Launching UK-CAT - UK Charity Classification

<!doctype html> <html lang="en" class="no-js"> <head> <meta charset="utf-8"> <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width,initial-scale=1"> <link rel="canonical" href="https://charityclassification.org.uk/blog/2021/10/06/launching-ukcat/"> <link rel="prev" href="../../../../.."> <link rel="next" href="../../../03/17/a-uk-charity-classification-system/"> <link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="RSS feed" href="../../../../../feed_rss_created.xml"> <link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="RSS feed of updated content" href="../../../../../feed_rss_updated.xml"> <link rel="icon" href="../../../../../assets/images/favicon.png"> <meta name="generator" content="mkdocs-1.6.0, mkdocs-material-9.5.31"> <title>Launching UK-CAT - UK Charity Classification</title> <link rel="stylesheet" href="../../../../../assets/stylesheets/main.3cba04c6.min.css"> <link rel="stylesheet" href="../../../../../assets/stylesheets/palette.06af60db.min.css"> <link rel="preconnect" href="https://fonts.gstatic.com" crossorigin> <link rel="stylesheet" href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Roboto:300,300i,400,400i,700,700i%7CRoboto+Mono:400,400i,700,700i&display=fallback"> <style>:root{--md-text-font:"Roboto";--md-code-font:"Roboto Mono"}</style> <script>__md_scope=new URL("../../../../..",location),__md_hash=e=>[...e].reduce((e,_)=>(e<<5)-e+_.charCodeAt(0),0),__md_get=(e,_=localStorage,t=__md_scope)=>JSON.parse(_.getItem(t.pathname+"."+e)),__md_set=(e,_,t=localStorage,a=__md_scope)=>{try{t.setItem(a.pathname+"."+e,JSON.stringify(_))}catch(e){}}</script> <link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="RSS feed of created content" href="https://charityclassification.org.uk/feed_rss_created.xml"> <link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="RSS feed of updated content" href="https://charityclassification.org.uk/feed_rss_updated.xml"> </head> <body dir="ltr" data-md-color-scheme="default" data-md-color-primary="teal" data-md-color-accent="indigo"> <input class="md-toggle" data-md-toggle="drawer" type="checkbox" id="__drawer" autocomplete="off"> <input class="md-toggle" data-md-toggle="search" type="checkbox" id="__search" autocomplete="off"> <label class="md-overlay" for="__drawer"></label> <div data-md-component="skip"> <a href="#launching-uk-cat" class="md-skip"> Skip to content </a> </div> <div data-md-component="announce"> </div> <header class="md-header" data-md-component="header"> <nav class="md-header__inner md-grid" aria-label="Header"> <a href="../../../../.." title="UK Charity Classification" class="md-header__button md-logo" aria-label="UK Charity Classification" data-md-component="logo"> <svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 24 24"><path d="M17.63 5.84C17.27 5.33 16.67 5 16 5H5a2 2 0 0 0-2 2v10a2 2 0 0 0 2 2h11c.67 0 1.27-.34 1.63-.85L22 12l-4.37-6.16Z"/></svg> </a> <label class="md-header__button md-icon" for="__drawer"> <svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 24 24"><path d="M3 6h18v2H3V6m0 5h18v2H3v-2m0 5h18v2H3v-2Z"/></svg> </label> <div class="md-header__title" data-md-component="header-title"> <div class="md-header__ellipsis"> <div class="md-header__topic"> <span class="md-ellipsis"> UK Charity Classification </span> </div> <div class="md-header__topic" data-md-component="header-topic"> <span class="md-ellipsis"> Launching UK-CAT </span> </div> </div> </div> <form class="md-header__option" data-md-component="palette"> <input class="md-option" data-md-color-media="(prefers-color-scheme: light)" data-md-color-scheme="default" data-md-color-primary="teal" data-md-color-accent="indigo" aria-label="Switch to dark mode" type="radio" name="__palette" id="__palette_0"> <label class="md-header__button md-icon" title="Switch to dark mode" for="__palette_1" hidden> <svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 24 24"><path d="M17 6H7c-3.31 0-6 2.69-6 6s2.69 6 6 6h10c3.31 0 6-2.69 6-6s-2.69-6-6-6zm0 10H7c-2.21 0-4-1.79-4-4s1.79-4 4-4h10c2.21 0 4 1.79 4 4s-1.79 4-4 4zM7 9c-1.66 0-3 1.34-3 3s1.34 3 3 3 3-1.34 3-3-1.34-3-3-3z"/></svg> </label> <input