Big Lottery Fund confirms support for 360Giving

By Rachel Rank November 30, 2015

As part of its commitment to modernising grant making, the Big Lottery Fund has provided 360Giving with a £50,000 development grant so it can take forward its ground-breaking work on open data in the grant making sector.

Currently every funder has a different approach to capturing and managing data about those they support, making it difficult to understand and demonstrate sector-wide spending and impact of charitable funds. The 360Giving open data standard lays the foundation for better understanding the behaviour and impact of the sector. It is the first step needed to create a new generation of useful apps to benefit grant makers and those they seek to help through funding.

Fran Perrin, Director of 360Giving said:

“We are delighted that the Big Lottery Fund is supporting our campaign to help people make better grants. BLF is supporting us financially and practically. This development funding allows us to create an independent not for profit, 360Giving Limited, to take forward the work. Our new Chief Executive, Rachel Rank, joined us this month and will be taking this work forward over the coming year. Indigo Trust and Nesta are also investing in 360Giving.

The BLF grant also allows us to start work on our ‘labs’ concept of incubating small projects that use 360Giving data. The first project to benefit will be Beehive, which helps charities make more efficient applications for funding.”

Joe Ferns, UK Knowledge and Portfolio Director at the Big Lottery Fund said:

“Making data open, accessible and meaningful is an important part of helping organisations understand the difference they make to people’s lives. We’re pleased to support the development of this project which has the potential to help funders better manage and share their information, so they can demonstrate their value and better serve people and communities.”

As well as financial support, BLF is also publishing its own grants data to the 360Giving standard. For a full list of publishers and to see their data, visit our Data Registry.