3 PowerPoint Laws to Always Obey

Reposted from April 2019

Charts, graphs, and maps often make their debut in PowerPoint presentations (or the like.) This is a problem. A bad PowerPoint can kill even a great data visualization.

We already know PowerPoints are a problem. We have napped through many of them in our careers. And we even know, when we are on the creating end, that they shouldn’t be text heavy. But we don’t know what else to do besides typing in a few bullet points and pasting in some bad clip art.

Since I’m committed to giving you something useful in 60-second portions, this week I give you my top three PowerPoint laws (yes laws – you might not take mere recommendations as seriously, and this is important!)

Law #1: Slides are for seeing. Think about the last subtitled movie you saw. Did you miss a lot of the action while reading? Research shows we are quite good at simultaneously processing pictures and spoken words. But our brains go on overdrive when processing pictures plus written text – like during subtitled movies. And our brains can completely shut down when processing written text plus spoken words, which is what we ask audiences to do during our Powerpoints.* So move those bullet points to your script or speaking notes and use a well-designed data visualization or a great photo.

Law #2: Portion control. The hard truth is that our audience members are going to walk away from our presentation retaining just a few ideas whether we like it or not. If we shower them with ten, twenty, thirty ideas, we don’t control which ones they retain. So choose just a few and weed out the rest. Then feature only one idea per slide. And go easy on the charts, maps, and graphs. They are more difficult to process than photos or illustrations, so give your viewers a cognitive break between charts.

Law #3: Obey visual hierarchy. Remember what Antoine de Saint-Exupery said: “Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” Simplify your slides with one compelling image or one chart, map, or graph (which, itself, has been stripped down to what is necessary). Make sure there is plenty of empty space around the image or chart to give it prominence. Then enlarge only the most important elements while reducing the size of the rest. Similarly, use color sparingly to draw attention to the most important aspects of the slide. And for much more on visual hierarchy, check out this great article on Canva.

* For more on this, check out Moreno and Mayer’s studies on multimedia learning.

Photos by NeONBRAND and Cody Davis on Unsplash

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Let’s talk about YOUR data!

Got the feeling that you and your colleagues would use your data more effectively if you could see it better? Data Viz for Nonprofits (DVN) can help you get the ball rolling with an interactive data dashboard and beautiful charts, maps, and graphs for your next presentation, report, proposal, or webpage. Through a short-term consultation, we can help you to clarify the questions you want to answer and goals you want to track. DVN then visualizes your data to address those questions and track those goals.

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Lighten Cognitive Load, Boost Clarity: Smarter Data Visualizations for Nonprofits

When visualizing data, we should always consider cognitive load. What’s that? It’s the mental effort required to process information. There are two types of cognitive load: extraneous and intrinsic. Let's consider each in relation to data visualizations.

• Extraneous cognitive load concerns how information is presented. There's a lot we can do to reduce the extraneous cognitive load of a chart.

• Intrinsic cognitive load concerns the complexity of the information being shared. You can reduce intrinsic load only by altering what is being learned or by changing the knowledge levels of learners.

We can reduce the extraneous cognitive load of any chart through careful choices about titles, annotations, colors, use of white space, etc. But we are much more limited in what we can do to reduce the intrinsic cognitive load of a chart. I’d argue that the primary thing we can do is to choose a chart type that does not increase the intrinsic load by requiring the viewer to learn how to read the chart. So familiar or intuitive chart types usually work best.

Let's consider this data dashboard in terms of cognitive load. It has several different chart types.

Source: Global CO2 Dashboard – Powered by Tableau Agent #VOTD by Harim Jung

The bar charts impose a fairly low intrinsic and extraneous cognitive load. We already know how to read a bar chart. They each show one measure which we probably can understand, such as C02 global share or CO2 per GDP across several years. And the compositions and colors aid interpretation. The cumulative carbon clock, however, is a different story. It may grab our attention with its novelty. It's a radial column chart (aka circular column graph or star graph.) But most of us will have to figure out how to read this chart using the color and shape legends to understand what the chart is showing and how it is showing it. I also find the circular shape, which usually suggests some type of cycle, confusing because there is no cycle inherent to this data. I think the costs of the radial column chart outweigh its benefits.

