Improving your projects' inclusivity by introducing ethnicity data

The UK has a diverse population with a multitude of different backgrounds, cultures, and values. It's important to us that we help our customers understand their reach to these communities and ensure all needs and wishes are included in place-making. 

Different parts of the UK have different levels of ethnic diversity. In order to help you view which communities your Commonplace platform is reaching, we now include baseline data on Ethnicity for the three UK mainland nations (baseline data for Northern Ireland can be provided when needed). 

The Commonplace platform compares the data from your project’s respondents with ONS demographic data for the area. The Ethnicity datasets we use come from the statistical authorities of Wales, Scotland and England as appropriate. At the same time, we have standardised the categorisation of “Ethnicity” on our Commonplace templates, to ensure that the data gathered on Commonplace is comparable with each nation’s unique census-gathered data. 

Through comparing these two data sets, you can immediately see how inclusive your project is of all ethnic backgrounds, and where an additional outreach effort may be required. If your data demonstrates that you're failing to reach some groups within your community, you can push marketing efforts towards different channels to reach and engage with a more diverse audience. 

Reach specific populations 

Our platform enables you to gather local data over and above the specific Census categories.  Imagine you're working in an area that has a large Portuguese speaking population. You can add a question about language to your platform to give better visibility over who you're reaching. 

We've recently published a guide to using online in-browser translation services with Commonplace. In-browser translation is a free tool which can increase the accessibility of websites for multiple languages spoken within the community.

Find out more about how you can add more languages to your project

The Commonplace team will be happy to share ideas and good practice with you on reaching diverse communities.If you'd like to learn more, get in touch with your Customer Success Manager.