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Publisher Guidance

Step 7. Remember a few key concepts

Here’s a reminder of some of the ideas and concepts that we’ve introduced in this section. 

Grants data

Grants data usually refers to:

  • when you awarded each grant
  • the value of each grant
  • who each grant was given to 
  • what the grant is for. 

If you don’t currently collect information about your grants, you will need to start gathering that data in order to publish 360Giving data.

Grants management system

Grants data is usually stored in a grants management system, which could be a purpose-built database or Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software. Not all grantmaking organisations have a grants management system, and some collect and store their data in simple spreadsheets instead. 

Open data

Grants data published using the 360Giving Data Standard is open data. ‘Open’ means that anyone can freely access, use, modify, and share the data for any purpose. 

Our tools like GrantNav and GrantVis make it easy for anyone to explore open grants data published by UK funders.

360Giving Data Standard

For open data to be really useful, it has to follow an agreed format – a standard – so it can be easily collated and analysed with data from other organisations.

The 360Giving Data Standard is the shared format we have developed for UK funders to publish their grants data so that people can have a more informed understanding of the UK grantmaking picture

360Giving Data

360Giving data is open grants data which has been published by UK funders using the 360Giving Data Standard. 

JSON and JSON Schema

JSON is the technical language of the 360Giving Data Standard. JSON schema is the rulebook that ensures that data correctly follows the Standard. The JSON file format allows grants data to be published directly as an automatically updating live feed from grants management systems.

Publishers and publishing

In this guidance, ‘publishers’ are UK funders that want to share their grants data using the 360Giving Data Standard. They are the owners of the data, and they ‘publish’ their data by making a data file (usually a spreadsheet) available online. We use this file as the source of the data for our tools like GrantNav, GrantVis, and the Data Quality Dashboard. But the data itself always belongs to the publisher. That means it’s up to each publisher to keep its data up to date and available online; otherwise, we won’t be able to display it in GrantNav and our other tools.

Data protection

Open data should not typically contain personal or sensitive data that could allow a living person to be identified. Grants data published using the 360Giving Data Standard which mentions specific individuals, should be removed or made anonymous to protect their privacy, unless the individual has given consent for their information to be shared publicly.

Data quality

Data quality is about making sure your data is ready to be used for whatever you want to do with it. Checking data quality usually includes making sure that your data is right, that there aren’t important bits missing, and that it’s reasonably up to date. Improving your data quality means making existing data more useful by filling gaps or adding new information.

Checklist

You’ve reached the end of the Stage 1: Plan! Now complete the checklist:

Have you…

  • Got a good idea of what’s involved, and the key decisions you’ll need to make?
  • Learned about some important concepts like ‘open data’ and ‘data quality’?
  • Found out where your grants data is stored and how to access it?
  • Worked out what resources you will need for the project, and who will need to be involved?
  • Written a plan, and decided how you will record your progress?
  • Started thinking about how you will protect people’s privacy when you publish?
  • Thought about where you will host your data file online?
  • Registered as a publisher with 360Giving?

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