How to Find Nonprofits to Sell To Using Public 990 Data

Few markets are as well documented as US nonprofits. Most tax-exempt organisations file an annual information return, the Form 990, and those returns are public. They show revenue, expenses, assets, mission and the names of officers and key employees. If you sell fundraising software, consulting, accounting, IT, marketing or insurance to nonprofits, the target list is sitting in public records. Vendors ask how to sell to nonprofits in r/sales, while r/nonprofit is for the people who work at them, so read it before you pitch rather than pitching in it.

Where to search

ProPublica's tool is the quickest way to work with the data. You can search by name, location, subsection and size, and every organisation page shows financials year by year and the people listed on the return.

Filter by size, because it changes everything

Revenue tells you far more than headcount here. Small organisations with gross receipts normally of $50,000 or less file the short Form 990-N e-Postcard, which carries little information. Organisations that file the full Form 990 or 990-EZ give you real financial detail.

Revenue on the Form 990 tells you who buys and how.

Who to contact

The 990 lists officers, directors and key employees. In practice:

• Executive director or CEO. The decision maker at most small and mid-sized organisations.

• Development or fundraising director. For anything that helps raise money.

• Finance or operations director. For accounting, compliance, insurance and back-office tools.

• Board members. Listed on the return, but rarely the right first contact for a sales email.

Organisation websites usually have a staff page with emails, or at least the email pattern.

Timing and budgets

Nonprofits budget carefully and often around their fiscal year and grant cycles, which the 990 shows (the tax period). Plan outreach a few months before the fiscal year starts, when next year's budget is being written. End-of-year giving season is the busiest time for fundraising teams, so avoid pitching development staff in December.

What to say

Nonprofit leaders care about mission and about every dollar. Lead with impact and cost:

Hi [Name], I read [organisation]'s latest annual report and the work on [specific programme]. We help organisations of [size] with [what you do], mainly [the specific problem: donor retention, grant reporting, back-office time]. [A proof point you can back up.] Would a short call be useful before next year's budget is set?

Many vendors offer nonprofit pricing. If you do, say so in the first email.

Doing it with ManyPI

Disclosure: ManyPI is our product.

You can describe the organisations you want in one sentence, for example "environmental nonprofits in California with annual revenue between $1M and $10M, with the executive director's email", and the agent researches each organisation's website and public information on the live web, noting where each lead came from. If you've already filtered a list in Nonprofit Explorer, import it and the agent finds the contacts. Every email is checked before sending, and sequences go out from your own inbox. The lead generation page covers the setup.

A nonprofit search typed into the ManyPI agent.

A caution about the data: 990s are filed months after a fiscal year ends, so the newest return can be a year or more old. Use it to judge size and focus, then check the website for current staff before you write.