Benefacts Project
Benefacts project involved harvesting data under Open Data terms, cleaning, aggregating, classifying and digitising it, storing it in a database and deploying it as a public good for the benefit of the nonprofit sector and the sector’s stakeholders. These included people working in nonprofits, policy-makers, funders, analysts, donors, service providers and of course the general public.
Benefacts solutions included a free public website with a listing for 22,000 Irish nonprofits, a State Funders Directory itemising €7.2bn in State grants or fees to nonprofits in 2020, free public reports on the sector, a data analytics service for funders and regulators, and bespoke reports for users in the public, private and nonprofit sectors.
All of these services have now been extinguished following the termination of public funding. Benefacts is no longer trading and all of its staff were made redundant at the end of 2021.
Origins
Benefacts was established at the initiative of the then Minister for Public Expenditure & Reform (PER), Mr Brendan Howlin TD. His Department required co-funding from philanthropic donors and a fund of €4m was established 2015 – 2017 between the Department (50%) the Atlantic Philanthropies (40%) and the Ireland Funds (10%). The funders said they hoped the project would deliver: