Out today: We have produced a report with @360Giving on below the radar organisations — grassroot organisations, networks and projects where there is no or little regulatory information available.

Full report via @LocalTrust: http://bit.ly/33qdq0F 
Summary thread below /1

Collecting data on below the radar organisations has always been difficult. In 2001 the New Economics Foundations produced an estimate of 600,000 for those orgs in the UK, while TSRC more recently considered a figure between 200,000 and 300,000. /2

Based on 127,000 grants in the @360Giving dataset, we were able to identify almost 13,000 organisations that were likely to be below the radar. Further analysis revealed some interesting trends on who funds them, what kind of funds they receive and for what purposes /3

Although the National Lottery has by far funded the biggest number of unregistered grassroots organisations (7,5000), in terms of proportion of grants going to those organisations, other funders like the National Churches Trust are higher up the list. /4

Grants were categorised into types of activities of organisations, based on keyword searching of grant titles, descriptions and recipient names. Arts and culture, education and training, and green spaces were the top three funded activities of below-the-radar organisations. /5

Funders are less likely to fund core costs of below the radar organisations compared to registered charities. This reflects the nature of below the radar orgs: they are unlikely to have large core costs that registered organisations incur, such as property, HR and others. /6