Building Community Data Capacity: Principles for a Strategic Approach

When people have the capacity to access and use data, they can better understand and improve outcomes in their communities. But strengthening data capacity community-wide requires intentionality.  NNIP's new brief,  Building Community Data Capacity: Principles for a Strategic Approach reviews lessons about nonprofit capacity building in general and data-capacity building specifically.

 

It shares perspectives from the National Neighborhood Indicators Partnership (NNIP)—a network of local organizations that help communities use data to shape strategies and investments so that all neighborhoods are places where people can thrive. It recommends developing a comprehensive local strategy for building community data capacity and offers operational principles for organizations contributing to these efforts. This brief is intended to assist all groups interested in enhancing local resources, skills, and practices for using data well: current and prospective NNIP partners, national and local funders, nonprofit organizations, and local governments.  

 

 

Data is a transformative tool. With relevant data, people can set priorities, advocate for what is important to them, and hold others accountable for promised changes. There is an urgent need to build data capacity at all levels in communities across the US, particularly in the face of increasing misinformation, rapid shifts in the ways people seek and share information, and harms related to changes in federal priorities and funding. Given limited resources, local strategies to build community data capacity need to be designed to yield the greatest benefits. And local actors have the best knowledge of their own cultural and institutional contexts to select capacity-building efforts that address the needs of different groups in their community. 

 

What We Found 

 

Improving community data capacity requires a mix of approaches. Organizations can directly provide data and analysis or can build others’ capacity to collect, analyze, and use data. The appropriate strategy for each place depends on the local data ecosystem, resources, priorities, and relationships. 

 

All communities would benefit from a strategy for improving their community’s ability to use data—one that looks across sectors, issue areas, and systems. Having a comprehensive vision can help people see the connections among current efforts and surface opportunities to fill gaps in building data capacity.  

 

Drawing from literature and NNIP experience, we suggest incorporating the following operational principles when implementing any data capacity building plans or programs: 

 

 

We reviewed articles on nonprofit capacity building from the philanthropic and nonprofit fields. We also drew from local and network publications and peer learning sessions that document the experiences of NNIP partner organizations.