Assignment Three - Zepper Foundation Proposal - ENGL 101 Kevin Zepper - LibGuides at Minnesota State University Moorhead

Nonprofit Organizations

The U.S. Internal Revenue Service has a searchable list of Tax Exempt Organizations.

Search for the accountability rating in sources such as Charity Navigator.

And here is a succinct list of what foundations look for when evaluating a grant proposal. If you address these elements, it will make your argument more PERSUASIVE.

Dragon OneSearch
Searches everything the library has access to.
Academic Search Complete
Journals, magazines, and newspapers in almost every subject area.
Business Source Premier - EBSCO
Articles, market, industry and SWOT analysis reports, studies, and other business news.
JSTOR Full Text Journals
Journal articles and books. Journals have extensive archives but often delay access to recent issues by 4-5 years.
Subject areas include African-American Studies, Anthropology, Asian Studies, Ecology, Economics, Mathematics, Philosophy, Political Science, Population/Demography, Education, Finance, History, Literature, Sociology, and Statistics.

Charity Navigator
Independent ratings of the accountability of charities/nonprofits.

Statistical Abstract
The Statistical Abstract of the United States, published since 1878, is the authoritative and comprehensive summary of statistics on the social, political, and economic organization of the United States.

data.gov
Billed as a one-stop-shop for everything and anything that is publicly available, it has nearly 140,000 datasets in areas as varied as agriculture, climate, education, oceans, and science & research. This plethora of datasets is accompanied by filters, which allow you to refine the dataset options and make it easier to navigate, and include filtering options by topic, dataset type, tags, format, organizations, and publisher.

Search Dragon OneSearch located on the Library Web Site - For books, limit to MnPALS Catalog.

When you are researching your nonprofit, look for these and other aspects:

Annual Report for Your Nonprofit (usually found on the organization's web site).

How does your nonprofit spend its money?

What do stakeholders (donors, people who benefit) say about the nonprofit?

Can you find articles and ratings on the nonprofit's accountability?

Publications put out by your nonprofit (could be books, web-based, articles).

What do academic sources (peer reviewed journal articles, articles by others in the area the nonprofit addresses) show about the nonprofit?

What are the nonprofit's goals, mission, vision, strategic plan?

Points of View Reference Center
Designed to provide students with a series of essays that present multiple sides of a current issue. (EBSCO)

CRAAP

Currency - Is the information timely?

Relevance - Is the information relevant to your research needs (your thesis statement).

Authority - Is this information from a reliable source?

Accuracy - Is this information reliable, truthful, and correct?

Purpose - For what reason does this information exist?

The CRAAP test is adapted from the Meriam Library at California State University Chico.

The CRAAP Test Worksheet
Goes into more detail with specific questions and a scoring system for evaluation of information found on the Internet.