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Q: Locating Community Organizations ( Answered 5 out of 5 stars,   0 Comments )
Question  
Subject: Locating Community Organizations
Category: Miscellaneous
Asked by: matthewjschutte-ga
List Price: $75.00
Posted: 11 Jul 2006 20:08 PDT
Expires: 10 Aug 2006 20:08 PDT
Question ID: 745472
I'm looking for good ways to look up community organizations in
specific geographic areas.  In particular, I am hoping to get what
amounts to a guide on finding contact information on local church,
community, political and fraternal organizations.  The ability to look
these up by city, state, area code or zip code  would all be extremely
beneficial.

I have grant writers that are each assigned to geographic territories
and they would immensely benefit from being able to locate these sorts
of groups in their specific area.  Most of these people work from home
with the internet as their primary resource and so internet research
is preferred but other methods may be of use as well.

This guide would hopefully detail many different ways of locating such
groups and would contain instructions on navigating sites where such
information is necessary (it is not obvious from the home page how to
search for such groups).

I am only looking for a guide to U.S. based community groups. 
However, we do operate in every state (with grant writers typically
assigned to one or a few states).

I look forward to your response,
Thank you.

Request for Question Clarification by easterangel-ga on 12 Jul 2006 03:55 PDT
Hi!

I can provide you with direct links to websites wherein you can search
for these community organizations.

Is this what you are looking for or do you really want someone to
draft a guide? If you just want the ability to search then these
websites will do just fine.

Thanks.
Answer  
Subject: Re: Locating Community Organizations
Answered By: pafalafa-ga on 12 Jul 2006 11:50 PDT
Rated:5 out of 5 stars
 
Here are a number of online resources that you can use to identify a
wide variety of community organizations:


====================

http://www.eri-nonprofit-salaries.com/index.cfm?FuseAction=NPO.Search&SearchType=Advanced&CobrandID=0
Economic Research Institute 
Non Profit Organization Information


ERI maintains an extensive database of non-profit organizations in the
US, and makes the information available through a website search
function.

To search:


Enter [ a ] in the Organization Name field, and select the option for
"Beginning with the above text".

Select a state from the pull-down menu (alternatively, you can enter a
city or zip code to further focus the results.

You can also select from a variety of organization codes:

--Activity Code:

--Foundation Type:

--NTEE Group:


These are self-explanatory, and will narrow the results to specific
types of organizations, such as churches, or health-related groups.


This will retrieve all the organizations in the selected state
beginning with the letter "a"...there will be several hundred for a
statewide search.

For instance, a search in Rhode Island for ALL organizations beginning
with the letter 'a' produces 636 results.  The first ten look like
this:


==========

1 
 A I A R I ARCHITECTURAL FORUM (300020074)
WARWICK, RI 02887 
  
2 
 A J DEBLOIS FAMILY FOUNDATION (050520897)
WARREN, RI 02885 
  
3 
 A KIDS PLACE AT NINIGRET PARK INC (050480268)
CHARLESTOWN, RI 02813 
  
4 
 A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN INC (050516751)
PROVIDENCE, RI 02908 
  
5 
 A MILES HERROLD TRUSR UW FBO NORTHFIELD MOUNT HERMON SCHOOL (046502498)
PROVIDENCE, RI 02901 
  
6 
 A NEW LEAF (222529900)
PROVIDENCE, RI 02906 
  
7 
 A PLACE TO GROW INC (050464008)
WAKEFIELD, RI 02879 
  
8 
 A PRO LIFE GATHERING INCORPORATED (050384215)
PROVIDENCE, RI 02905 
  
9 
 A RAY OF HOPE (050512926)
CHARLESTOWN, RI 02813 
  
10 
 A T CROSS COMPANY WELFARE PLAN TRUST (050475565)
LINCOLN, RI 02865 
 

==========

Click on any organization's name for additional information on the
group.  For instance, clicking on listing #2 takes you to:


http://www.eri-nonprofit-salaries.com/index.cfm?FuseAction=NPO.Summary&EIN=050520897&Cobrandid=0
A J DEBLOIS FAMILY FOUNDATION
61 BAGY WRINKLE COVE
WARREN,  RI  02885-4116 


The page includes a lot of information, such as:


Assets: $254,445 
 

Clicking on the tabs at the top of the page provide even more information.


Repeat for the other letters of the alphabet, and you're all set. 


====================

Another great resource is the online Yellow Pages.  

There are several to choose from, but I've found SuperPages to be one of the best:



http://www.superpages.com/


In the "Keyword" box enter  [ community ] and in the "Location" box
enter your state (or city or zip) of choice.


For instance, using MA as a sample state, I received the following results:


Community & Civic Organizations (3771) 

Government Offices (499) 

Special Interest Organizations (691) 

County Government Offices (2) 

Retirement Communities & Homes (125) 



You can click on any of the above to get to the listings, or you can
scroll down the page for more details.  For instance, the 3,000+
listings in the Community & Civic Organizations category are broken
out as follows:


Community & Civic Organizations (3771) 

Special Interest (691) 
Peace Organizations (21) 
Singles Organizations (22) 
Youth (462) 
Boys' & Girls' Scouts' Uniforms & Supplies (3) 
Women's Organizations (53) 
Historical Organizations (28) 
Missing Persons Organizations (1) 
Gay & Lesbian Organizations (28) 
Fraternal Organizations (453) 
.
.
.
and so on.



