount for a named capital gift. I truly don’t think I would have found it without Perplexity, which pointed me to a website that then required following a link to another page and reading through the entire naming gifts policy for the organization that received the gift. The policy wasn’t directly attached to the prospect’s name, and I likely wouldn’t have gone down the rabbit hole without being pointed in the right direction.”
News
LNDP’s News Search is a great way to find articles that usually require a subscription. You can get the content of the article and still cite the source as needed.
My colleague Angie Herrington relies heavily on Media Bias/Fact Check to make sure that the sources of her news alerts aren’t heavily biased or present a conflict of interest.
Due Diligence
Not to be biased, but HBG’s Due Diligence Resources page is super helpful and comprehensive. Within those links, Court Listener shines amongst my colleagues as a favorite resource for finding lawsuits. Another gem on this list is the corporate misconduct and violation tracker database from Good Jobs First. It also has a UK version.
Final Thoughts
My colleague Susan Barclay summed up my thoughts perfectly, “My fellow HBG researchers are my favorite resource. Everyone brings their own experiences and their vast amount of knowledge to the table. Even if I have the oddest question I’m grappling with, chances are someone has already answered it — with documentation included!”
When in doubt, reach out to your fellow researchers for guidance. They are the best resource and (usually) free! Also be sure to join your local APRA chapter, PRSPCT-L, or LinkedIn interest groups to expand your network.
