ImpactStory

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Five First Steps to Data Visualization

Before even beginning to format a graph, the question we need to ask first is not “how do we visualize data,” but “how do we find the story in the data?” The five steps outlined in this article will save you time and effort before you dive straight into design.

Measuring Success How Robin Hood Estimates the Impact of Grants

Robin Hood fights poverty in New York City. The goal is to make grant decisions to maximize poverty-fighting impact, much like a financial manager chooses investments to maximize profit. The metrics project described in this manuscript has been designed to create just such a scorecard, showing ratios that guide investment decisions as financial rates and giving grants to programs that yield high benefit-cost ratios. Grant-making decisions rely on the detailed expertise of program officers as well as numerical calculations. Metrics are always under revision, a virtually never-ending project.

Effective Data Storytelling

This is an AMAZING book, well researched, easy to read, about why you should combine data and narratives, and some strategies for doing just that. WARNING: The book is written for data scientists and the author, the wonderful Brent Dykes, spends the first half of the book helping them understand why they should use data inside a story and with personal narratives - rather than just presenting a bunch of numbers! As a nonprofit leader, you might want to start at Chapter 4 (all the chapters are described in the link). I incorporate a lot of Brent's work ImpactStory™ Group Coaching.

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