class="md-option" data-md-color-media="(prefers-color-scheme: dark)" data-md-color-scheme="slate" data-md-color-primary="teal" data-md-color-accent="indigo" aria-label="Switch to light mode" type="radio" name="__palette" id="__palette_1"> <label class="md-header__button md-icon" title="Switch to light mode" for="__palette_0" hidden> <svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 24 24"><path d="M17 7H7a5 5 0 0 0-5 5 5 5 0 0 0 5 5h10a5 5 0 0 0 5-5 5 5 0 0 0-5-5m0 8a3 3 0 0 1-3-3 3 3 0 0 1 3-3 3 3 0 0 1 3 3 3 3 0 0 1-3 3Z"/></svg> </label> </form> <script>var media,input,key,value,palette=__md_get("__palette");if(palette&&palette.color){"(prefers-color-scheme)"===palette.color.media&&(media=matchMedia("(prefers-color-scheme: light)"),input=document.querySelector(media.matches?"[data-md-color-media='(prefers-color-scheme: light)']":"[data-md-color-media='(prefers-color-scheme: dark)']"),palette.color.media=input.getAttribute("data-md-color-media"),palette.color.scheme=input.getAttribute("data-md-color-scheme"),palette.color.primary=input.getAttribute("data-md-color-primary"),palette.color.accent=input.getAttribute("data-md-color-accent"));for([key,value]of Object.entries(palette.color))document.body.setAttribute("data-md-color-"+key,value)}</script> <div class="md-header__source"> <a href="https://github.com/charity-classification/ukcat" title="Go to repository" class="md-source" data-md-component="source"> <div class="md-source__icon md-icon"> <svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 448 512"><path d="M439.55 236.05 244 40.45a28.87 28.87 0 0 0-40.81 0l-40.66 40.63 51.52 51.52c27.06-9.14 52.68 16.77 43.39 43.68l49.66 49.66c34.23-11.8 61.18 31 35.47 56.69-26.49 26.49-70.21-2.87-56-37.34L240.22 199v121.85c25.3 12.54 22.26 41.85 9.08 55a34.34 34.34 0 0 1-48.55 0c-17.57-17.6-11.07-46.91 11.25-56v-123c-20.8-8.51-24.6-30.74-18.64-45L142.57 101 8.45 235.14a28.86 28.86 0 0 0 0 40.81l195.61 195.6a28.86 28.86 0 0 0 40.8 0l194.69-194.69a28.86 28.86 0 0 0 0-40.81z"/></svg> </div> <div class="md-source__repository"> GitHub </div> </a> </div> </nav> </header> <div class="md-container" data-md-component="container"> <nav class="md-tabs" aria-label="Tabs" data-md-component="tabs"> <div class="md-grid"> <ul class="md-tabs__list"> <li class="md-tabs__item"> <a href="../../../../.." class="md-tabs__link"> Classifying UK Charities </a> </li> <li class="md-tabs__item md-tabs__item--active"> <a href="./" class="md-tabs__link"> Blog </a> </li> <li class="md-tabs__item"> <a href="../../../../../method/introduction/" class="md-tabs__link"> Method </a> </li> <li class="md-tabs__item"> <a href="../../../../../data/outputs/" class="md-tabs__link"> Data </a> </li> <li class="md-tabs__item"> <a href="../../../../../other-work/" class="md-tabs__link"> Other resources </a> </li> <li class="md-tabs__item"> <a href="../../../../../contact/" class="md-tabs__link"> Contact us </a> </li> </ul> </div> </nav> <main class="md-main" data-md-component="main"> <div class="md-main__inner md-grid"> <div class="md-sidebar md-sidebar--primary" data-md-component="sidebar" data-md-type="navigation" > <div class="md-sidebar__scrollwrap"> <div class="md-sidebar__inner"> <nav class="md-nav md-nav--primary md-nav--lifted" aria-label="Navigation" data-md-level="0"> <label class="md-nav__title" for="__drawer"> <a href="../../../../.." title="UK Charity Classification" class="md-nav__button md-logo" aria-label="UK Charity Classification" data-md-component="logo"> <svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 24 24"><path d="M17.63 5.84C17.27 5.33 16.67 5 16 5H5a2 2 0 0 0-2 2v10a2 2 0 0 0 2 2h11c.67 0 1.27-.34 1.63-.85L22 12l-4.37-6.16Z"/></svg> </a> UK Charity Classification </label> <div class="md-nav__source"> <a href="https://github.com/charity-classification/ukcat" title="Go to repository" class="md-source" data-md-component="source"> <div class="md-source__icon md-icon"> <svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 448 512"><path d="M439.55 236.05 244 40.45a28.87 28.87 0 0 0-40.81 0l-40.66 40.63 51.52 51.52c27.06-9.14 52.68 16.77 43.39 43.68l49.66 49.66c34.23-11.8 61.18 31 35.47 56.69-26.49 26.49-70.21-2.87-56-37.34L240.22 