Open Data and the Voluntary Sector

NCVO Annual Conference1st March 2011, London

Charities and openness:The story so far

Openness is part of

being a good

charity

… and part of charity regulation

"The register [of charities] … shall be open to public inspection at all reasonable times"

Charities Act 1960

open data community led by (parts of) civil society

Government has released data…

…VCS often included but

not separately identified

Charities are being transparent…

Developers are entering the field

vsCollect the data Secondary data

Closed license – no commercial use

Open license

Access by applying for CD Download as CSV

Web access for humans Web access for humans and computers

No link to other datasets Link to other datasets (eg Big Lottery Fund,

government spending data)

NCVO has released data…

…and set up a data store

But should be owned by sector, not by NCVO

Others are releasing data

Why embrace open data?

Inform campaigning and lobbying

Improve your services

Demonstrate your impact

Do public services better

Challenges of open data

Resources and skills

Costs of time and money, Need skills in organisation: handling data, analysis, publishing on the web

But can be built on a range of free tools.

Large, active developer community willing to help and keen to try new things.

Reputation and Competition

Will you lose out by revealing your secrets and failures?

Or will open data demonstrate honesty and ability to quickly learn from

mistakes?

Compulsory

Will public contracts require that open data is released?

What about grant applications?Will donors demand you release data?

But will demonstrating transparency help you bid?

Some references

• opencharities.org• data.ncvo-vol.org.uk• ckan.net/group/civil-society• www.publishwhatyoufund.org• transparency.number10.gov.uk• slideshare.net/podnosh/ncvo-needs-conference

david.kane@ncvo-vol.org.uk | @kanedr | #opendata