These tools and resources can help you to learn about data and use it for your work – from dataviz to ethics guides
This resource library is a collaboratively built list of resources that can help people in grantmaking – or people interested in funding – to use and benefit from data.
Browse resources using the search-bar and categories below.
A directory of small, free tools and web apps for creators of data analysis, data viz, maps, graphic design and more.
A handy collection of interesting free tools to present and visualise data.
Data analysts, funders, researchers, charities.
Cosmograph is a network graph visualization tool that allows you to create network graphs that display relations between elements using simple links.
It works in browser and there is no signup required.
Data analysts, funders, researchers.
A data visualisation tool with an art focus, providing multiple layouts ready to use and then export the visualisation as an image.
A chart generator with an art focus.
Data analysts, funders, researchers.
The Office for National Statistics' Hierarchical Representation of UK Statistical Geographies PDF shows all UK statistical geographies within their geography groups and geographical areas, as of August 2022.
The diagram shows the statistical geographies of the UK in a hierarchical way, divided into different geography types or groups, using multiple external datasets.
Data analysts, place-based funders, researchers.
A YouTube video showing a Datawrapper demo from Superhighways 'Hands on: Datawrapper' training session.
A short demo video that shows you how to make charts using DataWrapper.
Anyone wanting to learn how create data visualisations.
An exhaustive reference to problems seen in real-world data along with suggestions on how to resolve them.
Useful to get an idea of what bad data looks like.
Data analysts, funders, researchers.
A downloadable guide and poster from the Financial Times Visual Journalism team to assist you to select the optimal symbology for data visualisations.
It is downloadable and includes related reading.
Data analysts, funders, researchers.
A tool to convert between different geographical data formats or quickly browse or filter your geo-data.
Files can be zip folders.
Data analysts, funders, researchers.
A guide which links to places where you can find basic GIS data resources including boundary shapefiles, elevation, gridded population and historical boundaries.
List is regularly updated.
Data analysts, funders, researchers.
A simple tool that helps you compare the size of geographical shapes by moving them from one place to another.
Also works outside of the UK.
Data analysts, funders, researchers.
Quick access to Open Street Map data based on your searches.
Also works outside of the UK.
Data analysts, funders, researchers.
A tool to help you decide on the best visual for your data. It links to the code to build it and lists common caveats you should avoid.
Includes a helpful flow chart to show you the options for your data.
Data analysts, funders, researchers.
Colour blind friendly colour chooser.
Can also ensure colours are printer friendly and photocopy safe.
Data analysts, funders, researchers.
A collaborative data visualisation tool that allows teams to work on analysing and presenting data at the same time.
You can leave comments and suggest edits on data visualisations, much like Google Docs.
Data analysts, funders, researchers.
A free calculator to work out what colours to choose for your design project.
Receive a report of the hex, RGB, and CMYK colour values.
Data analysts, funders, researchers.
A checklist of 24 guidelines on how graphs should be formatted to best show the story in your data. The 24 guidelines are broken down into 5 sections: Text, Arrangement, Color, Lines, and Overall.
Also gives resources to help improve your skills.
Data analysts, funders, researchers.
Tabula is a tool for liberating data tables locked inside PDF files.
Open source tool.
Charities, funders, public, data analysts.
Convert your Excel data into one of several web-friendly formats, including HTML, JSON and XML.
Simple to use.
Data analysts, funders, researchers.
A checklist for business and technical leaders who want their brand to be ‘trusted with data’. The goal is to make building trust with data part of both strategic planning and everyday data operations.
Each section of the checklist includes tools and resources, and a spreadsheet to record your findings.
Businesses, funders.
The sister tool of Community Lens - a tool to match your data against existing UK ward or local authority boundaries and create an easy-to-read chlorpleth map.
Open source project. You can choose to convert postcodes to boroughs or wards on a map.
Data analysts, funders.
A mapping tool to overlay your data with open datasets. Paste your postcode data and choose an open dataset.
Open source project.
Data analysts, funders.
A tool to create custom maps with places points and shapes over Google Maps. You can also import data directly from Excel spreadsheets nto maps.
Maps can be created and together and shared like Google Docs. They are compatible with Google Drive.
Funders, charities, public.
An easy-to-use mapping tool to create Google Maps with data.
You can embed maps into websites.
Funders, charities, data analysts.
A web platform where you can upload, organise, and share content to virtual boards called padlets.
Has a map option where you can add content to points on a map. Accepts multiple diferent file types.
Funders, charities.
A free mapping tool that allows you to create a thematic map of London without any specialist GIS skills or software - all you need is Microsoft Excel. Templates are available for London’s Boroughs and Wards. Full instructions are contained within the spreadsheets.
You can download a map at London or borough level and add your own data.
Data analysts, funders.