199v121.85c25.3 12.54 22.26 41.85 9.08 55a34.34 34.34 0 0 1-48.55 0c-17.57-17.6-11.07-46.91 11.25-56v-123c-20.8-8.51-24.6-30.74-18.64-45L142.57 101 8.45 235.14a28.86 28.86 0 0 0 0 40.81l195.61 195.6a28.86 28.86 0 0 0 40.8 0l194.69-194.69a28.86 28.86 0 0 0 0-40.81z"/></svg> </div> <div class="md-source__repository"> GitHub </div> </a> </div> <ul class="md-nav__list" data-md-scrollfix> <li class="md-nav__item"> <a href="../../../../.." class="md-nav__link"> <span class="md-ellipsis"> Classifying UK Charities </span> </a> </li> <li class="md-nav__item md-nav__item--active md-nav__item--section md-nav__item--nested"> <input class="md-nav__toggle md-toggle " type="checkbox" id="__nav_2" checked> <label class="md-nav__link" for="__nav_2" id="__nav_2_label" tabindex=""> <span class="md-ellipsis"> Blog </span> <span class="md-nav__icon md-icon"></span> </label> <nav class="md-nav" data-md-level="1" aria-labelledby="__nav_2_label" aria-expanded="true"> <label class="md-nav__title" for="__nav_2"> <span class="md-nav__icon md-icon"></span> Blog </label> <ul class="md-nav__list" data-md-scrollfix> <li class="md-nav__item md-nav__item--active"> <input class="md-nav__toggle md-toggle" type="checkbox" id="__toc"> <a href="./" class="md-nav__link md-nav__link--active"> <span class="md-ellipsis"> Launching UK-CAT </span> </a> </li> <li class="md-nav__item"> <a href="../../../03/17/a-uk-charity-classification-system/" class="md-nav__link"> <span class="md-ellipsis"> A UK Charity Classification System </span> </a> </li> <li class="md-nav__item"> <a href="../../../01/11/classifying-the-charity-register/" class="md-nav__link"> <span class="md-ellipsis"> Classifying the charity register </span> </a> </li> </ul> </nav> </li> <li class="md-nav__item md-nav__item--nested"> <input class="md-nav__toggle md-toggle " type="checkbox" id="__nav_3" > <label class="md-nav__link" for="__nav_3" id="__nav_3_label" tabindex="0"> <span class="md-ellipsis"> Method </span> <span class="md-nav__icon md-icon"></span> </label> <nav class="md-nav" data-md-level="1" aria-labelledby="__nav_3_label" aria-expanded="false"> <label class="md-nav__title" for="__nav_3"> <span class="md-nav__icon md-icon"></span> Method </label> <ul class="md-nav__list" data-md-scrollfix> <li class="md-nav__item"> <a href="../../../../../method/introduction/" class="md-nav__link"> <span class="md-ellipsis"> Introduction </span> </a> </li> <li class="md-nav__item"> <a href="../../../../../method/sampling/" class="md-nav__link"> <span class="md-ellipsis"> Sampling charities </span> </a> </li> <li class="md-nav__item"> <a href="../../../../../method/designing-taxonomy/" class="md-nav__link"> <span class="md-ellipsis"> Designing the UK-CAT Taxonomy </span> </a> </li> <li class="md-nav__item"> <a href="../../../../../method/manual-classification/" class="md-nav__link"> <span class="md-ellipsis"> Manual classification of a sample of charities </span> </a> </li> <li class="md-nav__item"> <a href="../../../../../method/machine-learning/" class="md-nav__link"> <span class="md-ellipsis"> Machine Learning </span> </a> </li> <li class="md-nav__item"> <a href="../../../../../method/rules-based-classification/" class="md-nav__link"> <span class="md-ellipsis"> Rules based classification </span> </a> </li> </ul> </nav> </li> <li class="md-nav__item md-nav__item--nested"> <input class="md-nav__toggle md-toggle " type="checkbox" id="__nav_4" > <label class="md-nav__link" for="__nav_4" id="__nav_4_label" tabindex="0"> <span class="md-ellipsis"> Data </span> <span class="md-nav__icon md-icon"></span> </label> <nav class="md-nav" data-md-level="1" aria-labelledby="__nav_4_label" aria-expanded="false"> <label class="md-nav__title" for="__nav_4"> <span class="md-nav__icon md-icon"></span> Data </label> <ul class="md-nav__list" data-md-scrollfix> <li class="md-nav__item"> <a href="../../../../../data/outputs/" class="md-nav__link"> <span class="md-ellipsis"> Outputs </span> </a> </li> <li class="md-nav__item"> <a href="../../../../../data/data-downloads/" class="md-nav__link"> <span class="md-ellipsis"> Data downloads </span> </a> </li> <li class="md-nav__item"> <a