Governance of the Data Standard

360Giving

360Giving is the steward of the 360Giving Data Standard. Our CEO is responsible for its day-to-day management, supported by a Product Manager and an external specialist technical team, Open Data Services Coop.

The 360Giving Board of Trustees are responsible for setting the strategy of the charity and Standard, and both the Board and CEO are supported in the maintenance and development of the Standard by the 360Giving Data Standard Stewardship Committee.

The Stewardship Committee

The 360Giving Data Standard is governed by a voluntary, multi-stakeholder Stewardship Committee that includes representatives from grantmakers, data users, technical experts and the 360Giving team. 

Their role is to oversee and account for the appropriate and timely maintenance of the Standard, and review when any upgrades or changes are required. They ensure that the governance and revision process is properly carried out. The Committee meets two to four times a year to discuss the Standard schema, look at how it is being used and consider any proposed changes or upgrades. 

Our current Committee members:

• Oliver Carrington, Imperial Health Charity (Chair)
• Linda Humphries, independent
• David Kane, independent
• Faye Emery, Co-operative Group
• Jo Kerr, Turn2Us
• Katherine Duerden, 360Giving
• Kimberley Gregory, OCSI
• Lin Richardson, The Prudence Trust
• Nitya Teagarajan, Youth Investment Fund
• Steven Flower, Open Data Services
• James Miles, Church of England

The Stewardship Committee is directed and governed in line with its Terms of Reference. More information about the revision process, identifying issues, proposals for upgrades, and examples of version upgrades can be found in the governance and review process for the Standard. You can find the proposals, committee recommendations, comments or requests for revisions, and the minutes from all Stewardship Committee meetings published on the 360Giving forum.

If you would like to provide ideas or feedback on the 360Giving Data Standard, please visit our online Discussion Forum, where you can post comments and suggestions and contribute to existing discussions. All feedback and suggestions posted on the forum will be taken into consideration by the Stewardship Committee in line with the governance and review process.

Guiding principles

Our principles for the 360Giving Data Standard are:

1. Accessible – It has a low barrier of entry for publishers with a minimum number of required fields to be effective and inclusive to a range of funders. The Standard is described by a JSON schema; however, we allow users to share data in spreadsheets and provide tools to convert data between formats to increase adoption and support organisations with a wide range of data maturity.

2. Flexible – It allows for the publication of non-Standard fields alongside the official fields, so individual funders, or groups of funders, can tailor their data for their specific needs.

3. Extendable – It can be extended to allow expansion of the information being shared in a consistent way and provide support for collaborations and collective activities.

4. Interoperable – It uses internationally recognised standards in its data formatting and codelists. As far as is possible it aims to enable links to other standards and registers.

5. Responsive – It is adaptable, allowing an element of continuous improvement to meet emerging needs.

6. Usable – The data published using the Standard should be relevant, understandable by others and usable.