Help Center

Finding specific types of niche nonprofits, when nothing else seems to work

Tips and tricks to find niche organizations when Cause IQ doesn't have specific categories, NTEE codes, or other fields

In this help article...

Keyword and phrase searching in descriptions

You can find specific types of organizations by thinking about the phrases that organizations use to describe themselves. For example, if you are looking for grassroots activist organizations, they might use the phrases "grassroots organizing" or "grassroots movement" to describe their activities (among other phrases). You can then search for those phrases in organizations' descriptions in Cause IQ, which will help identify these organizations. Here is more information on organizations' descriptions:

Descriptions: We have over 575,000 descriptions, usually 200-500 words, for nonprofits, largely created by synthesizing various data points from disclosure documents, organization websites, and manual research. You can search an organization's description with the Detailed description field, located in the "Categories and characteristics" section of the search filter sidebar's Advanced search (you can also search for the field name to find the corresponding filter):

Here's a quick summary video:

*** See this help article on how to create phrase searches in these fields ***

You can search multiple different keywords or phrases at the same time. For example:

"grassroots organizing" OR "grassroots movement" OR "grassroots lobbying"

Keyword searching unusual revenue sources

If the types of organizations you're looking for carry out specific types of activities, and those activities earn them money, then you're in luck. Organizations must report their financial disclosures on these money-earning activities -- called program service revenue -- via fill-in-the-blank fields on the Form 990. Cause IQ has digitized these fields and made them searchable. You can find the Program service, keywords filter within the "Revenue: General" section of the Advanced search or by searching for the field name.

Here's a look at adding a Program services, keywords filter in Cause IQ:

You can construct the keyword searches using the standard keyword search syntax, just make sure to use individual words, though, because we aren't searching for phrases here.

To help find keywords to search, just open a few organization profiles and click the "Financials" tab to see what they have listed under their "Program service revenues" section.

Program service revenue in organization profile

Funding from federal agencies and programs

If the organizations you're looking for receive grant or contract funding from the federal government, you can search for other organizations that have similar funding sources. Cause IQ pulls federal grant and contract data from USAspending.gov and from Single Audit details, which in general is required for organizations with more than $750k in federal funding. Here are a few relevant federal funding fields available to search and view in Cause IQ

  • Federal contract income: The amount of income received from federal government contracts, both prime awards and subawards
  • Federal grant income: The amount of income received from federal government grants, both prime awards and subawards
  • Federal agencies funded by: The federal department or agency that provides funding to the organization. Organizations can have multiple federal agency funders.
  • Federal assistance (CFDA) codes: The specific federal program the organization received funding from. Organizations can have multiple CFDA programs. CFDA stands for Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance.

To check the federal funding sources for an organization, go to the organization's profile page and click the "Funding" tab and scroll down to the "Federal funding details" section. To learn more about the grants and contracts the organization receives, click the description link in the list of awards.

You can also find which federal agencies or CFDA programs multiple organizations are using with the analyze tool. Get a search (or list) together with organizations for which you want to determine federal agency and CFDA program usage. Then add the Federal agencies funded by and/or the Federal assistance (CFDA) codes fields by clicking the "Customize fields" button. You can then see which agencies and programs are most common among the organizations, and add them to your search query with a single click.

Search analyze CFDA programs and federal agencies

If you know which agencies or CFDA programs you want to find, you can always add filter for that agency or program from the search filter sidebar's Advanced search. Just search for Federal agencies funded by and/or the Federal assistance (CFDA) codes to find the corresponding filter and choose the appropriate agency or program code.

For example, if you are targeting organizations teaching English as a second language, you'd probably want to select the "English Language Acquisition State Grants" CFDA program code.