Piktochart is a tool to tell visual stories with infographics, reports, presentations, and prints.
You can create graphs and charts as well as social media graphics, reports and presentations and chloropleth maps.
Charities, funders, public, data analysts.
This site presents data on UK postcodes and geographical areas, based on open data released by the Office for National Statistics and Ordnance Survey. It is intended to help the process of enhancing existing data sets. Fir example, by allowing someone to lookup which local authority a postcode is in.
It allows users to look up the geodata for UK places and provides a Postcode lookup tool for matching postcodes to UK geocodes.
Funders, charities, researchers, data analysts.
The Data Quality Dashboard helps funders understand the key features that make data useful. You can use the Dashboard to assess individual funders’ data quality, as well as the data quality of the 360Giving dataset as a whole. Funders can use it to compare their data with others to identify opportunities for it to be improved.
To assess and compare the quality of funders' data.
Funders, membership organisations, infrastructure bodies.
Data.org's resource library contains lots of practical information to help social impact organisations use data science to help them acheive their aims. It includes resources and guides on data visualisation, governance and data ethics.
Easy to search for resources which has the function to filter by skill level.
Charities, funders, public.
A digital research hub that brings together the latest data on small charities in England and Wales. The data is updated yearly and drawn from a wide range of sources, including from government, regulators, charity sector membership bodies, independent funders, academics and researchers.
You can search for charities by place, cause or key themes such as Covid-19. Also includes further reading and useful resources from the sector on each page.
Charities, funders.
A free training course from GitHub's Learning Lab teaching you how to use GitHub.
Quick course - only one hour. Key terms are helpfully defined by clicking on the emoji next to the word.
Data analysts, researchers.
A free training course to learn the fundamentals of using Python for data analysis and develop skills in two of Python’s core libraries, Pandas and Seaborn.
Good introductory course, which offers opportunities to discuss learning with others on the course
Anyone interested in data analytics and learning a programming language.
A free data visualisation platform provided by Google, which allows you to overlay your own data or use data from 800+ open datasets to create engaging visualisations. There is also a reporting tool to create interactive reports and dashboards with your data.
You can use visualisation templates created by others or create your own visualisation from scratch.
Data analysts, researchers, funders, charities.
RAW Graphs is an open source data visualisation framework built with the goal of making the visual representation of complex data easy for everyone.
Wide range of visual models to choose from.
Data analysts, researchers, funders, charities.
Datawrapper lets you visualise data as charts, maps or tables.
Free.
Data analysts, researchers, funders, charities.
The index of multiple deprivation for Wales, classifying the relative deprivation of small areas.
Nationally recognised statistics, lots of data.
Government, charities, Funders, think tanks.
The index of multiple deprivation for Scotland, classifying the relative deprivation of small areas.
Nationally recognised statistics, lots of data.
Government, charities, Funders, think tanks.
The index of multiple deprivation for Northern Ireland, classifying the relative deprivation of small areas.
Nationally recognised statistics, lots of data. The official measure of deprivation in Northern Ireland.
Government, charities, funders, think tanks.
A service provided by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) which gives free access to the most detailed and up-to-date UK labour market statistics from official sources.
Funders, researchers, data analysts, charities.
A simple tool to convert between colour formats.
Free and easy to use.
Anyone making visualisations - data analysts, researchers, funders.
A free, open source tool to clean and transform 'messy' data.
Data scientists, analysts, researchers.
A short article with seven tips on how to improve your data quality.
Also includes some useful open source data resources.
Funders, charities.
A site containing easily downloadable TopoJSON files of data for UK boundaries, ideal for creating choropleth maps of UK areas.
GeoJSON files are all available in the Github repository. Free, open data from official sources.
Data analysts, researchers.
Short guidance on how to release data or statistics in spreadsheets.
Clear step-by-step instructions on how to release data and statistics.
Data analysts, researchers.
Foundation Giving Trends reports present annual research and analysis on trends in the giving, spending, income and assets of the largest philanthropically-funded foundations in the UK. 2021's report focuses on the 2019/2020 accounts and shows foundations’ financial position going into the Covid pandemic and their immediate responses to the emergency.
A key report to get an overall understanding of the of the funding landscape and foundations' financial trends annually.
Funders, foundations, researchers.
The UK Civil Society Almanac is an NCVO publication and an essential source of insight on the voluntary sector. It draws on a range of sources, and provides a snapshot of what voluntary organisations do, their income and spending, workforce, volunteering and impact.
To get an overview of the trends in the voluntary sector.
Funders, charities, researchers, government.
Millennial Cities is an interactive web mapping site that provides access to important maps, data, and web mapping applications related to demographics, climate change, social justice, the environment, and more.
The purpose of including these free interactive tools on the website is to provide access to and promote the use of urban planning geospatial resources.
