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Scenario 4 — Funding for renovations and computer equipment.

The advanced searches in this section of The Foundation Directory Online tutorial use advanced syntax and techniques that demonstrate how best to focus and speed your research. They combine index searching with text searching and use Boolean operators when appropriate to help illustrate the usefulness of a well-planned search strategy.

Question: I work in the corporate development office for a large university system. We need to renovate and equip our computer lab. How do I target the largest company-sponsored foundations that support our needs?

Answer: There are several key words that can be construed from your question that will work well in constructing an effective search. They are the words: Higher Education, Renovation and Equipment. Plugging these words into the appropriate index search fields, and adding one or two others should yield an acceptable list of results.

Tip: In this section of the tutorial you are instructed to type search words into the Index Search fields, but it's suggested you use the indexes instead if you're not yet well acquainted with common terms used in The Foundation Directory Online.

Follow these steps:
    1. Type Higher Education into the Fields of Interest field.
    2. Type Building/renovation and Equipment into the Types of Support field.
    3. Type Company-sponsored into the Text Search field.
    4. Click Total Giving and Descending in the Sort Control to sort your results by highest funders first.
    5. Click Search. The Results List appears displaying a list of all foundations with your search terms.
    6. Click a foundation name on the Results List to view it in the Record Display window.
    7. Click Close Window when you are through viewing the record, and click on another foundation name in the results list or click New Search to go back to the Search Screen and start over.