The COVID-19 pandemic and its resulting effects on the UK economy are already having huge negative impacts on our society. Everything from our financial resilience to physical and mental wellbeing is under threat; and people who are already vulnerable will be most impacted.
In order to respond properly, both now and in the longer term, we need to understand what the changes mean. In particular, we need to better understand:
These are fundamental questions that many different organisations are trying to answer. But the information we need to do this is held by different people, in different places and can’t be easily joined up. This makes it hard to act on.
This lack of cohesion is a serious issue. It leads to a lack of knowledge. And if we don't know enough about the problems we're trying to solve, or how we're trying to solve them, it will be difficult for charities to adequately serve the needs of our society.
The starting point is good quality data. There are various data collection efforts by government, funders and charities across the UK, but the work is not coordinated and the data is rarely standardised.
We propose forming a data collective: a conscious, coordinated effort by a group of organisations with expertise in gathering and using data in the charity sector. We want to make sure that people in charities, on the front line and in leadership positions have access to the information they need, in a timely fashion, in the easiest possible format to understand, with the clearest possible analysis of what it means for them.
A group of 15 organisations has come together to explore ideas on how we can better share our skills and insights with others. Our collective purpose is to improve visibility and understanding of the needs of people and communities. This is particularly needed during the current crisis and supporting recovery plans; but it’s work we also want to do in the longer-term.
We are driven by a common set of principles that support our efforts to work together. We are:
We are inviting organisations that are collecting and analysing good quality data to join the data collective. We would ask them to make their data publicly available and to explore how they can combine their efforts with others.
By being part of the data collective, organisations can get pro bono advice on how to collect and curate data so it can be used and shared ethically; and other members of the collective will be able to signpost to their work, knowing that there is a dedicated contact point that can answer questions on how to use the data they hold. We also want to provide opportunities to share ideas and learn from one another.
We have identified seven areas of work we want to collaborate on during the current crisis:
Work that’s needed now:
Work that’s needed longer term:
There are already several organisations leading clusters of work and we hope that more clusters will form through this collective. Examples include:
We are not proposing to develop a single approach to collecting and sharing data across the sector - that isn’t feasible and ignores the reasons why we need different data to do different things. Instead, we are inviting organisations that are leading data initiatives to share their work publicly and to practically explore how they can support others to use it, contribute to it and collaborate on doing that.
If you’re leading a data initiative and would like to find out more, please get in touch. We know there are many organisations and efforts out there and we want to explore how we can work together and which communication channels and tools are needed to help us do that.
This article has been prepared in collaboration with:
With thanks to David Ainsworth, Dan Barrett, Jo Kerr, Tris Lumley and Richard Pope for their articles and blogs that have inspired this idea.
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