What is a Service Area?
“Service Area” refers to the geography (or geographies) in which a nonprofit provides services or makes its services available. On Community Qualifier, nonprofit Service Areas are defined at a county/county-equivalent level or full state level. This information can be found in the “Geographies Served” section of a nonprofit’s profile.
Service Area data can be provided in three in different ways:
- By the nonprofit – when nonprofits claim their profile they have the ability to provide and update their Service Areas any time by editing the Geographies Served field of their profile. Note that when a nonprofit user has provided the data in this field, the green shield icon will appear.
- findCRA’s own independent research – from time-to-time, findCRA may update the Geographies Served section of a nonprofit profile based on our own independent research. When this occurs, the Geographies Served section will not have the green shield icon displayed.
- Bank user request – bank users of Community Qualifier have the ability to request that geographies be added to or removed from the Geographies Served section of a nonprofit’s profile. When a bank user submits a request, findCRA will review and independently verify that the nonprofit is serving the requested geography. If the request passes our review, we’ll update the Geographies Served field with the new geography. Note that the green shield icon will not appear in this scenario.
Impact on Search Results
Nonprofits appear in geographic search results not only based on their physical location (or main address) but also their Service Area(s), as indicated on the Geographies Served section of their nonprofit profile. If a nonprofit appears in search results because the geography is part of their Service Area, you’ll see a green “Service Area” tag on the nonprofit within the results.
In all cases, the Service Area tag only appears when related information has been provided, either by the nonprofit directly, by findCRA, or through a bank user request, as it appears in the Geographies Served section on the related nonprofit profile. Otherwise, if a nonprofit does not have Service Area tag, search results are based solely on the main address for that nonprofit.
