TPW Board Member Fran Perrin on 360 Giving

Over the past year I've been campaigning to increase the use of data in grant-making, encouraging philanthropists to publish their grants through the 360 Giving initiative. So I was absolutely delighted to be awarded the Open Data Institute (ODI) Women in Data Award 2016, presented by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web (and a personal hero of mine!)

At present, it is not possible to find a complete dataset on all charitable grants in the UK. My campaign 360Giving exists to change this. My vision is that UK grant-making is more informed, effective and strategic. The mission is to support organisations to publish their grants data in an open, standardised way and help people to understand and use the data in order to support decision-making and learning across the charitable giving sector. Our team recently launched a new platform to make this a reality.

Finding detailed information about UK grant-making – who is funding, what, where and how much – has now become much easier with the launch of our new online search tool, called GrantNav. Free to use, the platform lets users search, explore and download grants data from some of the UK’s largest charitable funders. By making a wealth of grant information available in one place GrantNav will save time and money, allowing funders to be more informed, and those seeking funding to make more targeted applications. All grants included in the online platform are published to the 360Giving Standard – a shared format that makes the data available in an open and comparable way. To date, over £8 billion of grants have been shared by a range of UK grant-makers including the Big Lottery Fund, BBC Children in Need, City Bridge Trust, Comic Relief, Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, Gatsby, Lloyds Bank Foundation, Paul Hamlyn and the Wolfson Foundation. The 360Giving Data Standard is also used by local and government grant-makers, including early adopters Oxfordshire Community Foundation, Macc and Trafford Council. Information from all of these funders can be found on GrantNav. As each new organisation opens up its data the information will become available to search and download via GrantNav; building a more complete picture of grant-making in the UK.

In a time of austerity and increased financial pressure on charities, it is imperative that the funds available are deployed as effectively as possible. 360Giving was founded to give greater visibility to where and how funders spend their money, making it easier to identify shared opportunities and challenges, and work together. with the launch of GrantNav we have made an important step towards realising our vision for UK grant-making to be more informed, effective and strategic. I'm so excited to see the initiative develop as more organisations publish their grants openly to the 360Giving Standard.

Along with Alice Casey, Katherine Duerden, Anna de Pulford and Rachel Rank we jointly won the award, presented by ODI President Sir Tim Berners-Lee for a female group making waves in the world of open data. This is the third year the ODI has run the Open Data Awards, which celebrate innovation and excellence in open data across the world. The Women in Data award was presented for the first time in 2016, in recognition of the ODI’s commitment to championing gender diversity in the industry. When announcing 360Giving as the winner, Sir Tim Berners-Lee emphasised his personal support for this new award, noting the need for more women in the tech industry.

Taking part in The Philanthropy Workshop taught me the importance of being able to map the sector when being a strategic philanthropist. Now with the support of several TPW alumni I've had the confidence to go out and advocate for the kind of change I want to see in the sector.

For more information see:  http://theodi.org/news/open-data-awards-2016-open-innovators-from-around-the-world