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Let’s talk about YOUR data!

Got the feeling that you and your colleagues would use your data more effectively if you could see it better? Data Viz for Nonprofits (DVN) can help you get the ball rolling with an interactive data dashboard and beautiful charts, maps, and graphs for your next presentation, report, proposal, or webpage. Through a short-term consultation, we can help you to clarify the questions you want to answer and goals you want to track. DVN then visualizes your data to address those questions and track those goals.

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What Is Data, How Do You Say It, and Is It Singular or Plural? (Asking for a Friend)

Feel free to share this with your “friend.”

What is data?
Data is raw information—facts, numbers, or observations that haven't been analyzed yet. For nonprofits, this can take many forms, such as:

• The number of attendees at your last fundraising event,

• Donation amounts,

• Volunteer hours logged, or

• Survey responses from program participants

These are all data points. On their own, they don’t say much. But when you organize and analyze them, they become information—like knowing that donations spike after your newsletter goes out, or that volunteers stay longer when they receive training.

How do you pronounce it?
Americans lean toward day-tuh while Brits and “serious science types” may prefer dah-tuh.

Is it singular or plural?
Purists say data is plural (the singular is datum, a word used only by archaeologists and robots). But in everyday English, data acts like a singular noun. Example: “The data is confusing.” Also valid: “The data are confusing.”

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Let’s talk about YOUR data!

Got the feeling that you and your colleagues would use your data more effectively if you could see it better? Data Viz for Nonprofits (DVN) can help you get the ball rolling with an interactive data dashboard and beautiful charts, maps, and graphs for your next presentation, report, proposal, or webpage. Through a short-term consultation, we can help you to clarify the questions you want to answer and goals you want to track. DVN then visualizes your data to address those questions and track those goals.

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The 10-Charts Strategy

I’ve been noticing a possible trend among news outlets: covering an issue, often a complex one, using ten charts. Here’s an example. This strategy could work well for nonprofits. Organizations can explain a need they are addressing or show their impact during the past year in ten charts. I can see it elevating presentations, websites, and reports because:

• Just alerting folks that you are going to explain, explore, or enlighten in ten charts seems to pique interest in reviewing each one of the charts, at least briefly.

• The strategy allows you to shed light on an issue or topic from different angles.

• Numbered subtitles allow you to provide ten key takeaways with the charts providing more detail for interested readers.

Of course, the charts should be well-designed so that their meaning can be easily extracted and digested. Give it a try. And let me know if you’d like some help with it.

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Let’s talk about YOUR data!

Got the feeling that you and your colleagues would use your data more effectively if you could see it better? Data Viz for Nonprofits (DVN) can help you get the ball rolling with an interactive data dashboard and beautiful charts, maps, and graphs for your next presentation, report, proposal, or webpage. Through a short-term consultation, we can help you to clarify the questions you want to answer and goals you want to track. DVN then visualizes your data to address those questions and track those goals.

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Avoid This Danger When Choosing Metrics

Reposted from July 2019

I’m all about making data clear and easy-to-digest. But there is a danger in it. The clarity may cause you to accept what the data seems to tell you. You may not linger. You may not reflect.

Writer Margaret J. Wheatley warns us that “without reflection, we go blindly on our way, creating more unintended consequences, and failing to achieve anything useful.”

Economist Charles Goodhart recognized this danger in the metrics we create to measure our progress. At first, a certain metric may seem like a good indicator of progress. If we want kids in an after-school track program to increase their endurance, we might measure how far they run at the beginning of the program and then again at the end.  Makes sense, right? We might then try to motivate students by offering them free running shorts if they increase their miles by a certain amount. But, that’s when students might start gaming the system. They can increase their miles not only by training hard and running farther over time but also by running very short distances at the start. This is the kind of unintended consequence that Goodhart warned us about. His law states: “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.” 

The solution? First, reflection. Consider the potential unintended consequences of each of your metrics, particularly those tied to incentives. Second, use multiple metrics to provide a more balanced understanding of progress.  In our running example, in addition to the change in miles participants run, you might also measure resting heart rates at the beginning and end of the program, knowing that a lower resting heart rate generally indicates a higher level of cardiovascular fitness.

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Let’s talk about YOUR data!