href="../../../../../data/tag_list/" class="md-nav__link"> <span class="md-ellipsis"> UK-CAT </span> </a> </li> </ul> </nav> </li> <li class="md-nav__item"> <a href="../../../../../other-work/" class="md-nav__link"> <span class="md-ellipsis"> Other resources </span> </a> </li> <li class="md-nav__item"> <a href="../../../../../contact/" class="md-nav__link"> <span class="md-ellipsis"> Contact us </span> </a> </li> </ul> </nav> </div> </div> </div> <div class="md-sidebar md-sidebar--secondary" data-md-component="sidebar" data-md-type="toc" > <div class="md-sidebar__scrollwrap"> <div class="md-sidebar__inner"> <nav class="md-nav md-nav--secondary" aria-label="Table of contents"> </nav> </div> </div> </div> <div class="md-content" data-md-component="content"> <article class="md-content__inner md-typeset"> <a href="https://github.com/charity-classification/ukcat/edit/master/docs/blog/2021/10/06/launching-ukcat.md" title="edit.link.title" class="md-content__button md-icon"> <svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 24 24"><path d="M20.71 7.04c.39-.39.39-1.04 0-1.41l-2.34-2.34c-.37-.39-1.02-.39-1.41 0l-1.84 1.83 3.75 3.75M3 17.25V21h3.75L17.81 9.93l-3.75-3.75L3 17.25Z"/></svg> </a> <p><small> <time datetime="2021-10-06">06 October 2021</time> | By <strong>Christopher Damm</strong> and <strong>David Kane</strong> </p></small> <h1 id="launching-uk-cat">Launching UK-CAT<a class="headerlink" href="#launching-uk-cat" title="Permanent link">¶</a></h1> <p>Today we're launching a new classification of charities in the UK, which aims to help researchers, umbrella bodies and others make sense of the diverse group of organisations that form the voluntary sector. The voluntary sector is defined by shared characteristics - legal form, volunteerism, non-profit distributing - but the sector covers such a wide range of organisations that to understand it you often need to look more closely at various subdivisions. This new classification system - which we're calling UK Charity Activity Tags (UK-CAT) - adds "tags" to organisations to help understand the work they do, and identify groups of organisations. You can find tags for food banks, for example, or for charities working on rural issues. In all, we've created over 250 tags and defined rules for attaching them to charities.</p> <div class="flourish-embed flourish-hierarchy" data-src="visualisation/7028720"><script src="https://public.flourish.studio/resources/embed.js"></script></div> <p>We did this because we found the existing systems for classifying charities weren't working. The Charity Commission allows charities to select categories when they register, but these categories are very high level and miss out on the detail of what organisations are doing. And the international classification applied by NCVO in the Civil Society Almanac (ICNPO) misses the nuances of a UK context, and includes too many "catch-all" categories. Esm茅e Fairbairn Foundation funded this project, involving CRESR at Sheffield Hallam University, NCVO, and David Kane, a freelance researcher, to create a new classification.</p> <p>We've described our method in more detail in two previous blog posts: <a href="https://charityclassification.org.uk/blog/2021/01/11/classifying-the-charity-register/">Classifying the charity register</a> and <a href="https://charityclassification.org.uk/blog/2021/03/17/a-uk-charity-classification-system/">A UK Classification System</a>. In short, we took a sample of over 4,000 registered charities and manually classified each one, creating new tags as we went along and encountered different types of charities. This sample could then be used to generate and test keyword-based rules for automatic classification of charities, as well as training machine-learning models.</p> <p>We're launching the results of this project today, after previously presenting it at the Voluntary Sector and Volunteering Research conference in Birmingham earlier in September. You can <a href="https://charityclassification.org.uk/data/outputs/">view the results and download all the data</a> from the project, including a full list of UK charities with the classification system applied. There's much more detail on the project website, <a href="https://charityclassification.org.uk/">charityclassification.org.uk</a>.