Search Tips

Keyword search is comprised of two components: words and operators.

Words

There are two types: single word (e.g. water) or phrases (containing multiple words such as water conservation).
Phrases may or may not be surrounded by double quotes.

Operators

Operator Description Example
" " Exact phrase: To search for an exact phrase match "water conservation"
This searches for opportunities that contain the exact phrase of water conservation.
OR or || This is the default conjunction operator. If there is no operator between two words, the operator is used. The operator links two words and if either or both of the words exist then display them in the results. This is equivalent to a union of sets. water conservation
This searches for opportunities that contain water, conservation, or both.
AND or && The operator finds results where both words exist. This is equivalent to an intersection using sets. Example 1: space AND flight

Example 2: "water conservation" AND "habitat restoration"
This searches for opportunities that contain space and flight (Example 1) or water conservation and habitat restoration (Example 2).
NOT or ! Exclude opportunities that contain the word after this operator. This is equivalent to a difference using sets. Note: The NOT operator cannot be used with just one word or exact phrase. For example, the following search will return no results: NOT "water conservation" habitat NOT "water conservation"
This searches for opportunities that contain habitat but not water conservation.
+ Require that the word or exact phrase after the operator exists. +water conservation
This searches for opportunities that must contain water and may or may not contain conservation.
- Exclude opportunities that contain the word or exact phrase after the operator. "water conservation" -" habitat restoration "
This searches for opportunities that contain water conservation but not habitat restoration.
? To perform a single character wildcard search. This looks for words that match with the single character replaced. te?t
This searches for opportunities that contain a word such as tent, test, or text.
* To perform a multiple character wildcard search. This looks for zero or more characters. test*
This searches for opportunities that contain a word such as test, tests, or tester.
~ followed by an integer greater than 1 Proximity search: The search supports finding words that are within a specific distance away from each other in a data set. To do a proximity search, use the operator at the end of a phrase. "water conservation"~10
This searches for opportunities that contain the words water and conservation within 10 words of each other.
~ or
~ followed by a number between 0 and 1
Fuzzy search: Use the operator at the end of a single word to do a fuzzy search. An additional parameter can specify the required similarity. The value is between 0 and 1, with a value closer to 1 only words with a higher similarity will be matched. Similarity is defined as by the minimum number of operations needed to transform one string into the other, where an operation is an insertion, deletion, or substitution of a single character. The default of 0.5 is used if the parameter is not given. Example 1: roam~
This searches for opportunities that contain a word with the default similarity value of 0.5 such as foam, roams, rooms, or roaming

Example 2: roam~0.8
This searches for opportunities that contain a word with a higher similarity in spelling to roam
Complex Use a combination of operators to perform complex queries. water AND conservation NOT habitat
This searches for opportunities that contain the words water and conservation, but not "habitat" "water habitat" AND (conservation OR restoration)
This searches for opportunities that contain the phrase "water habitat" in addition to either of

conservation or restoration. +water conservation AND analysis~
This searches for opportunities that must contain water, may or may not contain conservation, and contain a word similar in spelling to analysis such as analysts or analyses.

Notes:

  • AND, OR, NOT must be in ALL CAPS otherwise they are interpreted as search words.

  • The "*" or "?" operator cannot be used as the only character in a search.