Got the feeling that you and your colleagues would use your data more effectively if you could see it better? Data Viz for Nonprofits (DVN) can help you get the ball rolling with an interactive data dashboard and beautiful charts, maps, and graphs for your next presentation, report, proposal, or webpage. Through a short-term consultation, we can help you to clarify the questions you want to answer and goals you want to track. DVN then visualizes your data to address those questions and track those goals.

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How to Make Charts That Are Not Confusing

When clients ask me for a better way to show their data, it often becomes clear that they want something other than a bar chart. They hope that I will offer them some cool-looking chart that will captivate their stakeholders. There are, indeed, many interesting charts out there such as the ones pictured here.

Sources: APT: Voices For Human Dignity (1984-2024) | #VFSG | #VOTD by Arshi Saleh, Violin Chart Demo by Chinmay Jain, Parallel Coordinates Radar Chart by Andy Kriebel

But I always encourage my clients to consider how long it will take folks to learn how to read the chart using instructions and legends, then grasp the data in the chart, and finally remember what they saw. Unless the chart type is familiar or highly intuitive, it’s probably not worth it. Instead, I encourage them to focus on well-designed, visually-engaging charts that are also intuitive or familiar. Here are some 60-second data tips that can help:

• How to hack a bar chart: I offer up eight bar chart hacks that make this trusty yet (sometimes) boring chart more interesting. See links below.

• Data viz makeovers. Here are 10 art rules that elevate any data viz.

• Chart types. To explore different chart types and what they are each good for, check out tips under “Chart Types” on the index/search page on the website.

I recently watched “Charts That Confuse Us” from a great series called “Chart Chat.” You might want to check that out too.

Bar Chart Hacks

Bar Chart Hack #1: The Divergent Stacked Bar Chart

Bar Chart Hack #2: The Icon Bar Chart

Bar Chart Hack #3: The Combo Chart

Bar Chart Hack #4: Radial Charts

Bar Chart Hack #5: Fine Tuning

Bar Chart Hack #6: The Funnel Chart

Bar Chart Hack #7: The Lollipop Chart

Bar Chart Hack #8: Double Duty Stacked Bars

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Let’s talk about YOUR data!

Got the feeling that you and your colleagues would use your data more effectively if you could see it better? Data Viz for Nonprofits (DVN) can help you get the ball rolling with an interactive data dashboard and beautiful charts, maps, and graphs for your next presentation, report, proposal, or webpage. Through a short-term consultation, we can help you to clarify the questions you want to answer and goals you want to track. DVN then visualizes your data to address those questions and track those goals.

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Wait, What? Numbers That Bewilder

Reposted from July 2019

Numbers can bewilder our hunter-gatherer brains. For more than 95 percent of human history, folks were not processing written numbers or words. But they were processing visual information in the form of color, shape, and size. It’s not surprising that our brains, evolved over many thousands of years, are better at understanding data in visual form than in word and number form. So when numbers confuse, try “translating” them to the visual.

Here’s a great example of a number that makes me scratch my head: “54% more students with monitors improved attendance than students without monitors.” The statement relates to a fictional program that (like some non-fictional programs) pairs students with monitors to boost their attendance. At first blush, to me, that sounds pretty impressive. It sounds like this: if 10% of the students without monitors improved their attendance, then 64% (10% + 54%) with monitors improved their attendance. Or, put another way, six times as many kids with monitors improved their attendance as kids without monitors.

But my brain just made a wrong turn. That 54% is showing what statisticians call “relative difference.” And the problem with this type of stat is that indicators with low values have a tendency to produce large relative differences even when the “absolute difference” is small.

Okay, still bewildered? No worries, I give you now a picture for your primitive brain. Let’s say, in our fictional program, there are 10 students per class. In one class, all of the kids got paired with monitors. In the other class, none of the kids did. The picture below shows how many kids in each class improved their attendance.

So the difference (aka “absolute difference”) is 1.4 (4.0-2.6) which means that 1.4 more kids in the class with monitors improved their attendance. How did that measly 1.4 become 54%? Well, relative difference is calculated as the absolute difference divided by the “standard” which, in this case, is the class without monitors. So 4.0 minus 2.6 divided by 2.6 or .54, which when expressed as a percentage is 54%.

