The best data resources for charities

A key part of digital transformation for charities is become more data driven – using data as an integral piece of every decision-making process rather than relying on accepted wisdom or anecdotal evidence or gut feel.

But collecting data and gaining insights from it is a complex matter – the fact that data scientists exist and are highly sought after attests to this simple truth. The good news, however, is that there are plenty of data resources available to your charity to provide help and advice when it comes to harnessing the power of data. Here are some of the best.

DataKind 

DataKindUK offers help and expertise from data scientists to help charities make the most of data.

How can it help your charity? One of DataKind’s key initiatives is DataCorps, which helps charities use data science to transform their work through long-term engagements.

In the shorter term, DataKind also offers weekend-long, marathon-style events that help organisations do initial data analysis, exploration, and prototyping.

For charities that are just getting started with data, DataKind offers networking and quick consultation to help them begin their data science transformation.

Data Orchard

DataOrchard works primarily in the not for profit and public sectors, offering specialist skills in research, statistics, and data.

How can it help your charity? Data Orchard can gather, explore, and analyse data for your charity, as well as helping to build your charity’s data skills and capabilities. It advises on data strategy, management, protection, analysis, and communication, and enables charities to improve data for decision making, and measure their impact.

NCVO

NCVO champions the voluntary sector by connecting, representing and supporting voluntary organisations.

How can it help your charity? As part of the NCVO’s ’Knowhow non-profit’ knowledge bank, charities can access a number of resources, tools, guides and case studies around data use. Two good starting points are a section about how to become a data-driven charity and a feature about how to make sense of the data your charity collects.

Office of National Statistics

The ONS is the UK’s largest independent producer of national statistics and it supplies a large variety of datasets, ranging from business, economy, and employment to population and societal data.

How can it help your charity? The ONS provides access to detailed data for Accredited Researchers working on projects which serve the public good. It can also put your questions to the public in surveys of about 1,100 people per month, and provide advice, guidance, and support on the production and analysis of data.

Open Data Institute 

The ODI exists to work with organisations including charities to help them make data work for them.

How can it help your charity? One of the ODI’s key activities is helping improve the data practices of organisations so that they can build and manage adequate data infrastructure and data use. To do this the ODI offers consultancy service and training. It also provides a number of free tools and courses to help charities use and manage data and make better data-driven decisions.

The Data Maturity Framework  

The Data Maturity Framework has been developed specifically for the not-for-profit sector. It presents the five stages of progress in data maturity for organisations: Unaware, Emerging, Learning, Developing, and Mastering across each of the seven key themes: Data, Tools, Leadership, Skills, Culture, Uses, and Analysis.

How can it help your charity? Used as a benchmarking tool, the Framework will help you to understand how far along the road to full data maturity your charity has travelled, and what more you need to do to in order to get the maximum benefit from your data initiatives.

UK Data Service

The UK Data Service claims to be the UK’s largest collection of social, economic and population data resources, including UK census data and government funded surveys.

How can it help your charity? You can browse over 6,000 digital data collections covering an extensive range of key economic and social data, both quantitative and qualitative, and spanning many disciplines and themes.

Wood for Trees

This is a consultancy service that aims to help charities review their current systems and data structures, and to introduce analytics to help gain better insight from the data available to them.

How can it help your charity? Wood for Trees can perform a Foundation Audit that provides the foundational building blocks for your charity’s data strategy. It also provides contextualised data insights about your fundraising program for action and optimisation, and comprehensive supporter profiles to help you understand your audience and discover new gaps and opportunities.

Finally, it can offer a data strategy roadmap to help you determine how to get the best use out of your data assets.