360Giving

"360Giving is probably one of the most important pieces of new charity sector infrastructure of any kind to emerge in the UK in the last fifty years. It has built incredibly useful tools for people on both sides of the funding table." Tom Steinberg, author of Modern Grantmaking

In 1999, at the inception of The Indigo Trust, Fran Perrin, its Settlor, was frustrated by the lack of a simple, central resource which listed donors and the charities they were granting to. To address this, together with tech entrepreneurs, champions within foundations and fellow data experts, 360Giving was created and formally registered as a charity in 2015.

The platform made it possible to access the information Fran thought was so clearly lacking. To date, the charity has supported 275 funders to publish grants data worth £265 billion and has just published its one millionth grant. Publishers range from major foundations, such as The Wellcome Trust and The National Lottery Community Fund, to central and local governments, local community foundations and smaller family trusts. Currently, 12 of the Sainsbury Family Charitable Trusts are publishing grants information, and the most recent data shows a combined value of £594 million.

360Giving has won several awards since inception, including the Open Data Institute Women in Data Award in 2016 for women making waves in the world of open data, and the OpenUK Award for Data in 2023.

Aside from the practical use, being a 360Giving publisher today also acts as a kitemark for grantees – funders who publish are recognised as more transparent, accountable, and open to collaboration and learning.

Since 2020, the charity has been led by Tania Cohen and 360Giving is now firmly established in the movement to improve grantmaking in the UK. It remains ambitious in making more quality data available for grantmakers and grantseekers alike. In the summer of 2024, 360Giving will be launching UK Grantmaking - a collaborative project that will provide a new centralised hub, bringing together data and insights from a range of reliable sources across the landscape of grantmaking in the UK.