If relative difference requires varsity level processing for many of us, then percentages are junior varsity. So if I were visualizing the difference between the two groups, I would stay away from both and use an icon chart, like the one above. I might make it even more concrete by showing 25 person icons in each group since the typical elementary school classroom has 25 students. I would then use color to show that 6.5 students out of 25 without monitors had improved attendance and 10 students out of 25 with monitors had improved attendance. So, if you bring the program to a typical classroom, you might expect it to improve the attendance of an additional 3 to 4 kids.

Bottom line? Numbers can be like road signs pointing us in the wrong direction. To move folks in the right direction, make your message concrete and visible.

See other data tips in this series for more information on how to effectively visualize and make good use of your organization's data.

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Let’s talk about YOUR data!

Got the feeling that you and your colleagues would use your data more effectively if you could see it better? Data Viz for Nonprofits (DVN) can help you get the ball rolling with an interactive data dashboard and beautiful charts, maps, and graphs for your next presentation, report, proposal, or webpage. Through a short-term consultation, we can help you to clarify the questions you want to answer and goals you want to track. DVN then visualizes your data to address those questions and track those goals.

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Take Some Tips From The Information is Beautiful Awards

My tip for this week is to check out the Information is Beautiful (IIB) Awards’ longlist of nominees for 2024. IMO, there are some great ones here but also some beautiful-yet-confusing ones. Take a look at the 2024 vizzes in the Humanitarian longlist. I found the following three particularly inspiring. Click on the images below for more information.

Great way to provide context

The circles help us to understand the dramatic reduction in deaths due to natural disasters in the 21st century, particularly in areas harder-hit by disasters in the past, such as Asia. Of course, most of the 21st century is ahead of us, so the size of the circles will change over time.

Helpful Color Coding

This data dashboard uses consistent color coding across charts with cool tones indicating type of incident and warm tones indicating gender.

Effective Chart Type

Each circle in this beeswarm chart represents one of more than 13,000 incidents where at least one migrant died or went missing. The circle's size indicates the number of people affected. It provides a sobering understanding of the magnitude of the problem over time and across regions.

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Let’s talk about YOUR data!

Got the feeling that you and your colleagues would use your data more effectively if you could see it better? Data Viz for Nonprofits (DVN) can help you get the ball rolling with an interactive data dashboard and beautiful charts, maps, and graphs for your next presentation, report, proposal, or webpage. Through a short-term consultation, we can help you to clarify the questions you want to answer and goals you want to track. DVN then visualizes your data to address those questions and track those goals.

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Data Viz Resources You Should Know: Dabbling in the Data

Here’s a new addition to my highly-curated resources list: Dabbling in the Data. I occasionally write a 60-second data tip describing a particular resource, including why I think it’s cool. And I link each of these tips to a resources list on my website.

What is it?

Dabbling in the Data is a free participatory evaluation guide that provides hands-on, practical group activities and techniques that will help organizations make sense of data. Each of the activities described in the guide includes the types of situations the method is best suited for, step-by-step instructions for facilitators, and suggested adaptations. This guide was expanded in late 2024 with new activities, tools, virtual adaptations, and playlists for mixed methods.

Who’s it for?

Nonprofit manager, evaluators, or anyone who wants to improve the analysis of data by involving multiple interest holders who bring multiple perspectives to the interpretation of data. Group analysis also helps group members to understand the importance of data to their work.

Who’s behind it?

Public Profit, an independent evaluation consultancy that works with nonprofits, foundations, schools, and governments to help them use data more effectively.

Why I think it’s cool

The activities provide both meaningful and fun ways to engage with data. This guide can help anyone in an organization to understand and influence the paths among data, findings, and action.

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Let’s talk about YOUR data!

Got the feeling that you and your colleagues would use your data more effectively if you could see it better? Data Viz for Nonprofits (DVN) can help you get the ball rolling with an interactive data dashboard and beautiful charts, maps, and graphs for your next presentation, report, proposal, or webpage. Through a short-term consultation, we can help you to clarify the questions you want to answer and goals you want to track. DVN then visualizes your data to address those questions and track those goals.

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Ideas You Should Steal From This Viz (Installment 15)

“All creative work builds on what came before.” —Austin Kleon in Steal Like An Artist.

