What is the Local Needs Databank?

The Local Needs Databank is a free data resource from NPC (New Philanthropy Capital) which we at Data For Action have been working on redeveloping. We’ve just put the newest version live for testing, you can check it out here and we’d welcome feedback. 

At its heart the Local Needs Databank is intended to be a growing resource of data that could be used to identify local needs, so that charities, policymakers and funders can take action. 

It is made up of 3 key elements

• A databank - stored datasets available for use

• A series of dashboards - datasets presented in tables, charts and maps

• An upload facility - a way for datasets to be added to the databank

What have been our guiding principles throughout the development?

• Make it as easy as possible to contribute to the databank

• Make it as easy as possible to get data out of the databank for onward use

• Make it flexible and sustainable

• Make it for the longer term

Make it as easy as possible to contribute to the databank

This is key for us. If we want to understand local needs, we need local insight. There are gaps in our understanding and we believe one way to fill those gaps is by regular contributions from charities. We’ve tried to do this in two ways…

Make our ask as simple as possible. We’ve framed our ask around ‘Observations’ - tell us something you have observed, where you observed this (place), when you observed this (date) and give it a value. This could be numbers of people doing or needing something. This could be numbers of sessions, numbers of grants, requests for support.

Make the process of contributing as easy as possible. We have adopted an ‘interim’ data standard approach in our contribution tool. You can drop in a csv file, and then you tell us which of your columns meet our ask. Maybe your column header says ‘location’ or ‘where’ or ‘office’ or ‘spot’…it doesn’t matter, just tell us this is ‘Place’ and that’s fine. Maybe your column says ‘When’ or you don’t even have a column which tell us when, that’s ok, you can either tell us that is a ‘Date’ column, or just add a date to the whole csv. You can put codes or place names into the ‘Place’ column and we will (try) to process this into what we need. 

We think this is a different approach to strict data standards. 

Make it as easy as possible to get data out of the databank for onward use

We’ve made all the data in the databank available. You can download CSVs out of the tables, you can download images of the charts, you can filter and create your own datasets. We don’t want the data locked in. Later on we’ll also be publishing APIs for another way of accessing data.

Another way we’ve tried to make the databank useful is through our data explorer function. Not every dataset is used in a dashboard, but you can still go and create some charts and tables and maps of this data in the data explorer page. And we’ve added the ability to compare local authority areas on every single observation we have in the databank. As the amount of data grows in the databank we think this has huge potential. 

Make it flexible and sustainable

We’re trying to handle as much processing in an automated way as possible. We process different location types, different values, different date formats on upload, so that datasets should be almost instantly available for use in the data explorer page. 

Make it for the longer term

We’ve tried to make this about building a databank, rather than building some dashboards. Making the data available for access in multiple ways, focusing on contributions and automated processing means we think this can be a long term asset to the sector. We’ll be adding new functionality over the next few months, including the ability to view all data(where applicable) in population weighted methods, handle and display data at more granular locations and allow mixing of observations. 

Have we succeeded in our goals?

I guess only time will tell. And that for us is part of the point. This has to be about trying to build longer term infrastructure for the sector. I do know that we’ve tried some different things, which have definitely made the build harder! But I think we had to try to do things differently. 

What next?

Well, that’s where you come in. Take a look at the Databank. 

Want to contribute? Let us know. Want different data on there? Let us know. Want different ways of viewing data? Let us know! Think this is rubbish? Let us know (gently…)