Mastering Boolean Operators for Effective Grant Searching: Basics

GrantWatch is a valuable platform that offers access to a vast database of grants. Indeed, there are so many grants that searching for just the right one for you and your organization can be really time consuming. To save time and make the most of this resource, it’s crucial to understand how to refine your search results effectively. One of the best ways to refine your searches quickly and easily is to use Boolean search operators. This article starts you off with the basics: AND, OR, and NOT. Once you’ve mastered these basic Boolean operators of effective grant searches, you’ll be ready to move on to more intricate searches. Let’s begin!

What is Boolean Search?

Boolean searching is named for the 19th-century English mathematician George Boole. Today, the principles of Boolean logic are used as a good tool for database searches. Think of Boolean Search as your super-smart search buddy. It teams up your keywords with those three famous operators AND, OR, and NOT. This in turn helps to sort and filter your searches. What happens? You get spot-on results! This search technique allows you to locate any grant in our database that is uniquely suited for you. Mix and match these tricks with your chosen keywords to unleash endless search possibilities. You can use them as many times as you want to make precise searches, saving you lots of time sifting through results.

Boolean Operator: AND

AND is a fundamental Boolean operator. All the terms connected by it will be present in the grants you’re looking for. In short, it narrows your search. AND tells a search engine that you want to find information about two (or more) search terms. Here are a few examples:

• human AND services: Use this search in conjunction with an organization search, and it returns grants that pertain to organizations that fund human services. Furthermore, those human services include things like food and shelter for underserved communities, and even arts and entertainment.
• conservation AND environment: If you combine these two keyword with a search by location (California), you get a short list of grants all related to environmental conservation in the state of California will be displayed.
• sustainability AND conservation: You’ll find grants that address sustainability and conservation with regard to energy solutions when you pair these keyword under the category of energy.

Boolean Operator: OR

OR, on the other hand, broadens your search results by connecting synonyms or related terms. With OR, only one of the search terms needs to be present in the grants. Here are some examples:

• business OR startup: This search, when used alongside the category of women, yields grants related to businesses owned by women in a variety of capacities.
• health OR fitness: For grants associated with health promotion, wellness initiatives, or fitness programs, this search has results in the thousands. To narrow the search you might use these keywords with BIPOC, Aging and Seniors, Children, or Women.
• arts OR culture: If you’re looking for grant funding relating to indigenous cultures and the arts they produce, this combination works nicely with a BIPOC search..

Boolean Operator: NOT

NOT allows you to exclude specific terms from your search, leading to a narrower set of results. Not can be helpful when you want to filter out grants that do not match your criteria. Examples include:

• technology NOT software: This search will exclude grants related to software development, and focuses instead on other aspects of technology.
• education NOT college: Grants related to education but not specific to higher education institutions will be displayed with this combination.
• poverty NOT urban: This search brings back grants that address poverty but not anything that is specific to urban areas.

Tricks of the Trade

There are a few tips to keep in mind when using the Boolean search on GrantWatch.

• Grab your keywords: What are your goals? Who do you want to help? What is the issue you want to help resolve? These are important questions that help you identify your keywords. Words and phrases that mean something to your organization are not enough though. Always remember there may be variations of those words and phrases in the grants you’re viewing. For example, it makes sense that if you’re using the keyphrase business owned by women with no results, changing it to woman-owned business will do the trick.
• Use all CAPS: No two Boolean searches are exactly the same; they tend to have small programming differences from site to site. On GrantWatch.com, we use all CAPS for our Boolean operators. So, it’s always AND, OR, and NOT.
• No other capitalization: For true results, do not capitalize any of your keywords; keep them all lowercase. For example: Higher Education should be entered as higher education.
• Exact Match: Make sure the Exact Match is not checked or you will not get the results you want. In addition, you might consider unchecking the Archived grants as well. You want to view the grants that are available for you now.
• Creating combinations: This is where the magic begins to happen. You can combine your Boolean operations to create wholly new and individualized searches, all aimed at isolating those grants that fit you and your organization the best. Instead of doing two or more searches, you can combine your operators instead. For example: education AND training OR skills development NOT small business, This search is for continuing education courses and training on the job.
• Special characters: Using QUOTATION MARKS and PARENTHESES are useful when you want to search for an exact phrase or when you want to ensure the order of operations. In short, t let’s your database know that there a certain phrase you’re looking for and that some words and phrases are more important than others. Consider the following: (education AND preschool) NOT higher education. This elegant search takes you to a short list of grants that are dedicated to schools for young children without making you leaf through grants for colleges and universities.

To Conclude

As you can see, whether you need to narrow your search with AND, broaden it with OR, or exclude specific terms with NOT, these tools are invaluable for tailoring your grant search. Boolean operators can help you refine your search and save time. So, next time you’re on GrantWatch, remember to use these Boolean operators to your advantage and make your grant search more efficient and productive. Happy grant hunting!

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