Eye on FDO

Archived Webinars

We've posted a recording of a new FDO subscriber webinar to the Archived Webinars section of the FDO Home Screen. This 60-minute webinar was designed to introduce subscribers to the unique benefits of our top-tier subscription plan, FDO Professional, and covers interactive mapping and charting tools; fact-filled funder portfolios; our Search Companies database; our Search 990s database; and Update Central. An alternate version for lower-level subscribers also includes a section on expanded access to grantmaker data. View this webinar today and learn about the added value of FDO Professional!

Guided Tours

Look for a new link to our Foundation Directory Online guided tours on the left side of the FDO Home Screen near the top of the page. These are the same tours that you can access from the FDO Log-In Screen and that potential subscribers use to preview FDO. But the guided tours are also great for current subscribers. They can be used by new subscribers looking for an interactive introduction to FDO's functionality and features or by veteran users in need of a refresher course. There are four guided tours available, one for each of FDO's four databases: Search Grantmakers, Search Companies, Search Grants, and Search 990s.

Map Colors

Yesterday, I mentioned that we added a new List All Grants button in response to the feedback you've provided about FDO's new Professional mapping and charting tools. Today, we made another improvement inspired by your comments and suggestions. You'll notice there's now more of a contrast between the different shades of colors on FDO's maps. We've also increased the size of the color swatches in the map legends. We hope these changes will make it easier to differentiate between the four grant dollar ranges represented on the maps.

Speaking of feedback, there's still time to leave some. Just click the "Tell Us What You Think" link at the top of any mapping or charting screen.

List All Grants

Before the introduction of our new interactive mapping and charting tools, Professional subscribers will remember that clicking on the Grants tab at the top of a grantmaker record provided access to three subtabs: Search, List, and Charts. In turn, these subtabs provided access to a search screen enabling you to search across a grantmaker's grants, a search results screen pre-programmed to display a complete list of a grantmaker's grants, and charts illustrating the distribution of a grantmaker's grants, respectively.

While it's fairly obvious that the search screen can now be accessed by clicking on the Search Grants tab at the top of a grantmaker record and the charts have been replaced by our new interactive charting tool, many of you have inquired about whether it's still possible to retrieve a complete list of a grantmaker's grants. Yes, it is. Just click the Search Grants tab and then click the Search button without entering any criteria. Better yet, simply click the List All Grants button that we just added to the top of the search screen today. Either method will generate a complete list of the grants in our database specific to a particular funder.

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.

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.

Thanks For Your Feedback...

I'd like to thank everyone who provided feedback about our new grantmaker and company profiles. Your comments and suggestions were enormously valuable to us, and we've made some modifications based on them:

• Some of the extra space has been removed from the profiles. This reduces their length and decreases the time spent scrolling
• For grantmaker records, the 990s tab has been restored so that grantmaker 990s can be easily accessed when navigating away from the Profile tab. (Direct links to grantmaker 990s for multiple years remain in the At A Glance section on the Profile tab.)
• Previous Record and Next Record links have been added to the bottom of the profiles to further improve navigation

Stay tuned for more to come—FDO is your funding research tool and we want to make it as user-friendly as possible. In the meantime, you can share your thoughts with us by clicking the "Tell Us What You Think" link at the top of any grantmaker profile to submit your feedback. Or, leave a comment right here!

eGrant Reporters

You might have noticed a new eGrant Reporter icon at the top of some grantmaker profiles. Wondering what it means? This notation signifies that a grantmaker submits electronic grants lists to the Foundation Center on a regular basis. When a grantmaker reports their grants to us in this way, it ensures that their newest grants appear in our Search Grants database as quickly as possible.

If you happen to be a grantmaker yourself, and you're interested in electronic reporting, visit the Grantmakers section of our web site for more information.