Research & Data

In general, a lot of foundations and nonprofits simply aren’t using data nearly enough in their decision-making process. It’s possible to take a data-driven approach to just about anything — events, outreach, digital strategy, you name it. No matter where your data journey is, this first step lays the groundwork for crafting a comprehensive and sustainable research strategy.

• Start by discussing metrics that your organization currently tracks. Identify the holes, and set up a plan to collect additional data points going forward.

• Think outside of the box on data collection — there’s an exceedingly wide umbrella over what counts as “data.” Get creative by thinking about questions like: What percentage of people took a bus or walked to your event?

• Measure your progress with this data. Routinely compare old and new data points in order to see how you’re doing year over year, month over month, etc.

Source: What Data Should Nonprofits Collect? Overview & Top Tips

As communicators, we are constantly striving to bring accuracy to our storytelling. By digging deeper into subsets of data like race, socioeconomic status, geography, and gender, we are able to tell a far more accurate story. In turn, these insights can be used to shift narratives.

• Data is often collected and reported too generally. Disaggregating data will illuminate disparities in outcomes based on gender, race and socioeconomic factors. For example, a 30% increase in minority and women-owned businesses in a city might actually be a 45% increase in women-owned businesses and a 15% decline in minority-owned businesses.

• Further break down data, even when it’s already divided by traditional race categories. You’ll be surprised to find extensive differences within categories. The Asian American category alone can be segmented into six sub-regions and then into forty-eight different countries each with unique cultures and languages.

• Clearly illustrate the demographic disparities within the data. Since the data is further segmented, it might be more difficult to grasp it in one go. Use data visualization techniques like heat-mapping to help pinpoint the systemic problem.

Learn More: Why Disaggregating Data by Race is Important for Racial Equity, Building Up Communities by Breaking Down Data

Conducting research should never be haphazard, which means you need a dedicated person or group of people to systematically tackle surveying, analyzing, and discovering data that’s relevant to your equity journey.

• Sit down with your researcher and determine how they are surveying and who they are including. Make sure their research practices and units of analysis are in line with your end goals.

• Discuss data dissemination with your research partner. Prioritize transparency by devising a plan to share all data in a user-friendly manner.

• Determine who is evaluating the data and how your organization plans to reach conclusions and make recommendations based on the findings.

Learn More: Research and Evaluation in the Nonprofit Sector: Implications for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion

Hold your organization accountable to its diversity and representation goals.

• Externally, practice good data-gathering when putting together events, conferences, and gathering. Embed your researcher into the event organization process. Discuss ethical ways in which you can sample the audience, like pre- and post-event surveys.

• Internally, evaluate and measure the success of your communications through engagement data. What’s the open-rate of your company-wide emails? How many people are attending your virtual brainstorm sessions?

• Establish a balance between hard and soft data when collecting data specific to your organization. Don’t simply base your entire judgements on the numbers – take circumstance and context into account.

Learn More: Best practices for your internal communication strategy, How to Tackle Your Nonprofit Reporting

When a communications team operates analytically, there’s an added element that allows for precise goal-setting.

• Use data as a barometer of success on social media and digital. What’s the reach of your posts? How many click-throughs did you get? Did it have the desired impact?

• Set audience benchmarks — What locations do you want to target? What’s the gender breakdown of your followers?

• Present this data to the management of your organization. The more open you are with your team’s progress, the more buy-in and respect you’ll generate from the wider organization.

Learn More: How you can start measuring your nonprofit communications for impact

Data-gathering isn’t as successful in siloed environments.

• Have someone be a conduit between all teams that collect data. There should be a point-person that’s familiar with every side of the process, from collection to analysis.

• Use different data collection methods to inform your analysis and guide your audience. For example, you can conduct surveys in-person as well as on social media.

• Share resources and strategies. If one team is using Google Analytics and the other team isn’t, it might be an underused resource. Even if the use-case differs from team to team, there’s often some overlap in the tools we need to use to collect data.

Utilizing data to meet your communications goals may lead to unintended consequences of feeding implicit biases. Presenting data that only emphasizes disparities and poor outcomes to donors may increase donations, but it advances biased stereotypes and does not portray communities honestly.

• Paint the full picture. When providing negative data about a community, provide additional context to why the outcomes exist.

• Even when presenting deficits, flip the data to present in a positive frame. Instead of saying 63% of students did not graduate, consider saying 37% of students graduated.

Learn More: How to Tell Stories with Data: 5 Steps to Make it Work

Communications teams are on the frontlines of social. You’re reading and reacting to the news first, analyzing trends and platforms, and engaging with your followers online.

• Show your stakeholders the power of social media. Harness the information-gathering tools within social media platforms (polls, Q&As, live videos, etc.) to educate and engage with your audience and generate feedback.

• On social media, everyone is operating within their own pre-made bubble. Don’t be afraid to break those bubbles and inform your stakeholders about day-to-day racial equity issues — it doesn’t hurt to state what you think is obvious.

• Set up a recurring day and time within your social media content calendar to explain how racism impacts a specific issue area that your organization focuses on. This will help both your audience, as well as those working at your organization.

Learn More: Building Your Nonprofit’s Voice