We are big fans of postcodes (boring, we know!). They are not just handy for finding a local badminton court; seeking out the closest take-away; or ensuring our online deliveries land at the right front door. For charities, these mere strings of five, six or seven letters and numbers are a treasure chest of information. Postcodes inform us of where people live; the challenges they face; the areas of greatest need; and the communities that are being engaged (or maybe more importantly, lack engagement).

Your participant or delivery location postcodes can be used in a number of ways and users of Upshot benefit from the in-built map report. There are also some other great free tools online to create geographic maps to illustrate reach and engagement. Google’s “My Maps” feature is one. A spreadsheet of postcodes can be uploaded into My Maps - alongside other demographic information such as gender, ethnicity, disability or even free school meals - to create a visual, and filter-able, illustration of your audience and engagement. These maps will show clearly what geographic areas you have the most presence in, but potentially more importantly what areas are not being engaged. Mapping of postcodes helps address disparities and system inequities ensuring that programmes are inclusive and not inadvertently excluding certain geographic areas and communities. 

Postcodes can also provide information about the administrative divisions the location is within such as Authority; District; Constituency; and Ward. This can help with reporting to local authorities or councils; applying for funding from these bodies; and writing and engaging local MPs (Constituency) or Councillors (Ward). Platforms like OpenStreetMap, ONS Geoportal, and Doogal are helpful and free tools out there to gain insights from your postcodes.

Further to this, postcodes inform classifications to assess deprivation such as IMD (Index of multiple deprivation) and LSOA Code (Lower Super Output Area Code). Often, an organisation’s aims/objectives include engaging with people from deprived areas. IMD helps provide the socio-economic context of where your participants are coming from, and the locations you are delivering in. Areas with a lower IMD % are considered more deprived, while a higher IMD % indicates less deprivation. The IMD % combines various indicators such as income, employment, health, education and living environment to create an index of deprivation of every postcode in the UK. Many local authorities and funders would deem postcodes that fall in the 0-20% quintile as “deprived”. However, you may want to check with your funders (or potential funders) what IMD % they consider as ‘deprived’. 

Additionally, IMD mapping of your wider community - not just where your participants are coming from - could be incredibly beneficial. As IMD is made up of a range of metrics - employment level and crime rate being two examples - mapping of your wider community against these metrics could help plan programmes; allocate resources or provide predictive modeling.

For example, if you can see that a significant number of your attendees are coming from an area with a high crime rate, you might think about delivering anti-crime workshops. Or if you are delivering an employment service, but see that you are not engaging many participants from communities with the highest rates of unemployment, you may think about engaging local partners in these areas or providing outreach to ensure those areas where the most at need are being engaged.

IMD Data is available via public data sets and more information (and data) can be found on the UK Government website. A further powerful public data set is the NHS Finger Tips collection - a public health data collection that includes a health inequality dashboard and a wider public health dashboard. These sources are great as not only do they provide information about your community, but they compare it against other areas to provide context on your community: e.g.“Hackney Local Authority Ranks 11th in the UK in terms of Child Obesity”

Hopefully we have emphasised the power of postcodes and how they can be used. By leveraging postcode data strategically, charities and organisations across the third sector can enhance their impact, improve their efficiency, allocate resources and strengthen their connection with participants and communities.