Transcript Using Google to Find Funding for Research Jeff Briand, Associate Director, Research & Records Steven Wardle, Senior Research Analyst, Research & Records Division of.

Using Google to Find
Funding for Research
Jeff Briand, Associate Director, Research & Records
Steven Wardle, Senior Research Analyst, Research & Records
Division of Advancement, York University
March 21, 2012
Introduction
•Overview of Research and Records at the Division of Advancement
– Research and Prospect Management
•Research Sources - Publically available information at York University
•Accessing and using research resources
– Search engines
– Using search operators
•Questions
2
Research & Records at DOA
•Prospect Research
•Prospect Management
•Records Management
•Central Files Administration
•Concept of Prospect Development
3
Prospect Research
•Research Profiles – Individuals, Corporations & Foundations
•Response to queries – Memos, projects etc.
•Research Identified Prospect Process – serendipitous discovery of prospects
•Prospecting Initiatives – By Request or Strategic
•Trip planning
•Briefings and memos for events and trips
4
Prospect Management – What is it?
•Designed to focus development activity towards the successful cultivation of Major Gifts,
Planned Gifts, Sponsorships and Leadership-level Giving
•It involves a series of activities that are conducted in order to develop and nurture the
prospect’s awareness, interest, involvement and commitment to York University and its
mission.
•Prospect Management enables:
– Consistent and appropriate donor relations across all university units
– Repository for institutional memory related to the development of relationships with
prospects
– A process to maximize organizational, divisional & individual performance through
systematic tools and portfolio measurement
– Monitoring and predicting proposal activity and the securing of future gifts to YU
5
Prospect Management - Components
•Details on the Prospect’s fundraising relationship with YU:
– Stage of Relationship
– Rating
– Forecasts for donations
– Assignments
– Interests
•Details on any Proposals provided to a prospect to support an initiative at YU:
– Type of Proposal
– Stage of the Proposal
– Projection & Expected Date for Proposal’s Approval
– Assignments
6
Prospect Management – Codifying
Actions
•Contact Reports
– Meetings, Events, Correspondence, Formal Invitations
– Notes to outline what happened with that activity/interaction
•Tasks
– Reminders for future actions to move the relationship forward
•Notes
–Strategies, Assignments, Memos to File, Research, Reassignment,
Stewardship, Inactivation & Trip
7
Information Collection:
From People to Resources
Human Interaction
(Contact Reports, Impressions & Observations)
VS
Publically Available Research
(Databases, Internet, Subscriptions & Media Sources)
8
What’s Advancement got to do with it?
Finding Funding for Research
Tools the Professionals Use
•Free Resources
•The internet!
•Using free resources
•Google
•Better searches
•Operators
•Searching databases
•Additional web resources
•The Library
•Fee Based resources
9
Research on a Budget
Free Resources
• Search Engines - Google, Bing, Ask
(Tip) Use more than one, use the
Canadian domain
• Pick a few search sites and learn them
inside out
• Bookmark your favourite sites so you an
access them quickly
10
Research on a Budget (2)
What’s out there?
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Biographical Dictionaries
Donor lists
CRA
Appointment Notices
Canadian Honours
Rich lists
Company lists
Industry Canada
SEDI
SEDAR
LinkedIn, Zoominfo
Foundation Finder (U.S.)
11
Understanding Search Engines
Do I really need to understand how
this internet thingy works?
12
Search Engines - Google
Googlebot
• Google’s webpage finding web crawler
• Constantly searching for new web pages
and indexing them
13
Google - How it Works
Ordered by priority of rank or “PageRank”
Proprietary algorithm developed by Google that measures a website
(actually named after a guy named Larry Page)
Believed to include:
• Link Popularity
• Link Quality
• Link Quantity
• Age of domain name
• Quantity of traffic
• Monitoring Bookmarks
• Monitoring clicks away from page
• Frequency and quantity of page changes
14
Remember: Keep it Simple
Better Searches
• Describe what you need in as few word as possible
• The more words you use the greater the search will be limited
• Don’t be put off by too many hits, this is a chance to refine our search
15
Search engine strategy
Devise a Strategy
• Write down key search terms you want
to use
• Don’t be buried under too much
information – you don’t have time to
read hundreds of pages
• Make your searches specific and to the
point
• Make use of search operators
• Consider name variations - are there
short forms?
