The Data Collective — Weeknote #5
By Mor Rubenstein, community development for the Data Collective
This week I have been wondering why people don’t collaborate with others on data, or more precisely, why it is hard for us to share data practices between organisations. Is it because of individual personalities and the fact that not everyone likes to join new groups even if (and maybe because) they are online? Is it because this pandemic takes all of our energy and gives us more work of our own, so we don’t have time to collaborate with others from outside our organisation? Do some of us just need a positive nudge from a manager to go and connect with others?
We decided to take a direct approach and try to make the Collective more collaborative. Our new Community Calls are a way to increase our collaboration around data. Every two weeks, we meet for an hour to discuss data challenges, propose solutions and most importantly, feel we are not alone in our journey to make our organisations more data-oriented. We hope that this will help Collective members to feel more connected and get support. Keep an eye out for upcoming calls on our Slack and in our email newsletters.
Our first call today was ‘Rant for a better future’. Participants had the chance to vent about their biggest data challenges and try to think of small solutions they could make immediately to help move things in a positive way. Some of the issues we talked about were:
- Issues with capacity
- Lack of collaboration and openness of data between charities
- Challenges when data is only used to support existing positions, rather than to understand the reality of the situation
One thing that resonated in the call was that people felt that they were not alone, and that the conversations they have in their organisations are different to the ones they had in the community call. They felt less isolated knowing others have the same issues with data culture and the ‘data spaghetti monster’ — the fact that the data pipeline is never a straight line, but a winding road. So one easy step forward to improve our current situation is to share more between us!
Thanks to everyone who joined us on this call and we hope to see you at our next one.
What topics do you want to discuss? Do you have something you want to share with others? Or an idea how to foster data collaboration? Reach out to us on Slack or by email.
Resources from the community
- Doing data work: We’d love to know who and what you read / watch / listen to about doing data work. Some suggestions are the Inside Numbers portfolio, as well as The NPC’s articles about data, The ODI’s huge variety of reading, and David Kane’s charity data blog.
- Equitable evaluation: Who is doing it well? Recommendations include Catherine D’Ignazio and Lauren Klein’s writing on the Data Feminism website; the work of entrepreneur Bonnie Chiu; and the Charity Evaluation Working Group, that has been running a series of events at the Equitable Evaluation Initiative in the US — their next event is in March.
- Database support: CRMs are a constant source of debate for many organisations, so we greatly appreciate Superhighways’ guide to Choosing a database for your small charity!
To find out more about the Data Collective and join, visit their website.
