Application of Data Visualization best practices and improved data communication
Best Practices for Data Visualization
-
Upload
foundation-center -
Category
Documents
-
view
751 -
download
0
description
Transcript of Best Practices for Data Visualization
Putting Visualizations to Work
Jake GarciaGeographerThe Foundation CenterNew York, NY
NTEN WebinarJanuary 24, 2013
The Foundation Center
Leading source of information about philanthropy worldwide
• Information on more than 106,000 global foundations, corporate donors, and grantmaking public charities
• Database of 4.1 million grants
The Foundation Center
Aim to enhance grantmaker and nonprofit effectiveness through shared information and understanding
• Research reports and advisories on giving trends• Mapping tools• Custom, issue-based portals
- Economic crisis, U.S. education, funding after the Haiti earthquake
Aggregated dataU.S. foundation assets increased across the board in 1997.
Aggregated dataU.S. foundation assets decreased across the board in 2008
This is kinda compelling – but did it inform anyone, or help anybody make a decision?
John Snow’s cholera map, London, 1854
% change in stock prices,May 21 – June 14, 2012
APPLES&P 500
yahoo.finance.com
Results for philanthropy
Fundraising
Building awareness
Advocacy
Internal decision-making
Enabling collaborations
Analysis
Question
Fundraising
Building awareness
Advocacy
Internal decision-making
Enabling collaborations
Analysis
What do you, or would you, use visualizations for?
It all starts with Open Data
In regard to U.S.-based philanthropy, our datasets originate from tax forms that foundations submit to the U.S. government.
The government, in turn, makes the completed forms available to the public.
…but the data requires curation
Data extractionOccasionally requires optical character recognition (OCR)
Data coding • Internal subject taxonomy includes 1,100 codes.• Recipient type• Population codes• Location of recipients as well as location of projects
This curation might require ~60,000 hours of labor* each year.
The Foundation Center employs over 120 people, around 30 of whom are exclusively dedicated to the gathering, cleaning, coding, entry, and analysis of data.
* this is a very rough estimate, based on a 2,000-hour work-year and assumes no fluctuation in job tasks and staffing levels
Ideally, we’d have granular indicator data…(NYC census blocks, 2010)
Demographic Analysis
Demographic Analysis
Internal decision-making, collaborations, analysis
Jake GarciaGeographerThe Foundation CenterNew York, NY
2,809 foundation grants,$477.2 million(80% for Disaster Relief)
338 WB project locations,$326 million
(35% for Transportation)
FC and World Bank dataNo Ag/Forestry project funding in Angola, 2001 to 2007
2003 2005 2007
Foundation funding around the world
Case studies
Case studies
Q: Can we show the impact of all foundation-funded activity related to water, sanitation, and hygiene?
Collaboration
Collaboration
Collaboration, decision-making
Collaboration, decision-making
FC and OECD dataViewing funding details: Kenya
Grant records
OECD funding
Financial benchmarking, decision-making
Exploratory data analysis
Exploratory data analysis
Which data set has a more completelisting of Chinese cities?
Exploratory data analysis
The meaning and message of the data is important, not just how awesome the visualization looks. *
-- is it accurate?
-- did it help sustain the author’s argument?
-- did it help you (or anyone else) make a decision?
* Although, it really helps if it looks awesome, too.
Conclusions
In the process of attempting to assess the overall impact of foundation funding (still one of our long-term goals), we’ve begun to make progress in related areas:
•Helping create a more complete picture of philanthropic projects around the world. Mapping helps identify gaps and overlap in funding.
•Helping non-profits find foundations that might be interested in their work
•Enabling collaboration between donor institutions
•Inspiring better data standards, particularly the submission of better geographic and outcomes-related data from foundations, and participation in the IATI standard
…back to John Snow
Thanks! Questions?
Jake GarciaGeographerThe Foundation CenterNew York, NY