Using Kidsdata.org to Make Your Case

You probably know that kidsdata.org can be a valuable resource for making your case on behalf of kids — whether you are working on a grant proposal, presentation, advocacy project, or other efforts. Here are some tips from our foundation on how kidsdata.org can help with grant proposals, in particular:

Making Your Case

Here’s a common way to organize making a case for the need:

1) Who are the people in need?

2) What is the need?

3) Evidence to support the claim.

Proposals typically include facts about the population or community to be served and the issues to be addressed.  When providing those facts, it’s important to provide context for the data. Context can mean different things – for example, it can mean putting your data in a larger geographic context by showing how your community compares to the county or state as a whole. Or, you can provide context by showing how a specific issue has changed over time; or by explaining why these data are important and what they mean.

Writing Your Proposal

In general, it’s important to spell out the key points you want to make, and explain assumptions. Make it easy for the funder to follow the train of thought and pick up your key points.

Funders want to see data as relevant as possible to the focus of the proposal. When the exact data you need are not available, it’s helpful to state that and then provide what is available. For example, if data aren’t available for the city you’re serving, school district or county-level data may be an acceptable replacement.

Use the best possible data, and explain the connection between the data you are including and what you are proposing to do. And always include the source. That will add credibility to your proposal.

Kidsdata.org Can Help

Kidsdata.org provides a wide range of specific facts about children and families, the particular issues they face, and about local communities – as well as the contextual information noted above.

Another type of data often necessary in proposals is data on program effectiveness; that is, citing research/data to demonstrate that your proposed program is likely to succeed. While providing info on program effectiveness is not the primary focus of kidsdata.org, the site has a Resources section with links to articles/research that may help you find evidence to support your program.

If you can’t find what you are looking for or if you have questions about the site, please post any questions on our Data Questions page.

Posted by JoAnna Caywood

This entry was posted on Friday, August 13th, 2010 at 7:03 pm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.