A database of 1,653,289 nonprofit organizations is a starting point, not a list you can use as it is. Nobody wants to contact 1.65 million organizations, and most of them are not a fit for what you sell. The value comes from narrowing the file to the few thousand that are.
This guide walks through the fields available, what state level counts look like, and a repeatable method for building a nonprofit prospect list that a sales team or consultant can actually work.
In This Article
The 21 Fields You Can Filter On
Each record carries 21 structured columns. Grouped by what they help you do, they look like this:
| Group | Fields | Use it to |
|---|---|---|
| Identity | Organization name, year founded | Separate established organizations from new ones |
| Location | Street address, city, state, ZIP, latitude, longitude | Build territories and radius searches |
| Contact | Named contact, job title, email, phone, fax, toll free number, website | Reach a decision maker directly |
| Size | Total annual revenue, site level revenue, total employees, on site headcount | Match your product to the organization's scale |
| Classification | NAICS industry code, standardized title code | Target a type of organization or a type of role |
One caution applies to every public records dataset. Revenue and employee figures are reported as found in public sources, and they are not always current, so use them to set ranges rather than to make precise calculations.
How the Records Spread Across States
Geography is usually your first cut, and the counts are very uneven. The four largest states, Florida, California, Texas, and New York, hold 576,455 organizations between them, about 35 percent of the entire file.
| State | Nonprofit records | Share of national file |
|---|---|---|
| Florida | 185,328 | 11.2% |
| California | 162,639 | 9.8% |
| Texas | 130,198 | 7.9% |
| New York | 98,290 | 5.9% |
| Illinois | 67,287 | 4.1% |
| Ohio | 65,995 | 4.0% |
| Pennsylvania | 59,900 | 3.6% |
| Virginia | 52,682 | 3.2% |
At the other end, Hawaii has 3,325 records and Wyoming has 3,518. A campaign in a small state is a very different project from one in Florida, with far fewer organizations to reach, so plan territories using the real numbers instead of assuming states are similar in size.
A Five Step Method for Building the List
- Step 1: Describe your ideal customer. Write down the size, type, and location of the organizations that buy from you now.
- Step 2: Cut by geography. Filter by state, then by city or ZIP if your service is local.
- Step 3: Cut by size. Use revenue and employee count to set a range. A tool built for teams of ten or more should not go to volunteer run groups.
- Step 4: Cut by type. Use the NAICS industry code to isolate hospitals, schools, social services, arts groups, or whichever types you serve.
- Step 5: Require a way to reach them. Keep records that have the contact fields your channel needs, such as a phone number, website, or named contact.
Know the Coverage Before You Pick a Channel
Contact fields are filled in at different rates. Reported exactly as found in public records:
| Contact field | Records with data | Share of file |
|---|---|---|
| Phone number | 1,194,526 | 72% |
| Website URL | 888,282 | 54% |
| Fax line | 660,637 | 40% |
| Direct email address | 493,340 | 30% |
That mix matters. With email present on about three in ten records, an email only plan reaches a minority of the file. A plan that combines phone, mail using the street address, and email for the records that have one covers far more of your target list. Our guide to selling to nonprofits covers how to approach the buyers once you have found them.
Clean, Deduplicate, and Load
Before outreach, remove duplicate organizations, standardize state and ZIP formats, and save the file as UTF-8 so names with special characters survive. Then load it into your CRM with a field recording the source and date, so you can later see which segments actually convert. The file ships as a CSV that opens in Excel, Google Sheets, and any CRM that imports CSV.
Ready to Start Filtering?
Get all 1,653,289 organizations across 50 states with 21 fields each. One payment of $379, lifetime access, and an instant CSV download with no subscription.
Get the Database →