Step 3. Taking over from a colleague

So, you’ve been tasked with the job of preparing and publishing 360Giving data.

Look for a record of your publishing process

First, check if there are any handover notes. Can you find the original project plan? Or your organisation’s Publisher Logbook or other documents describing the different steps involved, and who needs to be involved?

If you don’t have a record of the publishing process, contact our Helpdesk at support@threesixtygiving.org. We’ll send you a new Publisher Logbook pre-populated with the details we have on file about your 360Giving data, to help you get started on gathering the information.

Get to know your data in our tools

Look up your existing grants data in GrantNav to see:

• The date range of the grants that have been published.
• What information has been published about the grants? For example, is there location data? Can you see different grant programmes? Any data you publish now should include all of the same information fields. (You can add more if you wish.)

Find your organisation’s profile in the Data Quality Dashboard to see:

• When you last published.
• Where your files are hosted online.
• Which open license you are currently using.

Read our publisher guidance

Have a look through the rest of this guidance – especially ‘Before you start’, plus the overview of the publishing process and key concepts in Stage 1: Plan. 

We’d also love to see you at one of our online workshops introducing the publishing process. 

• Before you start
• Overview of the publishing process
• Key concepts in publishing your data
• All our upcoming workshops on publishing

Fill in the gaps 

Once you’ve explored your internal records, looked up your published data, and read through our guidance, there may still be some gaps. You might be able to find key information with a little investigation. For example:

• If you are using a grants management system that can export reports, can you find a report with “360Giving” or “360” in the title somewhere in your system? 
• You can search in your organisation’s folders for an Excel file with 360Giving and words like “conversion,” “tool,” or “template” in the title. 

Find whatever you can, but if you get stuck, contact our Helpdesk at support@threesixtygiving.org, as we might have copies in our support files. 

Update your process

Some things may have changed since your organisation last published 360Giving data. 

For example, if you’re using a different system to manage your grants now, the way you prepare your data might be different.

Has anything changed about your grantmaking or funding priorities? If so, the information you publish about your grants may need to change, too. Make sure you also update any documentation, like your Publisher Logbook.