By: Karla Davis, Senior Consultant

Prospect development staff frequently use major newspapers like The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal when researching prominent prospects. But what sources do you use when your prospect is only well-known in their local community? What if that community is 50 miles or more away from a larger city center?

Can you remember the last time you used a local newspaper while researching a prospect? Some of us remember working in development offices that received a physical copy of the local newspaper daily. An employee had the task of skimming the paper for news related to institutional donors or other various  people in our CRM. These days, that task is usually completed by automated news alerts.

However, those news alerts may not yield results coming from community newspapers or other small publications. At a previous job in a college town, I would routinely find obituaries in the town’s community newspapers and magazines for local residents who were one-time or lapsed donors to my organization. These obituaries were not in the larger daily newspapers, perhaps due to the cost of placing an obituary in a larger, metropolitan newspaper.

Below are some other sources for research:

Local and Community Newspapers

Local and community newspapers are useful sources for obituaries of local people who may have donated to your organization but do not have an affinity relationship, like alumni. The other publications may yield types of information about your prospect or other information about individuals in your CRM.

• Patch Media contains local news for 30,000 communities searchable by city name or zip code
• Community Newspapers, Incorporated has a list of 22 newspapers in Florida, Georgia, and North Carolina
• CNHI is a collection of newspapers from 19 states
• The Hearst Midwest Media Group serves communities across Illinois and Michigan

Specialized Publications

• Regional business news from 64 publications can be found at The Business Journals (subscription required)
• Crain Communications has publications such as regional business magazines and periodicals related to specific industries (subscription required)

Community Lifestyle Magazines

These are the glossy magazines that offer a mix of hard-hitting features and articles portraying communities in their best light. Did any of your organization’s alumni make the Top Doctors or Lawyers list? Want to see photos of your prominent prospect’s new home? Check these types of magazines. Examples include Mpls.St.Paul Magazine, 5280 Magazine, Chicago Magazine, and Texas Monthly.

More community lifestyle magazines can be found in the member directory at the City and Regional Magazine Association

Another source of these magazines is the collection of publications from Modern Luxury Media.

Ethnic Newspapers and Other Sources                

Check for local and regional newspapers related to your prospect’s ethnicity.

• National Newspaper Publishers Association contains a list of affiliated Black newspapers
• Latino News Network covers news in eight primary markets in addition to news from around the U.S.
• AsAmNews covers news about the Asian American and Pacific Islander communities
• The HistoryMakers website contains summaries of oral histories of prominent African Americans and its archive is searchable

Public Radio

If the prospect is a prominent person in a community, try searching the website of the prospect’s local public radio station. You may find an interview they’ve given locally or on one of the nationally-syndicated public radio shows.

Public and Academic Libraries

Don’t forget your local public and academic libraries! The library may have these resources, which you can access off-site with a library card:

• NewsBank contains articles from newspapers, business journals, periodicals, government documents, and other sources.
• ProQuest Ethnic NewsWatch covers these ethnic categories:
  • African American/Caribbean/African
  • Arab/Middle Eastern
  • Asian/Pacific Islander
  • European/Eastern European
  • Hispanic
  • Jewish
  • Native People
• ProQuest News & Newspapers contains content from the 1700s to the present.
• EBSCO Newspaper Source has full-text articles from national, international, and regional newspapers.
• EBSCO Regional Business News has full-text articles from regional business publications from Canada and the United States.

In conclusion, don’t forget smaller publications for researching your prospects. You might be surprised by what you discover.