Today I offer up another steal-worthy interactive viz. This one is from the New York Times. See a snapshot of this interactive map (with some embellishments) above but definitely follow the link to give it a spin for yourself. Now, you may be thinking: “The New York Times is the Grand Poobah of data visualization. I can’t do what they do.” But you can! Actually, what they are doing here is pretty simple and can be done easily with drag-and-drop tools like Tableau.

Here’s what I suggest you steal from this viz:

• Make it personal. The map allows you to zoom in on an area of interest to you to see how the issue may affect you or those you know.

• Multiple perspectives. The map provides three lenses on the location of fatal shootings which help you put the data into context:

  • The number of shootings near each block from 2020 to 2023;

  • The change in shootings since 2016-19; and

  • The racial makeup of areas affected by gun violence.

To see past data tips, click HERE.

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Let’s talk about YOUR data!

Got the feeling that you and your colleagues would use your data more effectively if you could see it better? Data Viz for Nonprofits (DVN) can help you get the ball rolling with an interactive data dashboard and beautiful charts, maps, and graphs for your next presentation, report, proposal, or webpage. Through a short-term consultation, we can help you to clarify the questions you want to answer and goals you want to track. DVN then visualizes your data to address those questions and track those goals.

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Do Data Dashboards Pay Off?

I haven’t come across much research on the effectiveness of dashboards for organizations. So I thought I’d share this one with you from MIT. Okay, it’s from the for-profit sector. BUT, it does give you something to chew on. Based on a survey of 1,311 companies, the researchers found that those that were better at using data dashboards were also better at other things like innovation and growth. If you are thinking, “Well, that’s correlation rather than causation,” then I’m glad. Maybe these data tips are making an impact.

However, their research does suggest that something about using dashboards could be paying off for companies. Based on their analyses, which included a case study of one company, the researchers suggest that one reason "dashboarding” appears effective is that:

“Everybody in the company gets to see how it is doing against agreed-upon metrics and works together to make course corrections when necessary.”

The process of getting everyone on board with using a dashboard, they note, can take awhile. They also contend that the best dashboards focus not only on what value is created but also on how that value is created. So although their findings are only suggestive, they do jibe with common sense.

Many nonprofits have shifted their data collection to focus on metrics that help to asses their processes and impacts. Fewer, it seems, are effectively using dashboards to look at those metrics everyday and discuss patterns, trends, and benchmarks, and make course corrections along the way.

Creating customized interactive dashboards isn’t as hard as it sounds and can even be created with free applications like Tableau Public. If you’d like to set up a free consultation to explore this idea with me, please do.

To see past data tips, click HERE.

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Let’s talk about YOUR data!

Got the feeling that you and your colleagues would use your data more effectively if you could see it better? Data Viz for Nonprofits (DVN) can help you get the ball rolling with an interactive data dashboard and beautiful charts, maps, and graphs for your next presentation, report, proposal, or webpage. Through a short-term consultation, we can help you to clarify the questions you want to answer and goals you want to track. DVN then visualizes your data to address those questions and track those goals.

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How To Present Data More Effectively For Your Audience (aka The Human Mind)

We hear a lot about applying data to action. But for data to make an impact, it must first take a journey through the human mind. Understanding that journey helps us to consume and present data so that the mind can actually see, grasp, remember, and apply it. Here's a preview of the first few slides of my upcoming webinar on this topic: How To Present Data More Effectively For Your Audience (aka The Human Mind).

Want to know what a dog spitting out a pill has to do with data presentations? Then join me on March 17th. Sign up HERE. Use code 'friend10' for $10 off registration.

To see past data tips, click HERE.

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Let’s talk about YOUR data!

Got the feeling that you and your colleagues would use your data more effectively if you could see it better? Data Viz for Nonprofits (DVN) can help you get the ball rolling with an interactive data dashboard and beautiful charts, maps, and graphs for your next presentation, report, proposal, or webpage. Through a short-term consultation, we can help you to clarify the questions you want to answer and goals you want to track. DVN then visualizes your data to address those questions and track those goals.

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Is AI Overkill and Wasteful for Nonprofits?