The listings themselves look like this:


Polish American Club 
Cone Avenue, Housatonic, MA 01236


Irish Social Club of Boston 
119 Park Street, West Roxbury, MA 02132


Polish Falcon Club 
32 Bel Air Avenue, Pittsfield, MA 01201


and by clicking on "business profile", you'll get a phone number and
additional information for the group.



====================


Another great resource is the Idealist.org search function run by
Action Without Borders:


http://www.idealist.org/if/idealist/en/AdvancedSearch/Org/default?sid=63310452-298-ByYJh



This is an international resource, but there are plenty of listings in
the US.  For instance, selecting US for the country, and Oklahoma for
the state yields:


Organizations in oklahoma United States 
138 results found 


The listings look like this:


1.  Agape Pregnancy Center of Miami Oklahoma
The Agape Pregnancy Center is an outreach ministry of the area
churches that demonstrates the unconditional love and compassion of
Jesus Christ in the community - A demonstration of God's power to meet
the needs of those who are drawn by God to the APC. ...


2.  Alpha Kappa Delta Phi at the Univeristy of Oklahoma
We are an organization at The University of Oklahoma. Our purpose is
to promote Asian Awareness, Community Service, Leadership, and
Scholarship within the Community and University. We want to be
involved as much as possible and be diverse in the community..


3.  Altus Animal Aid, Inc.
Making A Difference One Pet at a Time! Altus Animal Aid, Inc. is a
non-profit organization working with the Altus Animal Control
Shelter,Lawton Animal Control,Wilbarger Humane Society in Vernon,
TX.,Texoma Area Rescues and Humane Societies, American Red ...



and, again, clicking on the organization's name will take you to a
page with additional information:


http://www.idealist.org/if/idealist/en/SiteIndex/AssetViewer/view?asset=Org&asset-id=81528-307&sid=63310452-298-VtgyA

Altus Animal Aid, Inc.
1040 Box Street,
Altus, Oklahoma, 73521 
United States

Contact Person:
Ernie Harper 

Phone: 580-477-0807

URL:http://www.altusanimalaid.org

A link to an email address is also provided.


====================

I trust these resources will fully meet your needs.  However, if
there's anything more I can do for you, just let me know by posting a
Request for Clarification, and I'm at your service.

Cheers,

pafalafa-ga


search strategy -- used bookmarked sites for non-profits

Request for Answer Clarification by matthewjschutte-ga on 14 Jul 2006 15:14 PDT
Thank you for your response to my question.  However, I am looking for
a way to contact community and civic organizations in particular.  I
believe that much of the stuff you uncovered (aside from the
superpages) does not allow me to really search for such groups. 
Please correct me if I am wrong but I think much of the other
resources were geared toward locating non-profits and charities.  We
are targeting groups that have community interaction rather than just
acting as a finance structure for further a specific cause.  If you
could provide a bit of guidance that is focused on participatory
community and civic organizations, that would be extremely helpful.

Thank you

Clarification of Answer by pafalafa-ga on 14 Jul 2006 15:41 PDT
Thanks for getting back to me.

Both the ERI and the Superpages databases are very "tunable" for a
wide variety of organizations.

I'm not 100% clear about which sorts of groups you do and don't want
out of ERI, but if you play around a bit with the options, I think
you'll find a large number of organizations will hit the nail on the
head for your needs.

For instance, by selecting "Inner City or Community Activities" under
the Activity Code, and selecting Kansas as the state, I get more than
500 groups, beginning with:


  
1 
 ABBYVILLE BOOSTER CLUB (510193908)
ABBYVILLE, KS 67510 
  
2 
 ADVICE & AID PREGNANCY CENTERS INC (481055953)
SHAWNEE, KS 66214 
  
3 
 AFFORDABLE HOUSING SERVICES OF TOPEKA INC (481116000)
TOPEKA, KS 66604 
  
4 
 AJAX INC (480958976)
GLASCO, KS 67445 
  
5 
 ALLEN COUNTY CRIME STOPPERS PROGRAM INC (481151921)
IOLA, KS 66749 
  
6 
 ALLEN-LAMBE HOUSE FOUNDATION (480889364)
WICHITA, KS 67208 
  
7 
 ALMA VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPT (486112589)
ALMA, KS 66401 
  
8 
 AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL HYGIENE ASSOCIATION (481115701)
HAYSVILLE, KS 67060 
  
9 
 ARGONIA VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPT (486115965)
ARGONIA, KS 67004 
  
10 
 ARKANSAS CITY CHAMBER OF COMMERCE INC (480123860)
ARKANSAS CITY, KS 67005 
  


For the most part, these are very local level, active,
community-focused organizations.

Does that help?

If not, please let me know a bit more specifically what types of
groups you're most interested in.

Thanks,

paf
matthewjschutte-ga rated this answer:5 out of 5 stars
This researcher did a great job in both initial research and with
clarification.  I'm very satisfied with the result.  Thank you.

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