Search Tips

Search for Nonprofits

Search for a Specific Nonprofit

Type the organization's name in the search box with quotation marks.

Example: "new york university" will put New York University at the top of your results.
Our search engine uses a complex algorithm to sort organizations by relevance, according to your criteria. Relevancy is based on a number of factors:
- Name
- City, State, Zip Code
- Keyword frequency and position in a number of text fields
- Organization size (based on assets and income)
The search engine looks at numerous fields of information for each organization to decide its relevancy.

Search for Many Nonprofits

Typing a single term such as university will usually return more organizations than you want. Try typing multiple words in the search box.

Example: new york university medical will give you a manageable list of universities in New York that work, research, or teach in the field of medicine.
Organizations are listed in the search results in order of relevance.

Find People

GuideStar Premium subscribers can use the People Search feature to search more than 3.3 million records. For best results use a person's first and last name or the full organization name with which the individual may be affiliated.

To start a new People Search from a People Results or People Report page, enter new criteria in the quick search box at the top right of the page. Use the category links at the right of People Results to refine your results.

Special Syntax

Phrase search
Use quotation marks ( " " ) to search for an exact phrase: "united nations" will return results where the words united nations appear beside each other in the text.
Wildcards
- Use a question mark to replace a single character anywhere in a word:
  te?t finds test and text.
- Use an asterisk ( * ) to replace multiple characters anywhere in a word:
  hous* will return results with house as well as housing.
Stop words
Our search recognizes stop words (nonessential, frequently used words, such as a, and, because, if, often, the, when) and rewrites your query without them, unless they are entered in quotation marks.
Excluding words
Narrow your search by using a hyphen (be sure to space before the hyphen):

child -care will return results containing the term child but exclude those that also contain the term care.
Acronyms
Our search recognizes some acronyms (e.g., PTA), but relevancy is improved when you type the entire organization name or keywords.