As explained in more detail in the introduction to fundraising, the importance of identifying donors whose funding interests match the grantseeker's needs cannot be overstated. For both institutional and individual grantseekers, grant applications involve a substantial investment of time and resources, and the chances of successfully obtaining funding can be significantly increased if the grantseeker targets applications to donors already predisposed to fund such projects.

Before starting to research funders, grantseekers may want to reference the section of this site on internet research, and particularly those pages that discuss internet search strategies and general search engines Google and AltaVista. Unlike those search engines, which look for all web pages, the resources outlined below are funding-specific engines. It may be useful to complement the resources below with general search engines.