Distribution by country and region

More data and information needed

Looking at how these grants vary across countries, regions and smaller areas is an important component of analysis. However, due to limitations in the data, we were not able to complete this analysis. We came across several barriers:

Because not all funders publish data, there are gaps in geographic coverage of the data. For example, not every Community Foundation publishes data which can produce skews in the data at a local level.

Geographic data does not always indicate where the grant took place. In the 360Giving Data Standard you can include both the location of the recipient organisation and the beneficiaries of the grant. But both of these fields are optional, therefore data is incomplete.

For example, national charities typically have a main or registered office in London, but may deliver services across the country. Without knowing the full extent of where programmes are happening, London will be overrepresented in the data as often only the location of the registered office is recorded by funders.

In addition, funding may have been given to an organisation to redistribute to communities and places outside of their area - so this again could skew the data. With the increase in collaborations between funders and granting to intermediaries to distribute funds during this period, this represents a further distortion in the geographical data available.

While every effort was made to explore options, due to the barriers mentioned above, we have not included a breakdown of the data we have by geographical location, as it can be misleading and not give a fair representation of the data.

360Giving is currently working on a project with grantmakers to improve the quality of published geographic data and ensure it can be used for analysis.