Guides: Nonprofit Research @ Pitt: Getting Started

Getting Started: How to Use This Guide

This guide will help you conduct research on nonprofit organizations. The information and resources included here should be treated as entry points for further documentation and bibliography.

Through this guide, you can access the following kinds of information:

financial information about nonprofits
resources for managing and financing nonprofits, researching industries in which nonprofit organizations are active

Starting Points

Key Journals

Pitt Newspapers Databases

Newspapers are a great source of information on local nonprofits

Pittsburgh Business Times
To access the Pittsburgh Business Times, please register using the following link: Register with the University of Pittsburgh. Once you create an account you will get to a page where you can select the University of Pittsburgh-Pittsburgh Business Times. If you already have an account you can sign in from this page. You may need to go to their account tab and under the Subscriptions, Licenses & Access page there should be a box to select our subscription.
If you encounter any issues with this, please contact the business librarian at chd84@pitt.edu.
Please note that you may need to access this via a non-Chrome browser, as issues have been encountered when using Chrome.
Trib Live (Tribune Review)
Interactive online edition of the Tribune review. Contains current information. Trib Live is an online community dedicated to bringing the best of the region's news, sports, entertainment and directory services to the Internet.
Nexis Uni
Provides full text and citation access to information in the reference, business, medical, and legal disciplines. [Formerly titled: Academic Lexis-Nexis]

Pitt Article Databases

Article databases may contain trade and scholarly publications on nonprofits

Business Source Complete

Business Source Complete provides full-text business journals and hundreds of scholarly, peer-reviewed journals covering all aspects of business; marketing, management, economics, finance, accounting, international business and more.
This link uses the Business Searching Interface which provides easy access to full text company financial data, investment research reports, industry reports, market research reports, country reports, company profiles, SWOT analyses, and more.
If you would like to access the content of Business Source Complete through the traditional EBSCOhost interface, click here.
Policy File Index
Covers all public policy issues and it draws its content from public policy think tanks, university research programs, research organizations and publishers.
SocINDEX
SocINDEX is a comprehensive sociology database featuring citations with subject headings from a sociology specific thesaurus. It contains informative abstracts for more than 590 core journals dating back to 1985.
CountryWatch

*Effective 2/28/26, this resource will no longer be accessible. Please contact Ask Us or your subject specialist for assistance on finding replacement resources to search.
CountryWatch provides up-to-date information and news on the countries of the world.
GreenFILE
Comprised of scholarly and general interest titles, as well as government documents and reports, GreenFILE offers perspective on the positive and negative ways humans affect the ecology.

PittCat is the main searching tool for all of the materials owned by the University Library System (ULS), including articles, books, ebooks, journal articles, ejournals, audio and video, digital images, government documents, microfilm and movies.

PittCat
Access PittCat directly or use the ULS homepage.

Find online books, articles and more on what a nonprofit is, how it is formed, funded and managed. Use the Advanced Search to combine keywords in a search string. Here are some sample search terms :

nonprofit organizations AND fundraising
nonprofit organizations AND management
nonprofits AND business models

Nonprofit Organizations: Theory, Management, Policy by Helmut K. Anheier
ISBN: 9780415550468

Publication Date: 2014-05-15
Cases in Nonprofit Management by Pat Libby; Laura Jeanne Deitrick
ISBN: 9781483383484

Publication Date: 2016-02-24
The Nonprofit Almanac: The Essential Facts and Figures for Managers, Researchers, and Volunteers by Saunji D. Fyffe; Brice S. McKeever; Elizabeth T. Boris (Foreword by)
ISBN: 9781442275935

Publication Date: 2016-10-12

Government Organizations

Bureau of Corporations and Charitable Organizations, Charities Section
The Bureau of Corporations and Charitable Organizations administers the state's charitable solicitation law. It also maintains registration and financial information on over 13,000 charities soliciting in the Commonwealth, as well as more than 450 professional solicitors and fundraising counsels.

Foundation Center Network Partners

Nonprofit Resource Center at the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh
The Nonprofit Resource Center provides a collection of materials and services relevant to the topic of philanthropy. In particular, we provide free access to print and online resources on all aspects of managing, fundraising and grantseeking within the nonprofit sector.
The Pittsburgh Foundation
The Pittsburgh Foundation, established in 1945, works to improve the quality of life in the Pittsburgh region by evaluating and addressing community issues, promoting responsible philanthropy, and connecting donors to the critical needs of the community.

Trade Organizations and Associations

Pennsylvania Association of Nonprofit Organizations
PANO helps charities become more efficient and effective through collaboration, cooperation and the sharing of resources and information
National Council of Nonprofits
The National Council of Nonprofits (Council of Nonprofits) is a trusted resource and advocate for America’s charitable nonprofits.

Ratings, Reports and Statistics

The Foundation Center NOW Candid
Click "Get Started" and then "Get Answers" to access the Reference Guide for Researchers, the Topical Resource Lists, or the Online Librarian feature to submit quesitons. Click "Gain Knowledge" to find nonprofit reports, research studies, statistics and trends.
Guidestar
Requires free registration. Financial information on nonprofits and about nonprofits' programs.
Charity Navigator
the premier independent charity evaluator, studied the 30 largest metropolitan areas and the financial health and efficiency of their charities to determine the rankings.
National Center for Charitable Statistics
A project of the Center on Nonprofits and Philanthropy (CNP) at the Urban Institute, the NCCS provides brief information on nonprofit organizations including financial information, recent 990 forms and programming information. Search for nonprofits by name or by location or by National Taxonomy of Exempt Entities (NTEE) code.
Also find profiles of the U.S. and individual state nonprofit sectors and search for information on nonprofits by state, county or zip code.

Blogs and Podcasts

Idealist.org
A project of Action Without Borders, Idealist is itself a nonprofit organization. Find nonprofit, volunteering, career, and funding resources.

Information Portals

IRS- Starting a Nonprofit
Includes links to IRS and tax information, disaster resources, and publications focused on management, operations grants and funding, like the Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance.

University of Pittsburgh Library System

Course & Subject Guides

Nonprofit Research @ Pitt

What is a nonprofit?

Librarian