Data Placemats: Engaging Nonprofit Dashboards

Collecting and analyzing data to inform strategic decisions is a core value of data-driven nonprofits and individuals. Although sometimes seen as secondary to the use of data, although equally important, is the need to report on data to stakeholders, including the board of directors.

“Presenting data in a digestible format can go a long way to telling the story of the great work an organization is doing while getting buy in to current and even future programming,” says Virginia Potter of the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation and Good Measure Steering Committee member.

Presenting data can seem like an arduous task: cleaning, visualizing and annotating so that it is easily understood by a variety of stakeholders, who may have varying knowledge of evaluation and of your programs. Traditionally, many nonprofits present data through a series of PowerPoint presentations featuring graphs and key findings.

The team at Communities In Schools of Central Texas has taken a comprehensive approach to sharing information by supplementing presentations with the use of data placemats to extend the feedback loop with their board and funders.

Data placemats are a data presentation technique with the goal of encouraging not only an understanding of the numbers, but also engagement with the data and self- and group-exploration of findings.

As part of their 2018-2019 annual report to the board of directors, Communities In Schools’ Kaylee Lawrence facilitated a conversation regarding the organization’s successes—and areas of improvement—with their leadership team.

An Inquisitive Data Analysis

The board members were arranged into small groups, with each person given a placemat that displayed information on various measurement areas, including student academics, attendance and behavior. The data was presented simply, with about three graphs per page, and offered leading questions such as:

What does this data tell you?

What surprises you about this data?

Does this lead to any new questions?

They were gracious to share the placemats with Good Measure. The goal is to provide information without drawing conclusions. Rather than taking findings at face value, board members were asked to look at the graphs, interpret the data themselves and ask questions. The process of incorporating this evaluative thinking, rather than jumping to the point, brings about new insights and focus.

“We’ve been encouraging our board to engage more with the information that we have. We want to make sure we’re holding ourselves accountable and being transparent about our organization’s outcomes,” says Kaylee Lawrence, Director of Performance Measurement and Reporting.

Each person was assigned a role and the groups were organized to bring in mixed perspectives, which offered new ideas and prevented lulls in conversation. Kaylee allowed time for individual reflection, group discussion and then questions to a panel of subject matter experts on staff—a process often referred to as “think, pair, share.”

“We found this was an effective way to walk the board through the story of our annual outcomes. We talked about success but also about areas that didn’t look as great. We were able to lean on board member expertise to approach issues in the programming differently,” adds Kaylee.

Board members who had particular interests in certain areas were able to ask thoughtful, focused questions. This gave Communities In Schools the opportunity to dig into information through a different lens. It also offered a bigger picture of the state of affairs to the board.

Kaylee describes the content as surface-level+, all the basic information that aligns to their outcome data, plus a little extra. And any specific questions allow them to dive deep into areas beyond the dashboard.

Communities In Schools Central Texas uses feedback from board members, funders and other stakeholders to help inform their strategic plan and prepare future presentations that hone in on the questions that were generated. Their CEO has also shared the placemats with funders, including the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation.

“Taking a step back when looking at data is really important to building relationships with funders, board and other stakeholders in the community. We treat the feedback loop as a collaborative learning and growth opportunity,” says Kaylee.

Takeaways in Creating a Data Placemat

One of the central pieces of the exercise is to purposefully avoid being too leading. By removing a person’s opinion of data and subjectivity, you end up learning more, including sometimes unexpected findings. It also allows an organization to be more adaptive to its audience, since details that the board may be interested in are different than staff, leadership or funders, for example.

The individual- and team-reflection time within groups of mixed perspectives creates opportunities for each person to interpret the data in different ways, bringing in unique areas of interest and expertise. Stakeholders become active participants and are better able to digest the data, its meaning and its importance.

It can be hard to show the good and not-so-good data. Some nonprofits can be fearful of “showing all their cards” and having to explain the intricacies of fluctuations in data. However, the board guides strategic decisions for a nonprofit and should get a full depth of understanding. The more they know, the better data-informed decisions they’ll make.

When you’re able to present information in a reflective way, it becomes easier to maintain the quality and frequency of the feedback loop. An engaging dashboard or data placemat may be a good place to start.