Ambient data is produced unintentionally, without explicitly researching or evaluating anything. This data is produced continually in the routines of life and in the day-to-day operations of your agency. “Even when individuals do not have direct access to mobile phones or other technologies, they may still be passively emitting information as they go about their [...]

Since our last post on the Durfee Foundation, we’ve discovered four more funders of sabbaticals for EDs of nonprofit and NGO organizations. Barr Foundation (Boston), The Durfee Foundation (Los Angeles) Virginia G. Piper Charitable Trust (Phoenix) Rasmuson Foundation (Alaska) Alston/Bannerman Fellowship Program (U.S. national) A report on the success of these sabbaticals can be found [...]

“Funding Failure Since 1960″ is the internal tagline of the Durfee Foundation, joked Carrie Avery, President of the Durfee Foundation at GEO 2012.  The wisdom behind this is quite remarkable.   The Durfee Foundation, runs a program in which six people from diverse fields are funded for two years in order to “think deeply about the [...]

The latest issue of the Standford Social Innovation Review includes a must-read article by Paul Brest, the outgoing president of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation reflecting on the growing importance of strategic philanthropy over the last decade and its prospects for the future. “For all of the improved practices and new ideas of the [...]

Sample Size calculators online for sample size estimates

  The Center for Urban Pedagogy is a working example of innovative use of design and data for good.  They’ve got kids and teens and teachers and artists and politicians working together on public policy and civic engagement project.  They will train you to do it too. One of their coolest projects is “Know your [...]

Are you involved in a mandate or cause that is similar but not really the same as a number of other agencies?  For instance, does you organization target obesity in school-aged children while a neighboring agency works to reduce the number of children in your area living in poverty?  The collective impact paradigm would allow [...]

Visualization of data is becoming more and more important to communicate your program’s results.  I am often trying new software and looking for new ways to creatively look at the data from our organizations. Weave (Web-based Analysis and Visualization Environment) is out now in its Beta 1.0 and it seems to have a lot of potential.  [...]

Adam Gopnik has a new book out about, in part, the importance of eating food together.  His premise is essentially that goes on the dining table has never mattered as much to our lives as what goes on around it.  Gopnik’s book is very interesting and mainly aimed at people who can afford to stock [...]

“Comment is free,” wrote Guardian editor CP Scott in 1921, “but facts are sacred”.  This truism kicks off the Guardian’s new e-book on data journalism.  The short book, written by Simon Rogers and available for $3.99 at Amazon and iBooks, is a resource we’ve found extremely helpful in understanding data journalism; why it works and why [...]