</p> <p>Although we're launching this today, we don't consider the job to be finished. We're well aware that the complexity and variety in the sector makes our task a never ending challenge - so we need your help to make the next version better. The system will also reflect our experiences and biases as researchers and other people will have expertise in the parts of the sector that we have tagged.</p> <p>We'd love to have your feedback on the classification system and the project generally. This could be feedback on the tags themselves: what tags are missing, what's the right term to use? Or on how the rules are applied to the charities - are we catching some charities that aren't relevant? Is a group of charities not getting captured? There's a feedback form on the website above, or you can email <a href="mailto:feedback@charityclassification.org.uk">feedback@charityclassification.org.uk</a>.</p> <p>With over 200,000 active registered charities in the UK, we won't have got every decision right, or perfectly captured the makeup of the sector. But we hope that UK-CAT will provide a valuable tool for those who want to understand the voluntary sector better. </p> <aside class="md-source-file"> <span class="md-source-file__fact"> <span class="md-icon" title="Last update"> <svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 24 24"><path d="M21 13.1c-.1 0-.3.1-.4.2l-1 1 2.1 2.1 1-1c.2-.2.2-.6 0-.8l-1.3-1.3c-.1-.1-.2-.2-.4-.2m-1.9 1.8-6.1 6V23h2.1l6.1-6.1-2.1-2M12.5 7v5.2l4 2.4-1 1L11 13V7h1.5M11 21.9c-5.1-.5-9-4.8-9-9.9C2 6.5 6.5 2 12 2c5.3 0 9.6 4.1 10 9.3-.3-.1-.6-.2-1-.2s-.7.1-1 .2C19.6 7.2 16.2 4 12 4c-4.4 0-8 3.6-8 8 0 4.1 3.1 7.5 7.1 7.9l-.1.2v1.8Z"/></svg> </span> <span class="git-revision-date-localized-plugin git-revision-date-localized-plugin-date">August 7, 2024</span> </span> <span class="md-source-file__fact"> <span class="md-icon" title="Created"> <svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 24 24"><path d="M14.47 15.08 11 13V7h1.5v5.25l3.08 1.83c-.41.28-.79.62-1.11 1m-1.39 4.84c-.36.05-.71.08-1.08.08-4.42 0-8-3.58-8-8s3.58-8 8-8 8 3.58 8 8c0 .37-.03.72-.08 1.08.69.1 1.33.32 1.92.64.1-.56.16-1.13.16-1.72 0-5.5-4.5-10-10-10S2 6.5 2 12s4.47 10 10 10c.59 0 1.16-.06 1.72-.16-.32-.59-.54-1.23-.64-1.92M18 15v3h-3v2h3v3h2v-3h3v-2h-3v-3h-2Z"/></svg> </span> <span class="git-revision-date-localized-plugin git-revision-date-localized-plugin-date">August 7, 2024</span> </span> </aside> </article> </div> <script>var target=document.getElementById(location.hash.slice(1));target&&target.name&&(target.checked=target.name.startsWith("__tabbed_"))</script> </div> </main> <footer class="md-footer"> <div class="md-footer-meta md-typeset"> <div class="md-footer-meta__inner md-grid"> <div class="md-copyright"> Made with <a href="https://squidfunk.github.io/mkdocs-material/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> Material for MkDocs </a> </div> </div> </div> </footer> </div> <div class="md-dialog" data-md-component="dialog"> <div class="md-dialog__inner md-typeset"></div> </div> <script id="__config" type="application/json">{"base": "../../../../..", "features": ["navigation.tabs"], "search": "../../../../../assets/javascripts/workers/search.b8dbb3d2.min.js", "translations": {"clipboard.copied": "Copied to clipboard", "clipboard.copy": "Copy to clipboard", "search.result.more.one": "1 more on this page", "search.result.more.other": "# more on this page", "search.result.none": "No matching documents", "search.result.one": "1 matching document", "search.result.other": "# matching documents", "search.result.placeholder": "Type to start searching", "search.result.term.missing": "Missing", "select.version": "Select version"}}</script> <script src="../../../../../assets/javascripts/bundle.fe8b6f2b.min.js"></script> <script async defer src="https://scripts.simpleanalyticscdn.com/latest.js"></script> <noscript><img src="https://queue.simpleanalyticscdn.com/noscript.gif" alt="" referrerpolicy="no-referrer-when-downgrade" /></noscript> </body> </html>

CINXE.COM

Launching UK-CAT - UK Charity Classification