Publisher Guidance
Step 3. Decide where to host your data
Your data file must be stored online somewhere so that we can fetch the data from the file each night and add it to our tools like GrantNav. The location of the file needs to stay the same, as we will check your file daily for new or updated grants.
For most publishers, this means uploading your spreadsheet file to your organisation’s website. You might add a link to the file to a public page where everyone can find it. Or you might upload the file to the ‘back end’ of the website, and only share the link with us.
If there’s no way for you to use your organisation’s website, or you don’t have a website, there are some alternative options.
Host your 360Giving data on your website
If possible, the best place to host your data file (or files, if you have more than one) is on your organisation’s own website. This gives you full control over your data, and makes it clear to everyone that it is owned and maintained by you. It’s also a chance to show your commitment to transparent and strategic grantmaking.
We recommend creating a public page on your website where you can add a link to download your file, along with your open licence statement.
Alternatively, you could link to your data file from an existing page which shares information about the grants you have awarded, your annual report, or other information about your work.
If you aren’t the person who looks after your organisation’s website, speak with them about what they suggest and whether they can help you.
Add our data publisher badge
We’ve designed a badge which you can add to your website to show that you have published your grants data using the 360Giving Data Standard. Get your badge here.
Example webpages hosting 360Giving data
Here are some examples of what other 360Giving publishers have done.
Linking 360Giving data from an existing webpage:
- Community Foundation for Surrey
- Somerset Community Foundation
- John Lyon’s Charity
- Virgin Money Foundation
Linking 360Giving data from a dedicated open data page:
- BBC Children in Need
- City Bridge Foundation
- The National Lottery Heritage Fund
- Julia Rausing Trust
- The Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art
Data hosting for public sector organisations
Some local authorities have dedicated open data portals for hosting information published by the council or about the local area, which are ideal places to host 360Giving data.
Public sector organisations may also be able to use the central data.gov.uk website to host their 360Giving data.
Examples of public sector data hosting pages:
Registering your website as an authorised domain
When you registered as a publisher with our Helpdesk, we asked you for your organisation’s website address, also known as your web ‘domain’.
This domain is now ‘authorised’ or approved to host your 360Giving data. This means that when you reach the end of the publishing process, it will be quicker and easier to share your data with us. (The final step!)
However, if the link to your file contains a website domain which is different to the one that you registered with us, you will need to let us know by emailing support@threesixtygiving.org.
Host your 360Giving data in cloud storage
If you don’t have a website, or can’t add your data file to your website, you can use third-party cloud storage services such as Google Drive, Dropbox, or SharePoint to host your data file.
Because these domains have multiple users, we’ll need to confirm that the file belongs to you before you can finally publish your data – email us at support@threesixtygiving.org when the link to your file is ready to share.
Find out more:
See our step-by-step guidance for using cloud storage to host your data via Google Drive, Dropbox, or SharePoint.
Adding links to multiple files
If you have split your grants data into different files, you will need to publish each file individually.
Whether your grants data is in a single file or multiple files, once published and included in GrantNav, all the data will appear together under your organisation’s name.
Maintain a live link to your data file
For your 360Giving data to appear in GrantNav, you need to keep the name and location of your file (or files) the same, and make sure it can always be accessed online. The reason for this is that our tools use the link to fetch data from your published file each day. If we can’t reach your file, we can’t display your data!
If you are publishing your files on your website, we recommend that you upload your file into the same folder within your website content management system and use a consistent name for your file. The name of the file should not change, even if you update the contents.
Some websites automatically add files to a new folder each time they are uploaded, which makes it difficult to maintain a fixed position for the file.
For example, your file link may look like this:
https://www.examplefoundation.org.uk/uploads/2024/01/Example_Foundation_360Giving_data_final_2024-01-01.xlsx
However, it is better to save your file in a folder with a generic name, so that the link looks like this:
https://www.examplefoundation.org.uk/uploads/Example_Foundation_360Giving_data.xlsx
You may need help from the person who looks after your website to make sure that your data is always available at the same link.
If you are hosting your data file using cloud storage it is usually more straightforward to keep the location of your file the same.
Final checks
Once your file is stored somewhere online, test that the link works and that the file can be downloaded easily, without the need for someone to create an account or enter a password.
Use the link to check your data file one more time using the 360Giving Data Quality Checker.