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Find funders by cause or topic

When to use this guide

Use this to find funders that support a specific cause or topic.

What you’ll get

You’ll be able to see a list of grants related to your topic, plus a visual summary showing who funds work in that area.

You’ll need

  • A topic keyword or phrase
    Example: “community garden”
  • (Optional) A date range
    Example: April 2023 to March 2025
  • (Optional) A region
    Example: North East

Tip: Interpreting your results

Search results are based on data published using the 360Giving Standard. Results may vary depending on what data has been published. 

Check:

  • The number of grants
  • The total funding amount
  • The date range
  • The names and number of funders and recipient orgs

This helps you understand how broad or focused your results are, and what kind of activities they relate to.

Steps

On the GrantNav homepage, enter your search term into the search bar.

Select Search.

Tip: Use quotation marks to search for the whole phrase. Without them, a search for community gardens may show results with only “community” or only “garden.”

To search for more than one phrase at once, use AND – for example, “mental health” AND “young people.”

2. Explore the results and check for relevance

GrantNav shows results it thinks are most relevant first.

Use the Sort by menu to look through results in a different way.

You can sort by Best Match, Amount, and Award Date.

Tip: Sorting by Award Date or Amount can help you spot results that aren’t clearly linked to your topic. If you notice the same unrelated word appearing often – for example, schools – you can refine your search by adding NOT before that word.

(e.g. “community garden” NOT schools)

You can review the list of funders in the Funding Organisations filter and a list of recipients in the Recipient Organisations filter.

a. Match titles and descriptions only

GrantNav searches all fields by default, including funder and organisation names.

If your results look off topic, select Titles & Descriptions under the GrantNav search bar to narrow your search. This limits results to grants where your keywords appear in the grant title or description.

b. Filter by date

To find grants in a particular date range, use the Award Date filter.

You can:

  • Enter a From date to see grants from that month and year onwards
  • Enter a To date to see grants up to that date
  • Enter both a From date and To date for a specific range
  • Or select one or more calendar years

c. Filter by location

To find grants in a particular place, use the Location filter.

In Type, select Best Available from the dropdown. This uses the most detailed location data available.

Tip: Not all grants have detailed location data. If a grant doesn’t include location data, it won’t appear when you filter by location. Learn how location filtering works.

4. Download your results

To export a spreadsheet of your results, select Download as CSV. 

You can use Excel or a similar program to filter, sort, and analyse further, including:

  • Identifying top funders or recipients
  • The number of grants awarded
  • The value of those grants

Use the Custom CSV option if you want to choose which columns to include in your download.

5. Visualise your results

Select Visualise your search results in GrantVis.

This opens an interactive summary showing:

  • Which funders are most active on this topic
  • Typical grant sizes
  • Where recipients are based (if location data is available)

Related resources

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