Top 5 nonprofit due diligence tools in 2024

Done manually, donor due diligence consumes valuable time for prospect development teams — time that could be better spent elsewhere. Luckily, there are due diligence tools designed for nonprofits to handle the heavy lifting.

These tools can automate the most time-intensive parts, such as screening business records, corporate registries, and datasets like sanction and PEP lists. Some tools even automate the entire research process—from gathering information to analysis and report writing—using advancements in AI technology.

AI-powered due diligence tools can enrich your process by sifting through adverse media search results, performing entity resolution, and cross-referencing adverse information with business and compliance data. However, not all due diligence tools offer the same level of AI capabilities.

Selecting the right due diligence tool tailored to your organization’s needs is crucial. To help you choose, we’ve compiled an overview of five leading and highly trusted due diligence tools on the market.

Xapien 

Xapien’s AI technology automates the entire due diligence process from start to finish. It searches through millions of registries, screening data, and trillions of web pages to gather and analyse information about individuals or companies. Using its Resolve™ disambiguation engine, Xapien creates unique ‘personas’ for individuals who share the same name, accurately linking them based on contextual clues. This solves the common false positive problem where both AI models and humans can confuse names and connections.

Resolve™ ensures that the report focuses exclusively on your subject, providing comprehensive insights into their professional background, any criminal or controversial involvements, sanctions exposure, political affiliations, ESG risks, business connections, sources of wealth, and past philanthropic activities. Wondering how we differ from the likes of GPT? We interviewed our CTO here to answer that question.

MSCI ESG Manager

MSCI ESG Manager offers powerful tools for risk assessments on global public companies. Features include ESG ratings, business involvement screenings, and controversy reports. AI and alternative data power these critical insights to inform decision-making. Simply upload your prospect portfolio, and MSCI ESG Manager will identify connections to companies engaged in activities like producing controversial weapons, tobacco products, and fossil fuels, among other risks.

Sustainalytics

Sustainalytics is another excellent tool for performing ESG research on global public companies. It uses AI to quickly analyze large, diverse datasets and provide a comprehensive view of a company’s ESG analytics. This includes a company’s exposure to ESG risks and how it manages those risks, details on product involvement and the extent of that involvement, and controversy reports in an in-depth and downloadable format.

D&B Hoovers

D&B Hoovers offers comprehensive information on companies and industries with 120 million comprehensive business records covering nearly every incorporated organization, including small businesses. It provides detailed insights into industry types with an overview of company history, key decision makers, news reports, recent acquisitions, parent companies, subsidiaries, and operations.

PACER

Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER) provides information on U.S. federal court documents. You can search for individuals and corporations, filter by party role, and access associated cases and docket information. You can view and download PDFs of any publicly available documents related to the cases or parties you’re searching for. It’s worth noting that the service is cost-per-search, with an additional fee for viewing or downloading dockets. 

Why choose Xapien?

Xapien is the research tool that does it all. And it’s not just for donor due diligence. Dartmouth College, The University of Liverpool, ClientEarth, Sightsavers and more have built due diligence into the prospect research workflow using Xapien. This means due diligence doesn’t delay gift acceptance decisions at the end. 

Xapien ticks all the boxes. It provides an upfront view of both opportunities and risks tied to a donor, so your fundraising team knows which prospects to focus on and which to avoid. Our reports are fully sourced and summarized, making them easy to share with senior decision-makers and committee members.

Want to see the Xapien platform in action? Fill out the form below for a tailored demo.