16
Critical Thinking
What is the first page to come up?
• Wikipedia – a great resource that can be
vandalized, be critical, seek confirmation
• Zoominfo – may contain inaccuracies
17
Google Search Operators
Quotes
• “Quotes” – enclosing multiple search terms in double quotes finds pages
where the terms appear together, exactly
• Example: top researchers in Montreal – will find pages where “top”,
“researchers” and “Montreal” will appear
• However: “top researchers in Montreal” – will search for pages with that
exact phrase
18
Wildcards
• Wildcard Operators – using * (asterisk) that can match a missing word
or term; wildcards can be used when you are missing one or more
words (or letters)
• Example: donor to big * of Canada will return – donor to big brothers of
Canada, donor to big sisters of Canada, and donor to big organizations
of Canada
• Also: donation* will search for donation and donations
• Remember the wildcard only works on whole words, not parts of words
19
Site
Searching within a Site:
• Using the site: operator instructs Google to provide results only from
a given website
• Example: donation site:globeandmail.com will deliver results where
donation was mentioned in the Globe and Mail website
• Most important for us site: yorku
• Sometimes flipping the order will also work, try – yorku Site: term or
name
20
Synonym Operator
Synonym Operator
• Use ~ at the beginning of a search term (with no space in
between) and make Google search for that term and its synonyms
• Example: ~donation will bring up pages that include donation and
gift
21
Inclusion
The Inclusion Operator (+)
• Place a +immediately before a search term to ensure the word is
present in the results
• Example: if looking for a job in Los Angeles, use +LA careers;
without the + Google will exclude LA since it would deem the
word as “the” (in Spanish or Italian)
22
Exclusion
The Exclusion Operator (-)
• Place a –immediately before a search term to instruct Google to
find pages that do not contain the given term
• Example: to find about a health-related virus, use virus –computer
to ensure that Google returns pages that contain virus, but no
pages related to computer viruses
23
OR
The OR Operator
• Use the OR Operator to tell Google that you wish to find pages
including any of your search terms
• Example: a Google search for TV program OR show will generate
pages referring to either
• Example: the OR operator helps with regional spelling differences: like
labour OR labor, neighbour OR neighbor
• OR must be in caps
24
Every word Matters
Remember, if you add a word to a search
query it will be used
But there are always exceptions: Common
words such as ‘the,’ ‘a’ and ‘for’ are called
stop words and will generally be ignored
And there are exceptions to exceptions:
search engines are programmed to imitate
how people think. A search for ‘the who’ will
direct you to the official website of the band
25
Filters
Using filters to limit the number of results you see
Pages from Canada
Any time
• Past hour
• Past 24 hours
• Past 4 days
• Past week
• Past month
• Past year
• Custom range...
26
Google Alerts
Let the research come to you
Email updates of the latest relevant Google results (Web, news, etc.)
Based on your choice of query or topic
http://www.google.com/alerts
Handy uses of Google Alerts:
• A developing news story
• Keeping current on a research interest or
industry
• Getting the latest on an event
• Track news on a donor
27
Further Google Insights
Google Image (shhh! now you know my secret)
• Can shed new light on prospects
• Who are their Friends, Family,
Business Associates
• Pictures from a gala with
movers and shakers
Google Maps
• Where does your prospect live
28
The other players
There are approximately 35 additional search engines out there
Bing – Microsoft challenger to Google, strong graphics focus
Ask.com - Q&A focused search engine
Yahoo! – now in partnership with Bing
Webcrawler – One
of the first, launched in 1994, a metasearch engine
that blends the top search results from Google, Yahoo!, Bing
29
Introduction to Boolean Logic and
Operators
[]
and
/Nn/
*
nearn
and
?
not
/Fn/
not
$
atleastn
same
adjn
or
$
w/n
()
or
30
The man who invented it all
George Boole (1815 – 1864)
• Mathematician, philosopher and the inventor of
Boolean logic, the basis of all digital computer
logic (and my hero…)
31
Search Operators
• AND
• OR
• NOT
32
Search Operators AND
AND
Donors and Alumni
33
Search Operators OR
OR
Donors or Alumni
34
Search Operators NOT
NOT,
AND NOT
Donors NOT Alumni
35
Wildcards
• Can be used to substitute for any of a
defined subset of characters
• Especially useful for names
Examples
• Steph$, Brad$, Mitch$
36
Proximity Operators
Allow you to locate one word within a certain distance of another
For Example
w/n where n is any number between 1 to 10
•University w/3 research finds items containing “University” within 2
words of “research” where “research” is the second word
nearn where n is any number between 1 to 500
•University near5 research displays articles with the word “University”
not more than 5 words away form “research,” where “research’ is the
fifth word (0-4 words between)
37
More proximity operators
/Nn/ where n is any number from 1 to 500
•Bombardier Q400/N30/Porter Airlines finds articles containing the
term “Bombardier Q400” within 30 words of “Porter Airlines” where
“Porter” is the 30th word (0-29 words between)
/Fn/ where n is any number from 1 to 500
•Sanofi/F50/ will find articles with the word “Sanofi” with the first 50
words of the article
38
Truncations
$n where n is any number from 1 to 9
•Earn$4 will find articles that contain any word with the root “earn” including
earnings, earns, or earned
*(asterisk)
•Telecom* will find articles that contain the root “telecom” including telecom,
telecommunications, telecommute, or telecommuting
•Note: At least 3 characters must be typed before using the *sign, and the
*sign must be entered at the end of a word only. No number is allowed
following the truncation
?
•Globali?ation will find article containing “globalization” or “globalisation”
•Note: At least 3 characters must be typed before using ?
39
Using Parentheses or Brackets, atleast
and same
( ) Parenthesis or [ ] Brackets
•Select releases and (university or instructions, or course) finds
items about select releases related to to universities, instruction or
courses
atleastn - where n is any number between 1 and 50
•atleast6 Magna will return items with at least six mentions of
Magna
same
•Bergeron same VeriFone finds items containing “Bergeron” in the
same paragraph as “VeriFone”
40
Library Resources
What’s Available
• Factiva
• Imagine Canada’s Canadian Directory of Foundations and
Corporations
• Lexis/Nexis
• FP Directory of Directors
• FPinfo Mart
• Hoovers
41
Factiva
•Factiva covers information on industries, public and private
companies, business and management topics, current awareness
information and historical news
•Covers 1969 – present, dates vary by publication, worldwide
•Many full text articles, trade journals, news wires, media programs,
company and stock reports
•News in twenty-two languages in over 8000 sources
•Searchable by title, industry, geographic location and type
42
Better Factiva Results
Time Savers
•Consider building a ‘canned’ search. Create it in Word, copy and paste
into your search daily or weekly
Examples
•donor$ or philanthropy or donation$ or endowment or York University or
endowment
•Rita Burak or Chantal Hebert or Step$ Ling or Ken Singh or Joel Cohen or
Jay Hennick
•Date: In the last week
•Sources/Major News and Business Publications/Canada
43
Example
44
Using Imagine Canada’s
Canadian Directory of Foundations
and Corporations
•Most accurate funding research tool in Canada
•Bilingual database with detailed, searchable information on thousands of
Canadian funders.
•Contains searchable information on all Canadian grant making foundations,
as well as government funding programs, American foundations, and
hundreds of corporations that invest in the community.
•First published in 1966 by the Association of Universities and Colleges of
Canada and adopted by Imagine Canada over 25 years ago.
But note:
•Sometimes it does not display the most recent data. Always check CRA.
45
Different look, same techniques
46
Fee Based Resources
Can you afford it? Which one is right for you?
PRO – Prospect Research ONLINE
• Guidestar Grant Explorer
• Searchable by funder name, state/province, city, ZIP code and can be
filtered by grants awarded ($), total number of grants awarded, Employer
Identification Number (U.S.)
• Pivot: funding connected
• Onesource
• ABI/ProQuest
47
Remember it’s a jungle out there
Spyware
Viruses
Viruses
Malware
Spyware
Malware
48
Possible pitfalls
49
Closing Thoughts
Interacting with the Research & Records Unit at DOA:
•Focus Relationship Building that will result in asks over $5K; $25K is considered
Major Gift Level
•Concern on prospects heading into Solicitation
•Concern with prospects with Stewardship commitments
•Sharing information – both before and after “the ask”
•Trips, prospect lists & ideas
Contact:
Jeff Briand,
Steve Wardle
Phillipa Vaz
Associate Director
[email protected]
(416) 650-8204
Senior Research Analyst
[email protected]
Ext. 58229
Research Analyst
[email protected]
Ext. 20380
50
Questions?
51