You’ll want to make the Foundation Center your first stop offline as well as online when researching foundation and corporate funders. It started out publishing its funder directories in printed form, and it’s continued to do so, although more and more it directs you to its online resources.

The Foundation Center operates offices in New York; San Francisco; Atlanta; Cleveland; and Washington, D.C. (Find the addresses in Appendix B.) Nearly 400 reference sections at public and private libraries and community foundations make Foundation Center publications and other reference works available for free. You can find these addresses in the front of directories published by the Foundation Center and on its website.

The Foundation Center’s The Foundation Directory contains several indexes that will make your research much easier and more fruitful:

Donor, officers, and trustees index. Has a trustee at one of your current funders been particularly supportive? Look here to see what other foundations he serves as a trustee.

Geographic restrictions index. Note here in particular any funders outside your state that fund your area. You might easily overlook these if you stick to the state-by-state listing. The foundations are numbered 1 to 10,000, so knowing that your state encompasses, for example, numbers 451 to 997 makes it possible to spot the out-of-state funders represented by numbers lower or higher.

Subject index. Quickly find out which funders make grants in your sector: children, health, culture, and so on. These categories are broad, so you’ll still have to read all the listings carefully.

The Foundation Center’s Grants Guides offer indexes of grants in 12 different sectors, including arts and culture, children, education, the environment, libraries, mental health, minorities, women and girls, and other topics. Here you look up grants and then find out the information on the funders. These are very helpful for finding out which funders support charities similar to yours. Note that the current editions of the Grants Guides are only available as downloads from its website.

The Foundation Center’s National Directory of Corporate Giving contains information on more than 4,000 corporate grantmakers, including both foundations and company giving programs. The listings are particularly informative because they also give you information on the sponsoring company. This makes it possible for you to compare and contrast the funding interests of each, as well as noting all the names that might help you if you can find a contact within your charity.

Several publishers offer dozens of directories on funders based on subject (mental health, education, children services, performing arts, and so on). I’ve never found these directories very helpful. For example, one directory claims to be a directory of technology funders. On closer examination, the vast majority of the funders provide funding for the use of computers in schools K–12. That’s not much help if you’re raising money for a senior center or hospital. These books appear to be very specific, but to get to be book length, they end up being quite general.

If your organization has $995 to spare, you can get the staff at the Foundation Center to do some of your research for you. By joining its Associates Program, you receive the right to call or e-mail them as often as you like with research questions. If you have limited reference sources and very limited time, it might pay to have an expert help you. I’ve found this service to be very good at getting biographical information or answering a specific research question, but less so in developing a prospect list. Other grant writers might have had different experiences.

What if you don’t have $995 to spare? Remember your local librarians are one of your greatest resources. If they aren’t used to doing the kind of research you need, they’ll probably welcome the challenge.

Never overlook the obvious sources for information. Case in point: the telephone book. People you’d think would have unlisted numbers can be found right there.

The Who’s Who directories provide basic biographical information. Marquis is the publisher of the oldest and most comprehensive editions of Who’s Who. It also publishes directories by profession and region. These might be of some use to you, too.

The social register might seem antiquated, but it, too, will give you addresses of potential major donors. It’s particularly good for finding vacation home addresses and tracing family relationships. The membership lists of private clubs also offer addresses you’ll find nowhere else. Although clubs won’t give out information to nonmembers and restrict members from anything other than personal use, you might impose on a board member or volunteer to give you one or two hard-to-find addresses.