bizologie has covered how to research US private companies recently, but we know financials are almost impossible to find since US private companies are not required to report their financials with the SEC. Other countries have different requirements for private companies. And, many require full financial info be released. This is great news for business research. Thanks to FreePint and researcher Heidi Longaberger you can easily see what kind of private information is available for private firms in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, and the United Kingdom. The FreePint article Private company information outside the US: Western Europe, UK and Ireland has an easy to use chart detailing what private company information is available and links to where the information is provided! Most of the websites are available in English, and best of all most of the data is free or available for a small fee.

Find links to these international private company sources on the new bizologie Favorite Resources page.

The Annie E. Casey Foundation just released their 22nd annual Kids Count Data Book and now have their data available online through the Kids Count Data Center. "Kids Count is a national and state-by-state effort to track the status of children in the U.S. The Foundation provides policymakers and citizens with benchmarks of child well-being and seeks to to enrich local, state, and national discussions concerning ways to secure better futures for all children." With the online tool users can compare individual states or look at indicators across states for comparison and rank and then download the data in charts and maps for presentations. The statistics cover all of what you would expect but you will also find unique factors represented for a complete overview of children's well-being. Research includes information on children's:

demographics with info on immigrant families
education including test scores
family structure
health with insurance, dental, even mental health stats
safety with stats on out of home placement