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Back in June 2020, we worked with Rachel Rank and a collective of 15 organisations to propose the formation of a ‘data collective’: a conscious, coordinated effort by a group of organisations with expertise in gathering and using data in the charity sector.

In October 2020, we put out a call for a partner to turn the idea into a reality: to lead and shape the collective over a four-month period. In November, DataKind UK was selected to lead a cross-organisational consortium of partners in rolling out the project’s pilot phase.

Since then, Catalyst has helped support the Data Collective to develop a stand-alone website, the delivery of nine online events, 12 blogs, 11 mailings and a comprehensive user research report.

The collective have also compiled and shared open resource documents: Social Sector Data Initiatives and a crowd-sourced spreadsheet of Community resources. Other assets include an open list of newsletters, podcasts and events - and a jobs list.

For more information, see Giselle Cory (DataKind UK)’s blog on initial learnings; Tom French (Data Collective user researcher)’s key weeknotes update - and the Data Collective blog.

Several additional data insight projects also emerged from the Data Collective. These were:

  1. Community Lens: An open source tool which can help match open datasets to the (English) postcodes of areas charities work in to inform service delivery, and help funders/ strategic partners understand their communities better. Take a look at the introductory blog, and access the Community Lens resource.
  2. Data Insights: This project involved understanding what helps organisations navigate the cultural barriers to data transformation through developing five case-studies (and a final report) with ‘data success stories’ that had overcome barriers to data transformation. **Take a look at the report: Overcoming Cultural Barriers to Data Transformation
  3. Data about the sector: This project produced a report that explored what steps could be taken in order to provide better data about the civil society sector across four areas: leadership, engagement, strategy and funding. Take a look at the report: Data about the sector
  4. Local Needs Databank: An open set of needs and COVID-19 data, specifically about those in financial hardship in the UK. Take a look at the introductory blog and access the Local Needs Databank

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