Eye on FDO

FDO Training

Did you know that the Foundation Center offers special classroom training throughout the year in the use of Foundation Directory Online? Start with our free, 60-minute Introduction to Foundation Directory Online course for hands-on instruction on the basics of the nation's premier grantseeking resource. For more intensive training, our Foundation Funding Research course is a day-and-a-half program concentrating on strategies for finding and evaluating funder prospects with top-tier FDO Professional.

Courses are held at our five library/learning centers in New York, Washington, Atlanta, Cleveland, and San Francisco as well as selected other locations across the country and are conducted by the Foundation Center's team of expert instructors. 

Please visit the Classroom Training Courses section of our web site for full details and registration information for all of our courses. You'll also find a list of upcoming training dates for Foundation Funding Research on the FDO Home Screen.

You Spoke, We Listened

I'm happy to announce that, by popular request, FDO's grantmaker profiles are now available in an alternate "compact" format! Just click the Compact View link at the top of any grantmaker profile to switch views for the remainder of your current session. To switch back at any time, click the Standard View link. The advantages of Compact View include less on-screen scrolling and a reduction in paper when printing. So, the choice is yours: Standard View or Compact View. We know many of you have requested this preference option and we're happy to deliver.

International Grantseekers

I was thinking today about the recent events in Myanmar (cyclone) and China (earthquake) and this made me think about how I'm occasionally asked whether FDO is useful to international grantseekers. Indeed, it is.

On the Search Grantmakers Screen, the Fields of Interest index includes the names of specific countries that grantmakers have a known giving interest in and the Geographic Focus index includes the terms "International" and "National; international" to locate grantmakers that award grants outside the U.S.

On the Search Grants Screen, accessible to Plus, Premium, Platinum, and Professional subscribers, the Recipient State/Country search field can be used to search for grants awarded to recipients located in a particular country and the Recipient City index includes the names of non-U.S. cities where grants have been awarded.

Professional subscribers can even use the Subsidiary State/Country search field on the Search Companies Screen to search for sponsoring companies with business operations located in a particular country. The profiles of the grantmakers associated with these companies can then be accessed to determine whether grants are indeed made in areas of company operations.

Archived Webinars

You'll notice that we've added a new Archived Webinars section to the FDO Home Screen down near the bottom of the page. This is where we'll post the recordings of FDO subscriber webinars.

The first posting is of a so-called "New FDO Features" webinar. This 60-minute webinar, hosted by yours truly, covers new geographic and other search options; e-mailing, printing, saving, and exporting; and saving searches and tagging records. If you weren't able to attend the live presentation and you'd like to learn more about our most recent enhancements (or you're just dying to hear the sound of my voice), head on over to the FDO Home Screen to view this webinar at your convenience.

Webinars are a fantastic way to increase your proficiency in the use of FDO and learn about new enhancements. Going forward, we plan on conducting more webinars on new features and others on special topics. If you'd like to be notified when future webinars have been scheduled, please drop me a line at dlc@foundationcenter.org with your name, your organization's name, and your e-mail address.