Giving Compass' Take:

• This research-informed guide is designed to help funders find and ask the right questions to achieve responsible data sharing. 

• Who are you sharing data with now? How is data being shared? Who should be receiving data? 

• Learn more about the importance of clear and useful data sharing. 

Human rights funders collect a lot of data about their grantees - as well as the people that their grantees help.

Sharing this data openly can help funders be transparent about their activities and highlight the impact of their grantees’ work. However, it can also increase risks to human rights work if data isn’t collected and managed responsibly.

How can funders be transparent about the work they support, while making sure that they aren’t harming grantees or others?

What is a conversation guide?

We believe funders need to start with clear, open conversations with grantees and other funders about how they collect and share data. This guide, based on inputs from more than 40 human rights funders, aims to help funders have these conversations.

It lists common questions that grantees and funders might ask, combined with advice and resources to help answer them.

There is no one-size-fits-all solution to managing grants data responsibly: contexts and grantmaking systems vary dramatically and change constantly. Instead, this guide aims to give practical advice that helps funders strengthen their relationships with grantees - thereby leading to more effective grantmaking.

There are no shortcuts to handling data responsibly, and this guide won’t give you any. Instead, it offers prompts that are designed to help you talk more openly to grantees or other funders about data-related risks and ways of dealing with them. The guide is organized around three elements of the grantmaking lifecycle: data collection, data storage, and data sharing.

  • Collecting: how to start a conversation about what data is being collected from grant applications, monitoring, and reporting.
  • Storing: how to talk to grantees, peer funders or donors that fund other funders about how data will be managed once it’s collected.
  • Sharing: how to discuss sharing information about grants, including publishing data, and any new risks this might create.

Read the full article about responsible data sharing at Ariadne.