The UDAO comes from four sources. CNP's Core files (form 990 filers), the Business Master File (registered charities), a mailing list provided by individual State Arts Agencies and the Grants List which contains organizations who have received grants the previous year.
Organizations in the Core files or the Grants List are assumed to be alive and residing at the same address because these organization have either filled out a form 990 in the past year (indicating they were operational in the recent past) or received a grant in the past year (indicating that they are fiscally health and likely to still be operating).
Organizations found in both the Business Master File AND the Mailing List also have a high probability of being alive because two groups have varied they exist.
Organizations found in only one, the Business Master File OR the Mailing List are the least likely to be operating today. To check the reliability of these files, a brief study was conducted. A random sample of 30 organizations from each were pulled and an attempt to locate them made. The following describe the results:
Still in operation
and residing at the = 40% BMF/83.3% ML
address
Still in operation, = 16.6% BMF/6.7% ML
but have moved
Could not be found = 44.3% BMF/10% ML