Public, charities, funders researchers.
A Flickr page created by Oliver Carrington, showcasing hundreds of data visualisations from the charity and grantmaking sectors. This page aims to inspire and encourage others to use more data visualisations in their work. Each visualisation has a link in the description to find out more, and so far the account has had 30,000 views.
Not many charities and grantmakers create or publish data visualisations, which is a great way to present data and share learning.
Anyone wanting inspiration for creating data visualisations.
This research by 360Giving, uses data published by funders about the grants they made during the Coronavirus pandemic to understand how they and wider civil society responded during that time.
To better understand Covid-19 relief and recovery grants through interactive and visual data.
Funders, fundraisers, charities, researchers, think tanks, data analysts.
Enables people to use map-based querying to access open datasets.
It allows you to select an area and view open data about it.
Anyone wanting to understand a particular area, researchers, funders, charities, data analysts.
DataBasic is a suite of easy-to-use web tools for beginners that introduce concepts of working with data. These simple tools make it easy to work with data in fun ways, so you can learn how to find great stories to tell.
It is very user friendly.
Beginners who want to do basic analysis.
A list of visualisation tools cultivated by University of Edinburgh to help users choose the most appropriate visualisation tool for their needs.
It provides a listing of different visualisation tools the person may not know about.
Funders, charities, researchers, data analysts.
This canvas is a tool to help you create a data strategy for your organisation. This was created in our Data Champions Programme.
Funders, charities.
Automate with the Boring Stuff is a free e-book which teaches the basics of Python for total beginners. It includes step-by-step instructions to walk you through each program and practice projects at the end of each chapter to challenge you to improve those programs.
Free to read.
Anyone looking to learn the basics of coding/Python for analysing data.
Free online data visualisation platform.
Free, user friendly, more options than Excel.
Anyone wanting to create interesting diagrams and charts.
The Local Authority Health Profiles provide an overview of health for each local authority in England. They pull together existing information in one place and contain data on a range of indicators for local populations, highlighting issues that can affect health in each locality. The profiles are intended as ‘conversation starters’ to help local government and health services make plans to improve the health of their local population and reduce health inequalities.
For understanding health profiles in a local authority.
Health charities, funders, researchers, data analysts.
Interactive report on poverty and the pandemic in London. Available in PDF format and online.
Collated datasets, topline analysis from a reliable source.
Funders, charities, researchers.
Our free search-engine for grants data. Explore and download data about where funding goes and how much is given across billions of pounds of grants, for causes and locations across the UK.
Open data from over 200 funders that anyone can view, use and download for free.
Funders, fundraisers, charities, researchers, think tanks, data analysts.
The London Datastore is a free and open data-sharing portal where anyone can access data relating to the capital. Whether you’re a citizen, business owner, researcher or developer, the site provides over 700 datasets to help you understand the city and develop solutions to London’s problems.
Public, researchers, developers, data analysts, funders.
Data visualisation tool to create relationship/network maps.
Data analysts, researchers, funders, charities - anyone wanting to present data.
A toolkit providing data visualisation dashboards and analytical models on healthcare data.
Health charities, funders, researchers, data analysts.
Full 2011 Census data for England and Wales.
Funders, researchers, think tanks.
Local area statistics and comparisons of health data.
Health charities, funders.
Government statistics, including demographic data, employment rates and GDP across the UK.
It is the source of a lot of aggregated or interpreted statistics. Recognised national statistical institute.
Public, funders, community foundations, charities.
Comparing different deprivations statistics across different areas in England.
Nationally recognised statistics.
Government, charities, funders, think tanks.
The Charity Commission regulates all charities in England and Wales and maintains up-to-date details about them. The 'Find a charity' function allows you to search the register of charities and find information on what a charity does, its trustees and finances.
Register of key charity Information.
Public, charities, funders, researchers, data analysts.
Fact checking site.
It's a good guide to poverty figures and what they all mean.
Anyone who wants to check a fact!
A heatmap app to explore indices of multiple deprivation data across the UK.
Open access, no set-up, does breakdown of IMD domains as well.
Public, charities, funders.
Understanding the differences between different towns/cities across Scotland.
High quality statistical data, easy to use.
Academics, funders, charities, policy makers.
Government data on companies, including their financial information, director details and previous business names.
Core resource, legal requirement for company details to be listed here.
Businesses, charities, data analysts, funders, public.
Gerd Leonhard is futurist, humanist, speaker and author, specialising in the debate between humanity and technology. Website includes blogs, videos, resources. He also gives talks on a range of topics.
Lots of different resources.
Anyone interested in data.
Independent research, networking and information exchange across rural England.
Community foundations, charities.
A platform to understand and analyse spatial data using maps.
Very attractive and intuitive to use.
Data analysts, researchers, funders.
