The need for good data, not just more data
It’s been an interesting couple of weeks for 360Giving, with three different but complementary events emphasising the need for good quality funding data.
Firstly, there was the launch of the excellent Giving Trends report, co-written by ACF and CASS. As a newbie to the world of philanthropy, Giving Trends is my go-to report for learning about who’s funding what and how much they’re giving. It’s great to see this kind of thorough research coming out of the sector, although the report’s lead author highlighted the need for transparency and the difficulties of getting the information required to conduct her analysis – something that we hope will become easier as more organisations publish to the 360Giving Standard.
This year’s report is slightly different as it brings together research data on the top independent, family and corporate foundations. This was the right decision, as together, these 300 organisations represent 90% of all giving by value of the 10,000+ independent foundations in the UK. The main takeaway for me: Foundation spending continues to grow, reaching a record £2.7bn and matching government grants to the voluntary sector. This is despite an overall fall in income, showing ongoing commitment to charitable giving in times of austerity. But wouldn’t it be great if we could see these government and charitable grants side by side? Which brings me neatly to the second event – the launch of GrantNav.
GrantNav launch event
Photographs by Mike Massaro
We launched GrantNav at the end last month. It was our first big public event and we were delighted by the number of people who came and told us what they liked about GrantNav; what else they’d like to be able to do with it; and that they were going to publish their data to the 360Giving Standard so they could be included too.
It’s hard to believe, but until we launched GrantNav, it wasn’t possible to get open, comparable information on UK grantmaking. Huge thanks to the 27 organisations that published their data in advance of the launch – there would be no point building platforms like this if we didn’t have data to go into it, so all credit to them for leading the way. We look forward to more organisations joining them in the coming months so watch this space. And in the meantime, have a play and tell us what you think: grantnav@threesixtygiving.org
And the third event? That was the 2016 International Open Data Conference. For all you open data advocates out there, Madrid was the place to be. We shared ideas on how to join up open data standards; launched a new project looking at how to accurately identify organisations; and we talked about the dangers of over-claiming on open data (it’s not going to end poverty apparently). But we also saw great examples of real-life problems open data has helped to fix. This has inspired us to start looking at how we use the grants data being made available. So, if you’re a grantmaker working in Scotland or Manchester, come and speak with us as we’d love to know what issues you’re struggling with and to test out how 360 data might help with the solution.