Tips for Creating a Successful Keyword Search
The Guide Online's keyword search uses
Boolean search operators, giving you maximum flexibility to make your
search as
broad or as focused as you like. Please take a moment to review
the following helpful hints for making sure your search returns
the results you're looking for.
What's Included in a Keyword Search?
What Can I Search For?
What Are Standard Search Protocols and Tools?
What Do my Search Results Mean?
What's Included in a Keyword Search?
The Guide Online's keyword search
will look in the following fields for your keywords:
Organization Name, State Operating Locations, City, Geographic
Scope, Funding Priorities, Funder Notes, Trustees and any details entered
by the funder for the following areas of interest: Animal Welfare, Arts & Humanities,
Civic & Public Affairs, Education, Envirmental Causes, Health, International
Issues, Religious Causes, Science & Research, Social Services, Children,
Youth, Families, the Elderly, Ethnic Groups, Women, Men, Low Income,
Working Poor, Urban Areas, and Rural Areas.
What Can I Search For?
You can search for any word or character string that is likely to
appear in any of the fields included in the Guide Online’s keyword search (see above).
Two quick tips:
- It’s always best to search for the shortest reasonable version
of the information
you’re looking for. For instance, instead of trying to enter a funder’s
or trustee’s entire name, try entering just the main word – Allstate;
Kieckhefer; Maricopa.
- If what you’re searching for is a phrase of two
or more words together, enclose them in quotation marks – for instance, “Lake
Havasu City”; “substance
abuse.”
What Are Standard Search
Protocols and Tools?
The following tips will help you construct search instructions that
get you the results you’re after from the Guide Online. These
tips demonstrate the most common standard Boolean search protocols and
tools, or special language,
to communicate with the internal search engine.
- Use the exact version of a word to return the most
precise results:
artists = Only those listings containing the exact character string
artists
- Use the shortest possible portion of a word, with a wild-card
(*)
for the missing letters at the end, to return the most complete results:
art* = All listings in which "art" appears as a complete word
or at the beginning of a longer word or character string -- including
art, arts, artists, art-oriented, artificial
- Use quotation
marks [" "] to enclose phrases of two or more words:
"
domestic violence" = All listings in which the words domestic
violence appear together, as a EXACT phrase.
- You can combine keywords to
expand or narrow your search:
+art* +education +Tucson = This is equivalent to an AND search.
Your results will include all listings in which all three words art, education,
and Tucson appear (for instance, if you want
to do an arts education program in Tucson)
+teen -pregancy = The minus operator (-)
removes results with the word pregnancy from
your search results for teen. The minus
operator can be useful for narrowing a search by excluding terms.
museum history = This is equivalent to an OR search. Your results will
include all listings containing at least one
of the two words (for instance, if you're
setting up a historical museum and want to
find all funders who support either museums or history-related projects).
+(substance
drug alcohol) +(youth teen*) = Using the parentheses allows you
to combine two OR searches (in parentheses) with
an AND operator (the +). Your results
will include all listings that include at
least one of the terms within the first parentheses, and at least one
of the terms
within
the second
parentheses.
This
would be a good search, for instance, for
a substance-abuse prevention program
for young people.
- If your search returns no results,
try using part of the search string or a more exact search string:
If Ernst & Young returns no results, try Ernst or “Ernst & Young,
LLP ” or
+Ernst +Young.
What Do my Search Results Mean?
All search results are listed with three visible parts:
Organization and City: The organization's name appears first,
as an active link to the funder profile containing the relevant search terms.
The city where the organization is located is also displayed.
Priorities: This returns the funders' own description
of their funding priorities. Do not be surprised if you don't see your
keywords at first glance. They will be appear in the actual listing -
just click on the link and review the listing for that organization. |
