Firstly, click on Advanced search

The example I’ll use here is an organisation that provides horticultural therapy to adults with mental health problems in Sheffield. The first thing to do is think about the subject keywords you would want to search for. The main ones are ‘mental health’ and ‘horticultural therapy’. So I pick one and enter it into the keyword box. And because I want to start off with quite a narrow focus, I also put Sheffield into the Address box.

Like so. Then click search.

This will give you a set of results like this. You can scroll through and read the summaries to see if any of them sound like they are doing similar work to your organisation. If so, click on the organisation name for more details. In this case, let’s have a look at the first organisation listed – Sheffield Mental Health Citizens Advice Bureau.

Website address

Annual report and accounts

On this screen, you can scroll down and read more about the organisation’s activities. To find out who funds them, there are two places to look: their own website if they have one, or their most recent annual report and accounts.

This is their website – not much on there, and no obvious links to any information on who funds them. So I’ll try the link from Guidestar to the annual report and accounts.

The annual reports and sets of accounts on Guidestar are scanned versions of the hard copies that charities have to send in to the Charity Commission. So, irritatingly, that means you can’t use Edit > Find to search for the word ‘funder’. You have to click through the pages manually. The funders will be listed in the notes to the accounts detailing the incoming resources. So you need to click through the pages using the right-pointing arrow at the top left of the page.

Here’s what that page looks like. And you’ll see there are a few funders listed. Take a note of any names that you want to look at further.

You can then go back to your list of results on Guidestar, and do the same with other organisations. As you can see, there are 45 results so this can be quite a long-winded process. And remember, this is just one, narrow search!

So then you could go back to the Advanced search page and do another search. Remember you can also widen your search. So far, I’ve just been looking at organisations based in Sheffield. I could enter another location, or leave the Address box blank to find similar organisations based elsewhere. Or I could widen out the subject by using different keywords, such as: health, disability, therapy, social care.

Once you’ve got thoroughly annoyed with all this searching, you can take the list of funders you’ve found and find out a bit more about them. The easiest way is to find out if they have their own website. So go to Google or whichever search engine you prefer, and search for the name of the funder. One word of warning: the funder’s name as listed in someone’s annual accounts isn’t necessarily completely accurate. For example, the entry for “Church Burgesses Grant” we saw earlier refers to a grant from the “Sheffield Church Burgesses Trust”, and “Graves Trust” is actually the “J G Graves Charitable Trust”. You can also use the funding information services from Week 1 of the course to help you find more information on each funder.