GivingTuesday Data Commons (GTDC), India
Supporting one of India’s largest collaborative studies on everyday giving: unifying reflections from 300+ nonprofits
Social Impact, Philanthropy, Data Commons
Research and Innovation
The Field Guide was built on key findings and insights from the UDARTA report, which was a direct result of the team’s analysis on Dots. For instance, discovering that referrals by existing volunteers is the most effective strategy (371% more volunteers), directly led to the creation of the Volunteer Referral Toolkit
About the partner
The GivingTuesday Data Commons (GTDC) is a global collective of hundreds of organizations focused on generating insights and knowledge on generosity in order to strengthen the social sector through evidence-based approaches.
Goal of the study
To understand how nonprofits across India engage in everyday giving (small, regular acts of generosity that sustain social change). The research draws on experiences from over 300 nonprofit practitioners, offering actionable, data-driven insights to strengthen everyday giving strategies
Outcome of the study
The findings culminated in UDARTA: Understanding Everyday Giving in India, a first-of-its-kind report published by GivingTuesday
Needs for GTDC Team
1
A unified platform to collect, organize, and categorize fundraising and volunteer engagement research data
2
Secure storage and management of large volumes of both qualitative and quantitative data
3
Qualitative data analysis with multi-stakeholder access
Solution Snapshot
1
Hosted all data collection, including surveys, interviews, and qualitative modules for the research study
2
Enabled secure multi-stakeholder collaboration through role-based access
3
Supported AI-assisted mixed-methods analysis and live tracking through dashboards
Dots allows for theme-based searches, which was a game-changer for me. Often, we have a general idea of what we are looking for but may not have the exact keywords in mind. Being able to search by theme addresses this perfectly
Integrated mixed-methods data collection
Both the survey and qualitative modules were hosted on Dots
Enabled the team to manage responses, monitor participation, and ensure data quality across all phases of the study in one place
Real-time Dashboards
Response-wise and overview dashboards are automatically set up once data is added to Dots platform
Dashboards provided real-time visibility into survey submissions, tracking responses by geography, organization type, and other filters
Thematic Coding & Annotations
Qualitative researchers used thematic annotations and annotation explorer to analyze interview transcripts
Enabled teams to surface common motivations, barriers, and enabling conditions for everyday giving across a large volume of qualitative data.
Role-based access and data privacy architecture
Segregated access for participants, researchers and core-team members with distinct permissions for data entry, tagging, and moderatio
Enabled seamless multi-stakeholder collaboration, allowing four organizations—Pratham, GivingTuesday India, The 4th Wheel, and Atma—to work together securely in one shared environment
Researchers working on qualitative data can use pre-configured templates and tagging structures to organize insights, while teams handling quantitative data benefit from centralized storage and basic analysis views.
