Researching & Building Contacts [Knowledge Base Index]

The most successful nonprofits and NGOs are those that communicate regularly with other organizations, businesses, office holders and the media. If others know what an organization is doing, they will refer potential supporters, resources and clients to that organization. It will also allow more and more people to know of the impact your organization has on the community. And it may even lead to collaboration between projects and organizations.

Online volunteers can help by researching contact information (postal address, phone number, e-mail address, fax number) for similarly-focused organizations, government office holders, local business owners, appropriate media outlets, and so forth, to help an organization identify others that should receive press releases, program updates, event invitations or other materials.

However, an online volunteer should NEVER contact these organizations or representatives without the EXPRESS approval of the organization he or she is assisting. If you have not been authorized to contact other organizations or individuals for the nonprofit, or you aren't sure if you are supposed to, then DON'T. Most organizations will want you to just gather the contact information, which will be used by an onsite staff person to make the actual contacts.

Many geographic areas around the world have online yellow pages and phone directories that you can use to search for certain organizations and businesses in a given area. However, these online resources are often NOT in English, so you will need to understand the language of the area you are targeting. Your favorite search engines can help you find online yellow pages and phone directories for a particular geographic area. Other resources that can help:

 International Government Sites
By Government Technology, a for-profit company.

Yahoo's Directory of International NGOs

Excite's Directory of International Development Organizations

Foreign Government Resources on the Web
A list of resources by the University of Michigan.

International Chamber of Commerce

Telephone books online worldwide (in English, French, Spanish, Italian and German)

United Nations Non-Governmental Liaison Service
NGLS supports NGOs and NGO networks active on issues and themes under discussion in the UN system, and facilitates NGO participation in, and activities around, UN conferences, events and processes. This small office jointly organizes meetings or other special events with NGOs and/or UN system agencies and puts NGOs in touch with organizations sharing similar interests and with appropriate UN system offices.

Also see Marketing/Outreach/Advocacy, the section of our handbook to help online volunteers charged with helping an NGO with outreach activities.