Step 4. Write a plan

It’s tempting just to get stuck in, but writing a short plan will make things easier later on.

Set a realistic timeline

How long the publishing process will take depends on a few different things, for example: 

• the type of grants management system you have
• the amount of data you would like to publish
• whether the data is well organised and consistent
• if any important data is missing or unclear.

You might also want to think about:

• how many hours you can give to the project alongside your other work
• who else needs to be involved and their availability – especially anyone who might need to give ‘sign off’ on anything
• planned maintenance, downtime or changes to your grants management system or website
• time needed to inform your grantees that you are planning to publish your grants data, if you choose to do this.

It’s different for every funder, but it is more common for the process to take a few weeks or months than hours or days. 

Use our planning template

When you have worked out who will be involved, and what feels like a realistic timeline, you can make a plan to help you stay on track.

Break the whole publishing process down into a list of tasks – our handy checklists will help you with this. Then make a note beside each one, saying who will be working on the task, how much time they think it will take, and anything they will need so that they can complete the task.

The things people might need could be simple, practical things, like login details for your website. Or they might be more complicated, for example someone might need some training to use a new system. Or they might need someone else to make a decision, or to give them some information, before they can complete their task. These project needs are sometimes called ‘dependencies’.

To help you with this step, we’ve developed a planning template which sets out all the key tasks in the publishing process.

• Get the 360Giving Publishing project plan template
• Get the 360Giving publishing checklist

Make it easier for yourself

We’ve supported hundreds of funders through the publishing process. This is our advice to help things go as smoothly as possible.

Look at what you already do with your data

Do you share a list of grants or organisations you have funded on your website? Do you produce an annual grant impact report? If you can, link the 360Giving data publishing process with existing processes that involve gathering or sharing information about your grants. That way you can avoid doing the same work twice, and it will be easier to fit in with people’s workloads. 

Set aside blocks of time to work on publishing 360Giving data

If you tackle the publishing process a little bit at a time, it often takes longer overall. Every time you return to a task after doing something else, it takes time to remember what you were working on and to get your focus back. These are called ‘task switching costs’. If you can, block out a day or half a day at a time to work on publishing your grants data.

Avoid delays by keeping people informed

If you need someone else in your organisation to do something as part of the publishing process (for example, adding a new page on your website, or signing off a decision) give them as much notice as possible. Let them know what they will need to do and when they will need to do it. If your timeline changes, tell them. 

Keep a note of what you have done

Record the process you follow and keep track of the progress you have made. This is really useful when you publish your grants data for the first time, and when you republish your data in the future. Find out more in the next step.