Among the many key features that distinguish FDO from other funding research tools on the market are its indexes. When data is carefully indexed, it's immeasurably easier to find exactly what you're looking for. So, today, a few important words about FDO's indexes and how they make targeted searching possible.
The Foundation Center's editorial staff analyzes and indexes a great deal of data. For example, grantmakers are assigned any of almost 1,100 terms identifying their giving interests; grants are assigned any of almost 1,100 terms identifying their purpose. When this standardized terminology is employed in a field-specific search, you can retrieve an extremely targeted list of results.
Here's an example: a grantseeker searching for support for a welfare-to-work program might enter "jobs" in the Keyword Search field on the Search Grantmakers Screen. The results list will include grantmaker records containing the word "jobs" anywhere in the text of their profiles, including those with profiles that might state that support isn't provided for "jobs." See where I'm going here?
On the other hand, a grantseeker selecting "employment" from the Fields of Interest Index will retrieve a list of all grantmakers identified by our editorial staff as supporters of employment-related programs, regardless of whether the word "jobs" is used to describe this giving interest or not. That's the power of FDO's indexes!
Accessing FDO's indexes is easy. Open an index by clicking on a View Index link located beneath a search field title. Clicking on an index entry automatically inserts it into the corresponding search field.
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