Our History

Achievements and milestones on our journey

Our history

2024

March 2024 – Over 1 million grants published using the 360Giving Data Standard

  • The number of grants published using the 360Giving Data Standard exceeded 1 million, representing over £265 billion worth of funding shared by 275 funders – including the UK central government’s 2022-23 grants data.

2023

OpenUK Awards 2023 graphic - Data category won by 360Giving

November 2023 – 360Giving wins Data award at the OpenUK Awards 2023

  • We were proud to win the OpenUK award for Data in recognition of our work advancing open grants data in the UK.

June 2023 – UK Grantmaking 2021-22: A snapshot published

  • We provided a consolidated view of grantmaking data across different sectors for the first time, in a concise and accessible format through interactive visualisations.
  • This represents a stepping stone toward a more ambitious long-term vision to provide a more comprehensive picture of funding activities across diverse sectors and geographies.

Headshot of Tania Cohen

June 2023 – 360Giving Chief Executive Tania Cohen was awarded an MBE

  • 360Giving Chief Executive Tania Cohen was awarded an MBE for her services to charity and social justice, including for her work leading 360Giving.

 

Charity Awards 2023 Highly Commended certificationJune 2023 – 360Giving was highly commended in the Charity Awards

  • We were pleased to be a runner up in the Grantmaking and Funding category.

April 2023 – GrantNav exceeded £200bn worth of grants data

  • Data exceeded over £200bn of grants as the central UK Government published data about over 70,000 grants worth a total of £35.9bn.

March 2023 – 360Giving Data Standard updated to support sharing grants to individuals

  • In our first significant update since Version 1.0, Version 1.3 of the 360Giving Data Standard was released. This made it possible to share data about grants to individuals, as well as describe grants intended for regranting, and grants’ location scope.

February 2023 – Sector Infrastructure Funding report published

  • Image of a line chart showing the the number of sector infrastructure organisations not keeping up with the organisations they supportWe were commissioned by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation to produce a report analysing voluntary sector infrastructure.
  • We demonstrated how it has changed over the last 12 years, particularly by looking at its finances and funding.

2022

November 2022 – Two new trustees were welcomed to the board

  • We welcomed two new trustees to the board: Adam Lopardo and Lucy Palfreyman as Treasurer.
  • We also said thank you and goodbye to Geoff Chapman after 6 years’ service as Treasurer and Manny Hothi after 3 years on the Board.

September 2022 – Our Cost of Living Grants Tracker was launched as the first Cost of Living response grants were published

  • To make it easier to access Cost-of-Living-related grants data, we launched the Cost of Living Grants Tracker. This pulls and visualises data published by funders about their grants made in response to the crisis, updated daily.

August 2022 – Specialist Legal Advice Providers Report published

  • We worked with The Access to Justice Foundation to produce a report analysing funding for specialist legal advice providers in England and Wales.
  • It shows the kinds of analysis that can be done with data published using the 360Giving Data Standard.

Our Chair Fozia Irfan OBE.

July 2022 – 360Giving welcomes Fozia Irfan as new chair

  • We welcomed Fozia Irfan OBE, Director of Children and Young People at BBC Children in Need, as our new Chair of Trustees.
  • 360Giving’s Chair and Founder, Fran Perrin OBE stepped down from the Board after almost seven years at the helm.

March 2022 – GrantNav exceeded £170bn worth of grants data

Screenshot of the 2022-25 Strategy cover.

  • Data exceeded over £170bn of grants as the central UK Government published data about their 2020-21 grantmaking.

March 2022 – New strategy launched


2021

November 2021 – We published our Covid research

  • This research explored data shared by 174 grantmakers on their relief and recovery funding, covering 66,000 grants worth almost £2.4 billion.

September 2021 – We exceeded 200 funders publishing their data using the 360Giving Data Standard

  • GrantNav brought together data from over 200 funders who published their data using the 360Giving Data Standard.

Image with screenshots of 2016 and 2021 GrantNav. Text reads 'how it started 2016...£8.5bn. How it's going 2021...£108bn.'

July 2021 – GrantNav upgraded

June 2021 – COVID-19 Grants Tracker exceeded £1bn

Screenshot of COVID-19 Grants Tracker. Shows that the Tracker has data about 51,034 grants for 34,843 recipients, from 140 funders worth over 1bn.

  • Data on over £1bn of COVID-19 related grants could be explored on the COVID-19 Grants Tracker after the central UK Government published data about £477m grants given in response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

March 2021 – We launched the DEI Data Standard

March 2021 – GrantNav exceeded £100bn worth of grants data

  • Data exceeded over £100bn of grants as the central UK Government published data about over 52,000 grants worth a total of £31.8bn.

2020

December 2020 – Six new trustees were welcomed to the board

  • We welcomed six new trustees to the board: Dr Danil Mikhailov, Farah Ahmed and Jon Cracknell started in December 2020, whilst Thrisha Haldar, Jo Kerr and Bonnie Chiu started in July 2021. This comes as we say thank you and goodbye to several trustees – Alice Casey, Will Perrin, Anna de Pulford.

