In this stage of our journey looking at how we can support CVSs in London access data about the sector in their borough, we have been testing whether it's possible to put together a guide documenting the process we have taken in recent data dives with Kingston Voluntary Action and Tower Hamlets CVS.
Both CVSs were undertaking State of the Sector reports and we enlisted David Kane's help to access and explore Charity Commission data to provide local charity context alongside responses to a survey sent by the CVSs and completed by a sample of the local VCSE sector (including community groups and social enterprises in addition to registered charities.
- See the KVA Intro to the VCSE Prezi presented at a Meet and Greet event for new local borough councillors in September 2022
- See the Tower Hamlets CVS State of the Sector report launched in October 2023
Creating a step by step guide
We documented the process of extracting and filtering Charity Commission data as used above, and then set about putting together a step by step guide so this process could be repeated in subsequent years, or used in other boroughs or for other grouping of boroughs. This included technical information setting out analysis steps using Excel (the application most likely to be used by non dedicated data roles) along with explanations of Charity Commission data fields defining how the data can be used.
Testing and next steps
We are now testing whether in practice this could be used by local infrastructure organisations and other stakeholders interested in undertaking this exercise. We'll be reporting back on our findings and next steps in the coming months.