Data Visualization
Purposefully and effectively sharing data requires thoughtful design.
Overly complicated visualizations can be difficult to understand, while intentional and intuitive visualizations help viewers follow your story and clearly receive your message. Storytelling through data visualization, or “dataviz,” is one of the most effective ways to gain support for a cause or to share the successes and failures of a program or initiative.
Our staff possess deep knowledge of data visualization techniques, and a creative drive to maximize the communication power of data and findings. If you are looking to bridge the gap between spreadsheets and effective visual explanations, we can help.
We partner with foundations and nonprofit organizations to evaluate a wide range of projects. In this section, we provide a sampling of both current and past work.
US Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM)
Innovation Network supported USHMM’s Planning and Evaluation staff in the early stages of developing and implementing an internal outcomes tracking approach. Working alongside USHMM staff, we collaborated to refine their measures, prepare data collection approaches, assist in analysis, and refine data visualization presentations. We also developed and implemented a small study of outcomes associated with the USHMM Mandel Center fellowship program. As part of our engagement, we served as a thought partner and adviser to Planning and Evaluation staff as they worked to institutionalize and deepen USHMM’s approach to program-level outcomes tracking and performance management.
Grantmakers for Effective Organizations (GEO)
Innovation Network advised Grantmakers for Effective Organizations (GEO) in the dataviz design of their 2014 publication, Is Grantmaking Getting Smarter? Our role involved reviewing their data and dataviz drafts to develop original visuals for their data and to critique the visuals produced by their staff. GEO’s field study (the research that leads to publications like Is Grantmaking Getting Smarter?) is an ongoing research project, and the 2014 report marked a point at which they wanted to increase their use of data visualizations to improve the report’s communication power. Dataviz was used throughout the report to highlight key findings and increase the readability of the data.
State of Evaluation
Our State of Evaluation project is the first project that systematically and repeatedly collects data from a sample of nonprofits about their evaluation practices. The 2016 data comes from 1,125 responses nationwide, and required appropriate visualizations to help viewers make sense of the variety of questions and responses. You can read more about the project here.
Selected clients include:
