Our model and learning

The starting point

“I want to know what people are doing so I can learn from them, I can collaborate with them and I can get better at my job … Philanthropy can feel a bit like giving in the dark and I just want us to have better information so we can make the best decisions.”

Fran Perrin OBE, Founder of 360Giving

360Giving was founded in 2015 to answer a basic question: who funds who else I’m funding, so I can learn from others, work with them, and see where the gaps are? 

Although many funders had been sharing information about their grants – through reports, lists, databases or maps on their websites – as the data was in different formats, it took a lot of effort to find it and get it into a shape that could be looked at and analysed together. 

So, we developed the 360Giving Data Standard – a single format for funders to publish their grants data. We also help people to access and use the data, and have created tools that make it easy to explore, download, and visualise. 

We’re a small charity with seven members of staff. Our technical partner, Open Data Services, develop our tools and help us to maintain the Data Standard. 

We’ve come a long way since 2015, with hundreds of funders now publishing their data and over 100,000 people using GrantNav, our grants search engine, each year.