Part of our Data Journey's research case study series, with Think Social Tech.
July 2025
London Youth is a membership organisation supporting over 600 community-based youth organisations across all 32 boroughs of London. They exist to champion and strengthen the youth sector so that more young people can access the opportunities they need to thrive.
London Youth have long recognised the value of data for helping them understand and support their membership, as well as the broader youth sector.
In 2023, they launched their voluntary community sector data tool, featuring borough level data from 556 London Youth member youth organisations. This interactive map-based tool shows who their members are, their workforce, where they work and the young people they support.
London Youth wanted to build on this tool and use publicly available datasets to provide a comprehensive view of youth work in the capital.
Creating a dashboard of youth work in London
Together with Superhighways, they set out to create a dashboard, using Power BI, mapping youth provision across London.
This information is not captured anywhere else, on a national, London or local level.
They committed to making this publicly available, with the intention of helping funders, commissioners, policy makers, researchers and youth organisations understand the landscape of youth organisations.
The tool will, for the first time, allow them to understand what provision exists and who is delivering it. It is due to launch in October and will enable others to use data about the sector to push for better provision and sustainable funding across London.
Maya Reggev, the Impact and Learning lead at London Youth, shared their key learning from the project so far.
Key learning from creating a sector data dashboard
It needs a range of skills and expertise, from partners with shared values
London Youth approached Superhighways about this idea, having established a relationship over the past five years.
Both were funded by the Cornerstone Fund, with the shared intention to support civil society organisations to thrive and bring about systemic change. Prior to that, Superhighways had delivered training for London Youth’s monitoring, evaluation and learning team.
Their values alignment was a huge part of making the project successful. London Youth brings deep knowledge of youth work and strong relationships with grassroots organisations.
Superhighways brings expertise in data, digital tools and capacity building for the charity sector.
Together, they created something that neither could have done alone:
We would have struggled to do this on our own. Superhighways gave technical expertise of course, but it was helpful in bringing their understanding and ideas. We also had a social youth work researcher supporting us and bringing their perspective.
I think the process was really useful for all of us, knowing we don’t all need to be experts in everything. We each had our strengths. That’s what made it work.
Working with public data requires time, skills, expertise and a huge commitment
London Youth began by working with Superhighways to bring together publicly available data from sources like Companies House and the Charity Commission. The original intention was to automate the entire process of identifying youth work organisations.
In an ideal world, this process could be repeated on a regular basis.
In reality however, only 2000 of the 10,000 records were automated effectively. The dataset included lots of organisations providing services or working with young people, rather than providing youth work specifically.
London Youth needed to manually fact check which organisations should be included in the dashboard. They started by cross checking their members to ensure they were included.
For the remainder, they needed to visit each organisation's website to check whether they delivered youth work (rather than general activities for young people).
The task is time and labour intensive. London Youth were only able to do this with the support of their dedicated volunteers, youth board and young youth workers from their programmes.
User testing is crucial to create clear use cases and value for the sector
User testing has been an important part of development, with positive feedback and interest from partners including the Greater London Authority, Young Manchester and the National Youth Agency.
This uncovered additional needs for data that would help decision makers act on the data available.
For instance, whilst the initial map is based on registered office postcodes, overlaying other datasets (such as poverty, health or employability) would help make the case for funding.
Adding more detail on provision could also help with referrals. However, this will take a great deal of time to integrate the data and build the dashboard functionality and will only be possible with funding.
Mapping organisations rather than services
The user testing uncovered a desire to use the tool for signposting and providing a directory of services.
However, it is not possible to do this because the Charity Commission data provides a postcode for the organisation, rather than delivery. Information on websites is often out of date and services change regularly.
Superhighways were helpful here in working through the technical elements of the data, how robust it was and the minimum viable product they could create based on available data.
This gave London Youth clarity on the limits of the tool, as well as clearer use cases and user needs it can meet.
I think it's very reciprocal. We’re all learning together from each other all the time, which is really useful. It's not like, you know, one of us is doing a favor to someone else. We're working on this together, resolving these problems together, and seeing different aspects of the opportunity together.
Sharing data skills and learning from peers
Whilst London Youth were already skilled and confident in using Power BI, they also found Superhighways' Power BI peer learning group particularly helpful for this project:
It’s huge for confidence. It’s about confirming that you’re doing things the right way, and learning from others’ experience.
As a result, London Youth have gained a strong understanding about how to approach this project in future.
What's next?
The dashboard is due to launch alongside London Youth’s AGM in October 2025. London Youth will also provide commentary about youth provision in London and how this compares to London Youth’s membership.
The team hopes it will support more strategic funding and a deeper understanding of youth provision across London.
They’re also considering how to update and report on the data in future years, recognising that sustainability depends on both resources and sector-wide collaboration.
In the meantime, the case for making youth sector data more visible is clear.
It’s built their internal capacity and confidence with data, as well as their commitment to transparency, sector insight and evidence-based decision-making:
It’s given us a much better understanding of what’s possible and what’s sustainable. We’ve learned what we can do in-house, what we need partners for, and how to ask better questions about the data we hold.
Summary
Do you need help on your data journey? Do you want to create a data dashboard or visualise your reports? If you are a small charity or community organisation in London you can email Superhighways.
You can also:
- Join our Power BI user group
- Read our ‘How to guides for Power Bi’
- Please contact London Youth at info@londonyouth.org if you'd like to learn more about the sector mapping tool