Headshot of our Founder Fran Perrin OBE in grayscale.October 2020 – 360Giving Founder and Chair Fran Perrin was awarded an OBE

  • 360Giving Founder and Chair Fran Perrin was awarded an OBE in recognition of her charitable services, including for setting up and driving 360Giving, particularly during COVID-19.

October 2020 – UK Government published data about 2018-19 grants

  • 16 central UK Government departments published data about 43,000 grants that were active in 2018-19, with a total value of £32bn.

Screenshot of below the radar report front cover.August 2020 – Our ‘Below the Radar’ report was published

  • With NCVO, we published the ‘Below the Radar’ report exploring grants data published in the 360Giving Data Standard, about grassroots organisations. 

March 2020 – Our COVID-19 Grants Tracker was launched as the first COVID-19 response grants were published

  • To make it easier to access COVID-19-related grants data, we launched the COVID-19 Grants Tracker. This pulls and visualises data published by funders about their grants made in response to the crisis, updated daily.

March 2020 – Rachel Rank stepped down as CEO, and we welcomed Tania Cohen

  • After four and a half years, we said goodbye to Rachel Rank, 360Giving’s first CEO, and welcomed Tania Cohen into the role.

January 2020 – Manny Hothi, from Trust for London, joined the trustee board


2019

November 2019 – Our first Data Champions programme was launched

  • Our Data Champions programme brings grantmakers together to collaborate and learn how to grow a data culture in their funding organisations.

Front cover of 2019-21 strategy. Title: Unlocking the power of grants data

April 2019 – Our 2019-2021 strategy launched

  • Our 2019-2021 strategy, Unlocking the Power of Grants Data, focused on helping funders to go beyond sharing data, to improving its quality and using it more in their day-to-day work.

April 2019 – The 100th funder published their grants data

  • The Nuffield Foundation became the 100th grantmaker to publish their data in the 360Giving Data Standard.

Photo of the team being presented with the Digital Impact AwardMarch 2019 – We won the Digital Impact Award

  • We were honoured to win the Digital Agenda Business Transformation Impact Award for 2019.

March 2019 – 360Insights was launched

Screenshot of 360Insights home page. It uses the original 360Giving logo and purple colours.

  • We launched 360Insights to help understand specific funders better. You can combine and visualise 360Giving and charity data to understand funders better, and explore funding across different areas – from grant dates to types of recipients.

2018

Screenshot of chord diagram showing common recipients in 360Giving data. Insight: 500 organisations received funding from both the Big Lottery Fund and the Co-operative Group in 2017.November 2018 – We created the ‘Who funds with who’ visual

  • We used 360Giving data in a visualisation to see the connections between funders.

November 2018 – UK Government adopted the 360Giving Data Standard

  • The 360Giving Data Standard was approved by the Open Standards Board for use for disclosing grant data by UK government organisations.

Screenshot of front cover of the Sharing data responsibly report. A conversation guide for funders.

October 2018 – We co-wrote a guide to sharing data responsibly

  • The guide helps funders think about how to have better conversations about responsible data.

June 2018 – Version 1.0 of the 360Giving Data Standard was released

April 2018 – The UK’s largest independent funder published its data

  • The UK’s largest charitable funder, the Wellcome Trust, published £6bn worth of grants in the 360Giving Data Standard.This brought the total of published grants data to over £24bn from 75 funders.

2017

December 2017 – £4bn of government grants opened up

  • A first batch of central government grants was published to the 360Giving Data Standard – for the Ministry of Justice and the Department for Transport – as part of its commitment made under the Open Government Partnership.

May 2017 – We pilot our first data use programme

  • Our first data use programme was launched, working with grant giving organisations in Greater Manchester.
Screenshot of funder dashboard concept from ‘Beehive for funders'.

Funder dashboard concept from ‘Beehive for Funders’

March 2017 – Beehive Giving was launched

  • Beehive Giving was launched, helping people looking for funds to connect with the right funders using 360Giving data.

2016

Photo of receiving women in data award.November 2016 – We won the Women in Data award

  • We were delighted to win the Open Data Institute’s Women in Data Award 2016, presented by inventor of the World Wide Web Sir Tim Berners-Lee.

 

September 2016 – GrantNav was launched with £8bn of grants data to explore

Screenshot of 2016 GrantNav search page. It is orange with search bar in the middle and numbers underneath of data in the tool: 25 funders; 124,212 recipients; 184,483 grants.

  • We launched our free search-engine for grants data, GrantNav, with data about 184,000 grants from 25 funders. 

2015

October 2015 – Rachel Rank was appointed as first CEO

  • Rachel Rank was appointed as 360Giving’s first CEO and 360Giving was registered as a charity.

July 2015 – 360Giving was formally constituted

  • 360Giving was registered as an independent company and charity and spun out of Nesta. A Board of Directors/Trustees was appointed.

2014

First steering group met

  • A project steering group was set up by the Indigo Trust with the Big Lottery Fund, Nominet Trust and Nesta. The initiative was met with a strong positive response from grantmakers and Nesta agreed to incubate 360Giving.