Presenting Data to Funders Ethically
Lauren D. Nye
Director of Operations
Association for Neighborhood & Housing Development
The demand for large data sets that indicate progress or project success is often accompanied by requests for several individual success stories that clearly demonstrate the impact of donor funding on an individual’s trajectory. While data can provide important insights into successful strategies for funding, it can also misrepresent the experiences and needs of the target beneficiaries.
Lauren D. Nye, Director of Operations at the Association for Neighborhood & Housing Development (ANHD), recalls an experience in which she was encouraged to read a grant proposal as though she were the recipient of the services provided; how would she feel? “I’ve looked at writing in a new way,” says Nye. An example she points to is the assumption that low-income people must have poor financial literacy skills.
Another example is the difficulty of gathering and utilizing data on mental health, which she recognizes “is not easily translatable into numbers.” This kind of data can be particularly difficult for funders and grantees to reckon with because it can often show non-linear progression. “I’m hopeful that a combination of quantitative and qualitative data will even out the seeming ‘roller-coaster’ between the seeming progress and lack of progress incremental data might show,” says Nye. “Funding a homeless youth program is worthwhile, even though not everybody gains stability through one three-month program. You don’t suddenly become not a runaway, not someone who has experienced homelessness. Especially when the system is rigged against you, when there are not enough beds and not enough housing to transition into and then wealth inequality and employment stagnation and increasing housing prices-- it’s not that easy.” As Nye explains, the onus should be on organizations to account for the steps they are taking to improve and expand services, rather than on individuals for utilizing them in ways that the organization deems successful. “Data should always be in service of something that’s going to be helpful, says Nye. “That’s why you always need to be questioning who’s the winner, who’s the loser in this retelling of the story; after a certain point, it ceases to benefit the most vulnerable.”
While collecting individual-level data is important to push back against the systems that have been built against certain demographics, organizations should also tie their data collection to specific goals in order to obtain the most useful data for their projects. Nye sees a growing transformation in the way that funders look at data. “There’s a growing segment of funders who really get it, who want to know who they might have left out of the conversation, who want to advocate for these people left out of traditional datasets with those higher up in their organizations. I feel like these are our best funder relationships.