January 19, 2020
Best Foundation Research Tool I've Found Yet
Pros and Cons
- Summarizing foundation information (contact info, funding priorities, geographic priorities, etc.) in a user-friendly format
- Recommending similar foundations based on certain criteria, this is helpful when looking for new funding opportunities
- Being able to search through organization's 990s using crtl + F
- While FDO has an advanced search feature, I've found that sometimes it tries to be too smart for its own good. For example, if I'm looking for the Virginia Smith Foundation it will pull all foundations located in the state of Virginia with some sort of affiliated Smith and not the Virginia Smith Foundation that I'm actually looking for.
- I'm uncertain as to how often the information is updated on FDO.
