Research Guides: Strategic Communication: Data Sets

Marketing, Trends & Demographics Library databases

Statista
A large, user-friendly statistics portal with a global scope. Find infographics, in-depth dossiers and reports, and Powerpoint slides, along with original source details.
Mintel
Comprehensive research reports on consumer markets and products in U.S., related demographic data and analysis, and articles on trends in global consumer markets.
WGSN
A trend forecasting company providing global trend insights, curated data, and industry expertise on consumer trends.

MRI Simmons
Provides data on psychographics, product usage, spending behavior, and media habits of U.S. adult consumers, based on national consumer surveys. Use it to create your own custom reports.

Claritas Prizm Premier Segments
Good example of market segmentation of target customers. View free content -- segment descriptions and consumer characteristics. Can also search by zip code for top segments in an area.

Chicago Data Portal
Illinois Data Portal
Civil Rights Data Collection
Education Data Collected from public schools across the United States
Explore Census Data
The official census statistics search site from the United States Census Bureau. Replaces American Fact-finder.
U.S. Census

Finding raw datasets on some topics can be challenging, depending on the topic.

Some places to try:

Organizational web pages (Try searching Google for your topic and and "organization" or "association".
Published reports (Try searching your topic and "data" or "statistics" or "report".
Books or eBook chapters (Use the Library search at https://library.colum.edu and search for your topic to try to find books or book chapters that may use statistics.)

Pew Research Center datasets
Pew provides downloadable datasets in a variety of areas.
Google Dataset Search