Check out the Nonprofit Data Scorecard here.
Collaboration and team work are the engines that have made the Nonprofit Data Scorecard a reality. The energies of our small team of volunteers have begun to chip away at a few of the big questions facing the nonprofit world: How has the recession impacted NPO’s? Who are the holders of the data required for answering that question? How can that data be improved?
We’ve put together what we think is a robust and helpful Scorecard for ranking state nonprofit data sets and getting at some of those questions, but we hope that’s just the beginning of a longer, more participatory conversation about data availability. Because we’re humans – and just a small group with limited resources – we know that the best way to sharpen our work is to engage with you, the public, to question, contest, comment on and revise the data behind the Scorecard. So consider this an open source invitation – an invitation to take community ownership of the spirit behind the Scorecard, and to sharpen and improve the work we’ve presented thus far.
Key to the vision of Nonprofitmapping.org is a notion of active and total transparency, backed by a functional crowdsourcing strategy. So, in that spirit, we’ve shared with you the methodology behind the Scorecard’s creation, the entire data set from which it is sourced, and the tools we’ve used to present that data geospatially. We encourage you to check all that out, and leave constructive critiques, challenges, comments, and new information where warranted. Here’s how:
*Read our blog series on the Nonprofit Data Scorecard, and leave your comments at the bottom of posts.
*Visit the Scorecard page and click the “view data” button under the map. Have a look at the results for your state. If you feel you’ve got better information about a particular category -say, where to find better nonprofit statistics in that state – let us know! Click the “improve data” button below the map to send your feedback to the team for review.
*Share! On the Scorecard page, click the “embed” button to copy/paste the code behind the interactive map into your website or blog. If you’re a journalist or blogger, maybe you’ll find it a useful springboard to a larger discussion about government data. Or if you’re a state government employee, maybe you’d like to compare the quality of your state’s data set to others. And if you’re in the philanthropy or nonprofit community, maybe you’ll find the map useful for strategically connecting projects and funders.
*Mashup! We’ve provided all of our raw data in downloadable, spreadsheet format for folks who’d like to take it with them, combine it with other data, or churn out their own visualization. For tips on free and easy-to-use visualization tools, see this post on ManyEyes and this one on Fusion Tables.
We’d like to see the Scorecard become a community-built tool for changing the culture of nonprofit data. Help it happen by getting involved! Don’t hesitate to drop us an email at nonprofitmap@gmail.com with further questions – and don’t spare us your critiques!
Recent Comments