A fully automated data import pipeline
Stichting Donateursbelangen
- Customer case
- Data Engineering
- Data projects
Stichting Donateursbelangen aims to strengthen trust between donors and charities. They believe that that trust is based on collecting money honestly, openly, transparently and respectfully. At the same time effectively using the raised donation funds to make an impact. To further this goal, Stichting Donateursbelangen wants to share information about charities with donors through their own search engine.
We assisted by making information about the ANBI status of charities available to use in their search engine. ANBI stands for public benefit institution and an institution is only given ANBI status when it’s (almost) entirely committed to the public interest and adheres to certain conditions.
Stichting Donateursbelangen had already worked on a solution for retrieving a public dataset from the website of the Dutch Tax and Customs Administration on a weekly basis through by converting the data to a Google Sheet with the help of Google Apps Script.
Their request was threefold:
- Solve some technical issues in the current implementation
- Automate a weekly update of the ANBI table and document updates to records
- Add more data sources and data to the ANBI overview
Our approach
Initially we started working on the original request. We solved the technical issues in the current implementation. However, we ran into some questions regarding the choice for Google Apps Script for the implementation. Google App Scripts is limited in its data import and transformation capabilities, making it a challenging tool for expanding the table with additional information and data sources.
In consultation with Stichting Donateursbelangen we proposed to use a different tool, keeping in mind their requirements that the tool needs to be free and easy to maintain. We decided that it would be more efficient to build a new implementation with a Python based tool. This is more suitable for the purposes of this case. The new implementation was built in Google Cloud Platform using serverless Python Cloud Functions in combination with Cloud Scheduler for the automatic weekly imports.
The result
Stichting Donateursbelangen now has a fully automated data import pipeline with insights into the latest ANBI status for charities. They can report this information to interested charity donors on their no-code website solution. The search functionality on the Dutch Tax and Customs Administration website is limited to the search terms charity name or place of residence. The search functionality on the Stichting Donateursbelangen makes it possible for donors to find ANBI non-profits based on charity name, place of residence, fiscal number and website URL. The implemented solution meets their requirements of being free and easy to maintain.
The future
Stichting Donateursbelangen has expressed the desire to expand their database and search engine with additional information about charities in the future. Using a Python script through Google Cloud Functions and Cloud Scheduler makes this process easier and faster to implement.
We carried out this project through our foundation, the Digital Power Datahub.
Want to know more?
Sanne, chair of the 'data for good' pillar of the Digital Power Datahub, is keen to discuss how we, as a data partner, can support you and your organisation.
Data Analystdatahub@digital-power.com
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