A Purdue Research Park-based company has upgraded its searchable electronic database of more than 16,000 unique funding opportunities to help groups and individuals more easily seek federal, state and local grant opportunities and immediately access funding sources.
Schoolhouse Partners LLC, founded by Anita and Louis S. Schafer, acquired the GrantSelect database in 2006. The content includes funding opportunities found in several of the company's print publications. Anita Schafer is COO, and Louis S. Schafer is editorial director.
"We offer a broad range of grant opportunities for academic research and community projects," Louis said. "These opportunities can be used for programs, planning, start-up, endowments, technical assistance, facilities and equipment, and other projects."
He said updating the database meant focusing on the technology that supported it.
"Much of the software code has been rewritten and replaced. We've updated the search functions to provide more relevant search results, and users can opt either for a tight search with a narrow set of results or a wide search with broad results," he said. "We've also updated the programming so readers can search in standard English without using special terms or connectors, to similar search engines like Bing, Google or Yahoo."
Other features include: * Tips for every field in Quick Search and Advanced Search screens * Email alerts that notify users when a grant program in their field of interest has been added or updated
Louis Schafer explained how individuals gain access to GrantSelect.
"GrantSelect subscriptions are enabled for entire campuses and library systems, which allows students, faculty and patrons to use it from their organizations' locations without needing individual usernames and passwords," he said. "This also includes remote access for off-site users who may work from home."
A few of the current subscribers to the GrantSelect database include Austin Peay State University, Clarksville, Tenn.; Boise State University, Boise, Idaho; Free Library of Philadelphia; Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; Michigan State University, East Lansing, Mich.; Montana Department of Public Health & Human Services, Helena, Mont.; University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisc.; and the U.S. Coast Guard Academy, New London, Conn.
Andrew Shepard-Smith, director of grants and sponsored research at Austin Peay State University, described the value he has found using the GrantSelect database.
"My colleagues and I have been extremely pleased with GrantSelect. Having subscribed to numerous other databases in the past, I have found the new interface easy to navigate and as accurate as databases that cost 10 times as much," he said. "GrantSelect has significantly minimized the amount of time that faculty have spent searching for appropriate funding agencies."