Standards Working Group Meeting 6

Published on: 18 March 2026

Categories: Working Group

Summary

This will be a retrospective, we will discuss the work of the working group and our achievements and seek members views on what went well, what didn’t go well and your ideas for the future.

MINUTES: Volunteering Data Standards Working Group 6 18 March 2026

Documents:

• Volunteering Retro Board
• There were no slides for this meeting

Agenda

1. Retrospective
2. Next Steps

Attendee profile

The working group was attended by 18 people, including 3 members of the ODI project team (Andrew, Julie and Matthieu).

There was representation from a range of organisation types, including:

• Volunteering Involving Organisation (National)
• Volunteering Involving Organisation (Local)
• Volunteering Infrastructure Organisation (National)
• Central Gov.
• Consultancy / Advisory

Retrospective

Andrew Newman (chair) presented a Miro board and explained that today’s session will be a retrospective to provide members with the opportunity to:

• Consider what we have achieved and how we have worked together
• Think about what we should do next
• Explore how we can improve future projects

Andrew provided links to the previous meeting resources for members to use to look back on

Retrospective Resources

• Data standard: https://standard.volunteeringdata.io/
• GitHub: https://github.com/orgs/volunteeringdata/
• Discussion threads: https://github.com/orgs/volunteeringdata/discussions
• Past working group meetings (Notes, Slides, Miro): https://standard.volunteeringdata.io/working-group/
• Project description: https://theodi.org/insights/projects/open-data-infrastructure-for-volunteering/

Questions

Question: How should a strategic vision for data be developed within the voluntary sector, and who is responsible for leading that effort?

Answer: Andrew Newman explained that while expert organisations like the Open Data Institute (ODI) act as facilitators for technical standards, the voluntary sector itself must own the ultimate vision. Andrew suggested that a representative body—such as the UK Volunteer Forum—could lead this dialogue, with the crucial caveat that the strategy must be inclusive and functional for smaller, local organisations, not just large national ones.

Next Steps

• Andrew Newman advised that the ODI are focused on wrapping up work for DCMS by the end of March, but is seeking ways to continue the work and support organisations ready to implement the standard.
• Andrew Newman will be in touch with links and questions regarding the updated data standard website.
• The group will use the discussion threads on GitHub as a way of asynchronously collaborating and working together.