Over the past 4 years, supported by Trust for London, Superhighways has delivered a comprehensive data training programme, alongside offering one-to-one support, to help small London-based charities and community groups collect, analyse and present their data, strengthening their ability to better evidence their work and advocate for the needs of their communities.
Between April 2024 and March 2025, we delivered 41 training sessions with 276 participants (equating to 172 unique participants) from 121 unique organisations.
This year we had participants from organisations based in all London boroughs except Havering, Hounslow and the City of London, and so we will work harder this year to offer support in those boroughs.
Over the past year attendance rose to 68% which is wonderful as it means fewer people on our waitlists missed out unnecessarily.
We understand the resource and time constraints faced by London's smaller charities and community groups (33% of the groups we worked with last year had an annual income of under £250k) and tailor our sessions to meet those specific needs.
I thought it was really helpful how [the trainer] asked what we needed ... at the start of the session. She took this on board whilst presenting her training and showed us how to do the specific things we were asking for, so it really felt personalised to me as a learner.
Our practical, skills-based training sessions continued to be valued for highlighting free or low-cost tools, for providing inspiration, and for building skills, confidence and capacity within grassroots organisations.
They've introduced me to a lot of tools that I wasn't aware of at all. It's introduced all these different ways of recording and showing information, for capturing feedback from my members. By introducing them to me - and I've started to use them for different things already - it's definitely making a difference.
[The trainer] was great. Very interactive and patient with all our queries. Really enjoyed the session and thrilled to learn that this tool existed!
To receive that input of fresh resources - fresh ideas, it's invigorating. It’s already making an impact.
We also do our best to adapt our sessions to the needs of participants that join on the day. And whilst 93% of participants that gave us feedback said that the sessions met their organisational needs (which we are very pleased about) it's the feedback demonstrating that participants felt heard that makes us grateful to be able to do the work we do.
I really appreciated the trainer’s patience and ability to present information in many flexible ways, very knowledgeable and engaging!
I do struggle with some aspects of learning because of my ADHD/anxiety, but [the trainer] put me at ease as she is a warm and approachable trainer.
Our offer of one-to-one support was taken up by 44 different organisations across London (these were based in the boroughs shaded in blue in the map below) over 69 support sessions. This individual support gave groups who needed it the time to apply learning to their own data and reach more meaningful insights.
It was really great that Superhighways was willing to meet me afterwards to go through things that I hadn't understood well enough or wanted a bit more information on. That was absolutely fantastic - that helped me clear some cobwebs, and I've also already started to use the tools I was shown.
Our next full data training programme will start in September, but until then we have an Excel training series starting in June, and if you would like some one-to-one support with anything data related please get in touch.
We'd like to thank Trust for London for funding our work, and the amazing, wonderful people working so hard supporting our communities across London.