Donor research is essential to building effective fundraising strategies, identifying the right prospects, and making the perfect ask. Tools like DonorAtlas (and others) make donor research easy, but usually cost at least a few hundred dollars to get started. If you’re not ready to use a tool like that yet, there luckily are a variety of free resources! In fact, DonorAtlas even uses some of these sources–along with lots of other harder-to-access, less-free data :)

1. The Million Dollar List

The Million Dollar List, compiled by the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, documents publicly announced gifts of $1 million or more. Unfortunately, the data hasn’t been updated since 2015. The website is still a very useful starting point, offering tens of thousands of giving records.

2. Bloomberg Billionaires Index

Wondering where the world’s wealthiest are spending their money? The Bloomberg Billionaires Index tracks the net worth of the richest individuals globally, including details on their business holdings, investments, and philanthropy.

3. Perplexity

Perplexity is an AI-powered search engine. Unlike traditional search engines, Perplexity summarizes information from multiple online sources and is generally more up-to-date than other AI platforms like ChatGPT. It can be a helpful starting point, but as with any off-the-shelf AI model, it certainly has limitations to be aware of–for example, it could hallucinate and make up data, it is limited in its response length,and, of course, it’s not specifically designed for donor research. (If you’re interested, check out even more ways nonprofits are using AI).

4. Google News Alerts

Have a donor, foundation, or topic you want to receive regular updates on? Google Alerts are free and easy to set up, and will notify you whenever your subject of interest shows up in the news (for example, there’s a new press release about a gift they made).

5. Google Advanced Search

Want to research an individual or organization, but not finding relevant information? Try putting keywords into your Google searches using Google Advanced Search. With Advanced Search, you can add on “annual report,” “990,” “philanthropic giving,” “political giving history,” or other specific terms that will narrow your results. Here’s a guide to getting started!

6. Philanthropy News Digest

The Philanthropy News Digest by Candid is a great, frequently-updated resource for tracking grants, foundation activity, and major gifts. You can sign up for daily, weekly, or monthly reports on philanthropic trends, new funding opportunities, and donor movements.

7. Nonprofit Tax Filings (990s)

Nonprofit tax filings (IRS Form 990s) are a goldmine of donor insights. These publicly available documents reveal an organization’s top contributors, board members, and financials. You can find them on platforms like ProPublica or Candid, or access the underlying data directly from the IRS.

Once you’ve done your donor research, it’s important to put it into action. Check out our guide to relational fundraising to learn how.

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Thoughts on this piece or want to get in touch? Send me an email (will@donoratlas.com), I’m always happy to start a dialogue :)