Nine new publishers join 360Giving Open Data movement
A broad mix of funders are the latest to publish their grantmaking data using the 360Giving Standard. The nine new organisations range from larger national funders, smaller local foundations, a corporate foundation, three community foundations, a livery company, family funders.
Together they take the total number of publishers to 43 and add another 2,730 grants worth £33.5 million – taking the total number of UK grants that are openly accessible to the world to 208,148, worth a total value of £8.9 billion. The full list of new publishers are: The Clothworkers’ Foundation, Community Foundation for Surrey, Cheshire Community Foundation, Quartet Community Foundation, Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, Millfield House Foundation, Nationwide Foundation, R S Macdonald Charitable Trust and Walcot Foundation.
‘More than the sum of the parts’
We asked some of our newest publishers why they have opened up their grantmaking data and why other grantmakers should follow suit.
Fiona Ellis, Trust Manager at Millfield House Foundation that funds policy change for a better society, says: “Making grant data open helps grantmakers understand the context of their own grantmaking; helps grant seekers see who might be interested in them – or not; and helps any lottery ticket buyer or donor that supports a grantmaker to see what happens with their money.
“I’d recommend others to participate since a whole picture is worth more than the sum of the parts.”
Sam Grimmett Batt, Senior Grants Officer of The Clothworkers’ Foundation, established by The Clothworkers’ Livery Company in 1977, and donating more than £125m since then to improve the lives of people and communities, particularly those facing disadvantage, says: “We are keen to help potential grantees to understand the type of awards we make and publishing our data in an open format is an excellent way of achieving this. We would encourage other grantmakers to publish both for ethical reasons and to play their part in strengthening the evidence base for the grantmaking sector.
Both agree that the process, though perhaps daunting, is well supported by the 360Giving team.
Sam Grimmet Batt says: “We found the process of publishing easy due to the excellent support provided by 360Giving. They were very helpful and always willing to explain technical processes in layman’s terms.”
While Fiona Ellis says: “I found the process initially daunting because I don’t use spread sheets but the help I got from 360Giving helped hugely. It really isn’t that hard at all.”
And the process can deliver efficiencies to your own data processes as the Clothworker’s Foundation discovered. “The publishing process helped us to streamline our data gathering processes and provided a valuable insight into our workflows for storing, managing and disseminating data,” says Sam.
Explore 360Giving data in our tool GrantNav. If you are interested in publishing your data and want to find out more contact Katherine Duerden: katherine.duerden@threesixtygiving.org