Join the open grants movement

We are a charity that helps organisations to publish open, standardised grants data, and supports people to use it to improve charitable giving

Year: 2019

  • The 12 Grants of Christmas

    Updated December 2022.  With Christmas around the corner, we haven’t just been eating endless mince pies. Well, we have been, daily, but we’ve also used our grants data search engine GrantNav to bring you some festive funding and grants yule love to get you in the Christmas spirit 🎄 By David Kane and Anna Scott […]

  • How Birmingham City Council is using data to understand funding in the West Midlands

    With the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games on the horizon, Birmingham City Council is working to understand what grantmaking currently looks like across the region. Here, Sam Milsom from Open Data Manchester shares how over three workshops he helped the council to better understand who is funding what and where, and where there is potential for […]

  • Grantmaking data champions unite!

    We are soon to launch a Data Champions programme [update: now launched] to connect and support people who are interested in helping their foundations to be more data-informed. Here, the programme facilitator Dirk Slater shares what happened at a recent taster workshop, bringing together grantmakers from across the UK for peer-learning, discussion and cake Data […]

  • Standing down as CEO

    After four hugely rewarding years at 360Giving, I have decided it’s time to hand over the reins to someone new. I’ll be leaving the organisation in spring 2020 once a new CEO has been appointed. I have very much enjoyed my time building 360Giving. After a year of incubation at Nesta under the watchful eye […]

  • How much does the UK government give in grants?

    Grants from government are a crucial part of the voluntary sector’s funding mix. In this post, David Kane uses identifiers to explore the 2017/18 government grants data and understand the types of organisations which received funding.   Updated data Since this blog was released, 16 central UK Government departments have published open data about the grants […]

  • Developing data champions

    Our first go at creating a network of data champions has revealed a thirst for connecting with others to use data for better grantmaking. In 2017, collaborating with UK Community Foundations we brought 10 people together for a data expedition and this sparked their interest in learning more together. In interviews we learned that as […]

  • More and better data, but can we follow the money?

    Last month NCVO launched its 2019 Civil Society Almanac, which they describe as “a treasure trove of voluntary sector data” – and it is. As NCVO’s Stuart Etherington says in his introduction, “…such dispassionate analysis is an important way of holding a mirror up to what we do”. I agree, and I’m a huge fan […]

  • Joint letter from civil society groups urges UK government to take urgent action to overhaul its use of data

    Joint press release, London, Monday 15 July 2019 The UK government has the opportunity to transform its use of data, but is missing the opportunity and risks falling behind other countries if it does not invest now, civil society groups have today said. In an open letter to the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, […]

  • Generosity of a community

    Progressive grantmaking organisations were given a boost today, with the commitment by The National Lottery Community Fund to support the development of open grants data resources for the next three years. The grant – totalling £490,000 – will enable 360Giving to deliver its new 3-year strategy, which focuses on helping grantmakers to use data in […]

  • Small is the new big

    It’s Small Charity Week again! Last year we did an analysis of small charities in Lambeth and Southwark and examined the grantmaking patterns. This year, thanks to our new 360Insights platform, we decided to go big and explore grantmaking to small charities across the whole of the UK in 2018. For the purposes of this […]

  • Informing policy discussions

    Guest blog by Max Rutherford, Head of Policy at the Association of Charitable Foundations. A few years ago while working at a charitable foundation, I was part of a group of trust and foundation representatives that secured a meeting with the then Justice Secretary to talk about prison reform. In advance of the meeting, we […]

  • Technology in the Charitable Sector

    Guest post by Marina Stedman of The Good Exchange A new research report into ‘Technology in the Charitable Sector’ has looked at the current charitable grant application and distribution landscape and revealed that hundreds of hours are being spent completing application forms per year, with just two in five being successful and two thirds of […]

  • Holding ourselves to account

    Guest post by Paul Streets, CEO of Lloyds Bank Foundation, following his keynote talk at the launch of 360Insights in March 2019 Data is central to our work. We use it to canvas the confidential views of those we fund on how we’re doing; understand what’s going on in their ‘world’; inform our policy and […]

  • Creating a data culture in community foundations

    Guest post by Dirk Slater, FabRiders – a strategic social change consultancy Over the past eight months we’ve been developing a network of Data Champions working in community foundations across the UK. The initiative is a collaboration between 360Giving, FabRiders and UK Community Foundations. In April 2019 we held a workshop focusing on how to strengthen […]

  • A Forest of Funders

    Exploring the landscape of UK grant funders through a handmade data visualisation Last year we held a ​competition​ to celebrate ​how open grants data can be visualised. In the latest in our series about the winners, Dr Cath Sleeman takes us through her physical data visualisation. A Forest of Funders won the Special Judges Award. This […]

  • Making data simple and powerful for user-led organisations

    Last year we held a competition to celebrate how open grants data can be visualised. In this latest in a series of interviews with the competition winners, Victòria Oliveres answers questions about her From Funder to User data visualisation. The judging panel awarded Victòria second prize, saying that her visualisation was a beautiful combination of […]