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Research Guides

Nonprofit Management

Need to Know: How to Cite Data

While a lot of attention is paid to finding and using datasets, it is just as critical to attribute the information properly and cite it.  Each discipline or publication seems to have its own convention for citing either in reference lists or in text.

Here are some sources that may provide assistance:

Data repositories and scholarly data sites may also provide a preferred citation for a dataset. Here are few that are core in policy sciences:

Different citation styles will also offer guidance on how to cite data:

Help with Data

Guidance from Experts:

Search major data repositories

This search box will search the major open access data repositories for datasets with specific search terms:

Google has also launched an engine that will search for datasets by keyword.

Nonprofit Data

Data on Charitable Giving

From the Chronicle of Philanthropy this resource provides data and mapping down to zip code level for charitable giving.

  • Total Contributions
  • Contributions by Household
  • Discretionary Income by Household
  • Percentage of Income Given by Household

Census Data

The US Census is the leading source of quality data about the nation's people and economy. They collect data through the Decennial Census of Population and Housing, Economic Census, Census of Governments, American Community Survey and other programs.