Truncation

Right-hand truncation is available in this database by using an asterisk. Using truncation enables you to search for more than one form of a word by entering a root word and placing an asterisk at the end of it.

For example, if you enter the term "child*" in the Funder field, the database will search for all funding opportunities with the root "child" in the Funder name.

Your results will include these titles:

• Friends of Rainbow Children Foundation: General Fund
  
• United Childrens Fund: General Fund Announcement
  
• Hasbro Children's Foundation: General Fund Announcement
  
• Ronald McDonald Children's Charities: General Fund Announcement

Punctuation

The system does not understand most punctuation. If you are using any form of punctuation in your search and get an error message or no results, remove the punctuation and try your search again.

Operator to Connect Terms Within Fields

The "Operator within fields" is the operator used to link terms within fields. From the pull-down menu, you may choose either "and" or "or."

Operator Within Fields-and

If you select "and," the database will search for funding opportunities that have all of the words you enter.

Example:

To find funding opportunities that have both the words "drug" and "abuse" anywhere in the database, enter the following:

Operator Within Fields-or

If you select "or," the database will search for occurrences of any of the terms you enter. Use this operator if you are searching for synonyms.

Example:

To find funding opportunities from either the Ford or Kellogg Foundations, enter the following:

Your results will include these funding opportunities:
Ford Foundation: General Fund Announcement.
W.K. Kellogg Foundation: General Fund Announcement.

Operators to Connect the Fields

The "Operator to connect the fields below" is the operator used to link together the terms you have entered in the different fields. From the pull-down menu, you may choose either "and" or "or."

Operator to Connect the Fields-and

If you select "and," the database will link all fields for which you have entered information.

Example:

To find funding opportunities for project grants dealing with mental health, enter the following:

Operator to Connect the Fields-or

If you select "or," the database will search for all occurences of terms in any of the fields.

Example:

To find funding opportunities from the Chicago Foundation for Women or in Texas, enter the following in the "Funder" and "Location" fields:

Refining Your Search

If You Find Too Little:
If you find that you are not getting any funding opportunities, or not getting as many as you would like, you need to broaden your search. Here are a few options:

1. Remove one of the terms from your search. If you are using too many terms, you might be restricting the search too much.
2. Look for misspellings in the terms you have entered.
3. Change one of the terms to a broader term. For example, replace "peer counseling" with "counseling."
4. Change an acronym to the full name of an organization. For example, replace NAPWA with "National Association of People with AIDS."
5. Also see the Frequently Asked Questions.

If You Find Too Much:
If you get too many funding opportunities, you need to narrow your search. Here are a few options:

1. Make your wording more specific. For example, change your request for "research" to "clinical trials."
2. Add another word into a field. If you are searching for the word "health," you are likely to find too many records. Limit the search by entering another word to the same field, such as "mental." Also, add a term to the Funder, Type of Support, or Date fields.
3. Also see the Frequently Asked Questions.

Interpreting Your Search Results

When you select Search, the database runs your search. The results will appear on your screen.

The database will display the number of funding opportunities you specified on the search page. (If you did not choose a number, the database will display the first 50 funding opportunities.) Funding opportunities are displayed by Fund Title, Type of Support, and Application Deadline.

Click on a funding opportunity to review its contents.

Stopwords

A stopword is a word that you cannot use to retrieve documents. The following stopwords were chosen because they occur so frequently that they are not useful in retrieving documents. The system will ignore any of the stopwords that you use.

The following is a list of stopwords that are found in this database:

a	about	all	among	an
and	are	as	at	be
been	between	both	but	by
do	during	each	either	for
found	from	further	has	have
however	if	in	into	is
it	its	made	make	many
more	most	must	no	not
of	on	or	same	several
some	such	than	that	the
their	these	they	this	those
through	to	toward	upon	used

Frequently Asked Questions

Included here is a list of Frequently Asked Questions about the Funding Database. If you would like to suggest a FAQ for this list, send a message to us.

Question: Why doesn't the Funding Database retrieve any records on my topic?

Answer: It is possible that the database may not find any records for the topic you request. This might happen for several reasons:

• You may be searching on a subject outside the scope of this database.
• The words you used may be misspelled.
• Your search may be too specific. You do not need to use every line on the search form. Each line adds another restriction to the search.

Question: My search results gave me too many records. How can I narrow my search?

Answer: To narrow your results, enter another term. You may enter this term either in the same field or in another field.

Question: Does it matter if I use upper or lower case letters?

Answer: No, the database does not recognize the difference between upper and lower case letters.

Question: How do I know what words to use?

Answer: If you think the database should have information on your topic but you are not finding any records, you may be using a term that is different from the one the database uses. Try to think of another way to phrase the concept you're looking for. Also see Refining Your Search.

Question: Why don't all the fields show up for each funding opportunity?

Answer: Fields that do not show up do not have data.