Quality Digest

There are two web sites that contain databases of registered organizations:
www.qualitydigest.com
www.worldpreferred.com

Both allow you to search for organizations by name, location, which standard they are registered to (e.g., ISO 9002:1994, ISO 9001:2000) and what Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) code their certificate of registration covers. However, the problem may be the last of these facts, since I am not familiar with registration activity in the not-for-profit field, with the exception of some hospitals. If your organization was required by your registrar to define its SIC code for registration purposes, you might want to visit these web sites, enter the databases and see if you can search by your SIC code to see if other organizations show up.

I would recommend that you contact your registrar to see if it has registered other companies that are in your field or even if there are other clients that might be interested in using the services of your workshop or contributing to your workshop. I applaud your company's decision to implement a quality system and to achieve registration and I would hope that the organization, if using the quality system properly, will see process improvements and greater consistency of operations and product.

No organization should pursue registration solely for marketing purposes, but in order to standardize operations and then improve performance of the organization over time. However, depending on whether you are seeking companies that will hire the persons who are trained in your organization's workshop or seeking donations to fund the workshop, how I would recommend marketing your company would differ. One thing I would do is check to see if there are any state or local quality awards where your company is located and determine if your organization might qualify to compete for such an award. Many such awards have several benefits:
1. Your organization would receive recognition for competing for an award and could receive significant publicity if it were to win.
2. Your organization would gain evaluations by the judges for the award. Many organizations that have competed for state and national awards have found the feedback from the judges to be valuable.
3. Your organization might have the opportunity to network with other organizations and groups involved in the award competition.

But I would check the two databases first and see if either will provide you with information about other organizations similar to yours that have achieved registration. If you find that neither database lists any, I would also check with your registrar to see if they would be willing to put out a press release to the effect that your organization is the first not-for-profit that operates a workshop for persons with disabilities to achieve quality system registration.