The Skinny on Using Data for Telling Stories, Raising Funds, and Pushing Your Mission

As you may have seen, our foundation’s Andy Krackov recently wrote a guest blog post on the Nonprofit Technology Network’s blog about using Google’s free tools to animate data.

Turns out, the NTEN blog’s May theme is all things data – fundraising with data, telling stories with data, showing data in compelling ways, and much more. What could be more exciting?! Here’s a sampling of their posts:

• First, NTEN Executive Director Holly Ross tackles the issue of proving your organization’s impact through data. She discusses a four-step approach to making the most of your data: defining data, giving it meaning, using it to tell a story, and then sharing it with other organizations. Read more>>

• A guest post by Colin Holtz and Steve Daigneault of M+R Strategic Services about storytelling with data notes that sometimes the most compelling stories don’t have the most impact. Often, a more data-driven, conventional approach can better outline your accomplishments and needs, the authors say. Read more>>

• Another post from Jeff Stanger of the Center for Digital Information discusses the difference between data and information, noting that data come from research, and information comes from the communication surrounding those data. And, says Stanger, technology is constantly changing the way we collect and communicate data. Read more>>

• Most recently, NTEN Publications Director Annaliese Hoehling encourages us to think about the people behind our data, noting that data has “infinite potential for stories.” Read more>>

Kudos to NTEN for discussing so many different aspects of data in such a thoughtful way. Visit the NTEN blog for even more posts about data this month.

Posted by Felicity Simmons

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 18th, 2011 at 11:33 am. 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.