Subject Guides: LDR 6110: Leading Teams (Robbie): Getting Started

Getting Started

Welcome to the course guide for LDR 6110 with Professor Robbie! Use the links included in this guide to help you begin your research for this course. It is important to use reliable, authoritative resources when researching. The resources provided here are carefully selected to provide a strong foundation for more powerful reports.

If you need additional guidance in locating resources, please feel free to contact me for an appointment.

B-Corps vs. Non-Profits

A nonprofit is defined as:

A group, organization, institution or corporation formed to provide goods and/or services for a charitable, educational, religious, literary or scientific purpose. Nonprofits' assets are usually donated by companies, foundations or individuals who do not expect to be repaid. These contributions are tax deductible. If a nonprofit meets the requirements of the Internal Revenue Service's Code, section 501(c)(3), it can obtain tax-exempt status, and does not pay federal or state income taxes.

A b-Corp is:

A company that purposes is to benefit the public good in addition to simply generating profits for shareholders. To do so, the company must amend its governing documents (e.g., the articles of incorporation) to include specific mission-aligned language.

A social impact initiative is defined by the Global Wellness Institute as:

identifying, cataloging, communicating and inspiring evidence-based social impact approaches and programs that benefit society.

Research Tips

To get started, below is a list of helpful search strategies, tips, and best practices to get you started. Try these keywords as suggestions (use your own for a more specific results page for your report)

nonprofit organizations AND social impact
nonprofit organizations AND evaluation
nonprofits AND business models
B-corp AND benefits
nonprofits AND B-corp

Search Tips
Research Tutorials
Review the fundamentals of using library databases to plan and execute a topic search.

General Non-Profit Information

Qualtrics Guide to Market Research
Article from Qualtrics on conducting business research and communicating it to your team and clients
National Center for Charitable Statistics (NCCS)
more... less...

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.
Charity Navigator
Charity Navigator evaluates and compares nonprofit charities for potential donors. Ratings include financial health, accountability and transparency. In addition to rating information sign up for a free login account to access past ratings, IRS information, including current and past IRS 990 forms and links to news articles about the charity.
Guidestar
GuideStar's database contains data on more than 900,000 public charities, approximately 118,000 private foundations, and nearly half a million other exempt organizations in the United States. Federal 990 forms can be accessed through Guidestar, and grant activity of both grantmakers and grantees is accessible through the Grant Explorer data set.
Better Business Bureau
Rates and grades charity organizations based on performance, a history of complaints against the organization and other criteria.

Key Resources (Databases)

The databases listed below are core databases for general non-profit and marketing research.

Marketing research often requires using interdisciplinary databases, articles and demographics, company and industry data, and more.