In their opening remarks, Peter Schubert (Director of ZiviZ), Katarina Peranić (Executive Director of DSEE), and Carsten Große Starmann (Bertelsmann Stiftung) emphasized how essential it is for a resilient civil society to have reliable data – especially during politically challenging times for civil society organizations. Große Starmann described the cultural shift taking place within the Bertelsmann Stiftung towards more open data. He also noted that the Data Atlas for Civil Society serves as a “haven” for civil society data and is already allowing the Bertelsmann Stiftung to make many of its datasets findable.
© Mario Wiedemann
2025 Annual Forum on Civil Society Data: How can data strengthen civil society?
How can data strengthen civil society? That question was the focus of the 2025 Annual Forum on Civil Society Data, which took place on October 28 at the Bertelsmann office in Berlin. The event was organized by ZiviZ within Stifterverband, DSEE (Deutsche Stiftung für Engagement und Ehrenamt / German Foundation for Civic Engagement and Volunteering) and the Bertelsmann Stiftung. Approximately 50 researchers and representatives from civil society organizations attended the forum.
Mario
Wiedemann
Senior Project Manager
Petra
Beckhoff
Project Assistant
Data for a resilient civil society
Archiv Bertelsmann Stiftung
In the brief presentations that followed, various experts introduced their projects:
• Mario Wiedemann discussed the Data Atlas for Civil Society as a metadata portal for open data from civil society in Germany.
• Leo Preu (Civic Data Lab/CorrelAid) spoke about the Civic Data Lab’s wide range of services for civil society organizations that work (or wish to work) with data.
• Dr. Julian Axenfeld (DIW Berlin) provided insights into the German Social Cohesion Panel and its potential for civil society research.
Archiv Bertelsmann Stiftung
The subsequent workshops addressed topics such as open data, common data collection standards in civil society research, collaboration between civil society researchers and practitioners, and new approaches to ongoing data collection.
Research projects related to the Data Atlas for Civil Society
For the Bertelsmann Stiftung, the forum was a valuable opportunity to present the Data Atlas for Civil Society to the civil society research community and to gather ideas for research projects related to the atlas.
Short papers on the working groups’ findings will be published by the end of the year – including on the topic “How do we bring open data to civil society on a broader scale?”
A heartfelt “thank you” goes out to everyone involved, and especially to the ZiviZ team led by Peter Schubert, for organizing this successful forum. We are already looking forward to the ongoing dialogue and next steps in the coming year.
