We need more questions to unlock the value of data – #1 360Giving Data labs update
Mor Rubinstein reflects on her first eight weeks in post as our Data Labs and Learning Manager and makes a call for more questions.
It has been eight weeks since I started my journey as the Data Labs and Learning Manager at 360Giving. Coming from the global open data world, I was excited to learn about the world of charities and grantmaking. What I have learned is that the charitable sector is facing similar issues to other sectors when it comes to the quality and use of open data. The good news is that this sector is eager to learn and to experiment – the perfect place to start a data lab!
The 360Giving Data Lab will focus on building capacity to use data for decision making in the charity sector, building tools that use 360Giving data as well as other data.
In the past weeks, I have been looking at the 360Giving Standard in depth. Our standard is the key to all our work and understanding it can help us to determine the potential uses of open data in the field. I have also spoken to many people across the charity world – from funders to grant seekers, from coders to policy experts.
Back to work! Today @Julianlstar & I looked at toolkit for publishers of grants data in #Manchester and beyond @360Giving #opendata pic.twitter.com/62mvJNjcQP
— Mor Rubinstein (@Morchickit) June 14, 2017
One of the main challenges is that we still struggle in defining the questions we want to answer with data. Questions and learning are essential for creating new solutions. Coming up with good questions is not always easy though. There are many resources, like School of Data, that can help with creating good questions that are relevant to the sector we’re working in. What’s an example of a good question? Good question! How is the UK charitable sector funded? How does that compare to 10 years ago? Is funding going to areas identified as having the most need?
Over the next few months, we will be looking at what tools we want to create and how we want to develop our current products even further.
So, if you have a question that will help us think about what tools we should create to help unlock the value of 360Giving data, do get in touch. Email me at: mor.rubinstein@threesixtygiving.org