UK's largest collection of economic, social and population datasets which can be browsed by data type, eg census data or longitudinal studies, and theme, eg Covid-19 or poverty.
Deep dives into particular issues, especially over time.
Commmunity foundations, funders, researchers.
An open source Geographical Information System (GIS), giving you the latest data and analysis of communities and services, with up-to-date open data matched to the areas you work in. Produced by OCSI and available across England and Wales.
User interface is easy to learn, non-technical, visually strong.
Funders, community foundations, data analysts, public sector organisations.
Data published by central government, local authorities and public bodies.
Easy to use. More data than you might think.
Public, big charities, funders, researchers, data analysts.
It's got lots of data training curriculum aimed at data beginners.
Curriculum is very accessible.
Civil society organisations - there's a global network of trainers behind it.
Guidelines and tools to collect and use data responsibly.
Up to date and full of good examples.
Data analysts, researchers.
A checklist of eight tech risk zones to help identify areas of risk and social harm.
Quick to make ethical decisions.
Data analysts, researchers.
Tools and resources for measuring and presenting impact to help charities to understand 'what works'.
Funders, charities.
An interactive map showing the percentage of children living in poverty.
Very simple.
Community foundations, funders, researchers, data analysts, charities.
A database, application programming interface (API) and web app which provides public information on the activities, locations and finances of the 168,000 charities registered in England and Wales. Includes data from 360Giving.
Easy to use. Open source.
Community foundations, funders, researchers, data analysts, charities.
A dashboard of information for local authorities in England and Wales measuring wellbeing.
Wellbeing information.
Community foundations, funders, researchers, data analysts.
A collection of interactive maps illustrating geographical distributions of disease risk and environmental agents at a local neighbourhood level.
Nice graphics.
Community foundations, funders, researchers, data analysts.
A platform designed to visualise data geographically, you can import data and convert it into interactive maps, graphs and charts to compare against the national picture. Some datasets can be accessed for free.
Paid-for platform but some good free bits.
Funders, charities, researchers.
A tool to access, compare and analyse local government data. This report provides an overview of financial hardship and economic vulnerability in authority areas, but there are multiple themed reports to choose from.
Helpful to see down to local authority level. Choose to view either ready-made reports on a range of topics or explore all the data in LG Inform to find indicators which are of interest to you.
Funders, charities, researchers.
Over 200 datasets on MHCLG’s priorities including: deprivation, housing, local government finance, planning and other themes.
Can be quicker than trawling through ONS.
Funders, charities, researchers.
Find That Charity is a search engine for UK non profit organisations. It brings together data from a number of sources to include a record for a large number of non profit organisations in the UK, including every registered charity. You can search for organisations by name, or filter to find organisations that work in a specific area. You can also use FindThatCharity data to compare against your own datasets and for data cleaning.
Makes data cleaner for 360Giving.
Funders, charities, researchers, data analysts.
A tool for data cleaning with algorithms that help to save time and automise data preparation.
Easy to use.
Data analysts.
A Royal Mail search tool to find UK addresses and postcodes.
Regularly updated database.
Funders, charities, researchers, data analysts.
For teams working together for understanding how to create a narrative from data that will work for particular audiences.
Reminds you about the basics for story telling and how to understand what will be compelling to your audience.
Funders, community foundations, charities.
Social Learning Curriculum - basically getting teams to explore how and why they would use data in their work.
It's all modularised and it's easy to find relevant exercises. Plus I helped build it.
Humanitarian agencies like the Red Cross, but it's getting usage by social change/advocacy organisations as well.
Building a Data Culture - it has templates for developing working group meetings, thinking about data audiences and how to do skill scoping.
Has a good approach to building culture by working with teams to 'build their own adventure'
Humanitarian organsiations. (Also I helped put it together!)
A collection of activities to manage projects and research users to help teams work more effectively together.
Creative ways to get ideas
Project managers, HR teams, funders, charities.
A collection of exercises to help practice and encourage the use of data in organisational decision-making. They aim to support in cultivating a culture which uses and understands data.
The interactive exercises are innovative. Methodology is based on research.
Small organisations, funders, charities.
Collection of activities about data culture.
Made by the community (including 360 Giving) for the community
UK data trainers.
Helps charities increase impact, develop skills and improve their sustainability.
Helps with digital leadership, culture, skills, strategy, etc.
Charities.
A tool to review your organisation's data maturity across a number of criteria.
Quick steps to assess data maturity. Gives an indication of which areas are weaker than others, i.e. comms or strategy.
Any civil society organisations.
A local synthesis of wellbeing indicators developed by the Co-op foundation.
Funders, charities, researchers, data analysts.
A free tool for exploring, creating and publicly sharing data visualisations.
Good for stealing other people's work!
Funders, charities, researchers, data analysts.