Food for thought. Most nonprofits don’t need AI tools to deal with their data. Using it to calculate a simple average is like “using a bazooka to swat a fly,’ according to Chitra Sundaram in her article Beyond the hype: Do you really need an LLM for your data?* The sixty-second version of her article is: what most for-profit and nonprofit organizations need are clear data visualizations, descriptive analytics (such as trends and KPIs), and user-friendly data dashboards. And we already have excellent tools for these tasks including Tableau, Qlik and Power BI. Moreover, AI tools are resource hogs. We should focus instead on sustainable IT which is about “optimizing resources, minimizing waste, and choosing the right-sized solution.” When is an AI tool worth it? Sundaram says: when you are working with very complex, unstructured data such as text, voice, or images. Not when you are dealing with structured data (i.e. data in spreadsheets and databases) on participants, donors, or financials, as most nonprofits are.

To see past data tips, click HERE.

*LLM stands for large language models which are a type of AI (artificial intelligence).

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Let’s talk about YOUR data!

Got the feeling that you and your colleagues would use your data more effectively if you could see it better? Data Viz for Nonprofits (DVN) can help you get the ball rolling with an interactive data dashboard and beautiful charts, maps, and graphs for your next presentation, report, proposal, or webpage. Through a short-term consultation, we can help you to clarify the questions you want to answer and goals you want to track. DVN then visualizes your data to address those questions and track those goals.

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Data Viz Inspo

Looking for ways to make your data more engaging? Take inspiration from these data tips on steal-worthy visualizations. Click on the images below to see the whole visualization and get suggestions on what to steal from it.

To see past data tips, including those about other chart types, scroll down or click HERE.

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Let’s talk about YOUR data!

Got the feeling that you and your colleagues would use your data more effectively if you could see it better? Data Viz for Nonprofits (DVN) can help you get the ball rolling with an interactive data dashboard and beautiful charts, maps, and graphs for your next presentation, report, proposal, or webpage. Through a short-term consultation, we can help you to clarify the questions you want to answer and goals you want to track. DVN then visualizes your data to address those questions and track those goals.

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It's Love Data Week!

What’s that?

Love Data Week is an international celebration of data, taking place every year during the week of Valentine's Day. Nonprofit organizations, universities, government agencies, corporations and individuals are encouraged to host and participate in data-related events and activities.

What’s in it for me?

Lots of free online events, many of which are relevant to nonprofit work such as workshops on data visualization, infographics, data resources, data privacy, etc. See the full list of events.

To see past data tips, click HERE.

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Let’s talk about YOUR data!

Got the feeling that you and your colleagues would use your data more effectively if you could see it better? Data Viz for Nonprofits (DVN) can help you get the ball rolling with an interactive data dashboard and beautiful charts, maps, and graphs for your next presentation, report, proposal, or webpage. Through a short-term consultation, we can help you to clarify the questions you want to answer and goals you want to track. DVN then visualizes your data to address those questions and track those goals.

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One Of The Most Popular Data Viz Technologies May Surprise You

According to the State of The Data Viz Industry Survey, the percent of respondents who used “pen and paper” to create charts, maps, and graphs ranged between 25 and 31 percent from 2019 to 2022 but then shot up to 58 percent in 2023 and 60 percent in 2024. This was the biggest increase of any of the technologies including Power BI, Tableau, and Excel. With so many applications out there to create sleek data visualizations, why are so many drawn to this low-tech, old-school technique?

The short answer is: I don’t know. But I have some ideas . . .

Hand-drawn visualizations are relatable.

We humans seem to be drawn to anything that suggests humanness. Pata Gogova’s What is (not) love? visualization mixes hand-drawn elements with charts created with Tableau to effectively draw our attention to certain aspects of the visualization. “A handmade visualisation can lend a feeling of friendliness to a story,” notes Amelia McNara, “Quite often, computer-generated visualisations feel sterile and can be inaccessible to certain audiences.”

Source: Pata Gogova on Tableau Public

Hand-drawn visualizations suggest uncertainty.

In her Ted Talk called 3 Ways To Spot A Bad Stat, Mona Chalabi emphasizes the importance of showing uncertainty when presenting data. She does that by using hand-drawn charts like the one below. Its unpolished look perhaps prevents viewers from unconsciously accepting what is shown. The result may appear more honest than a sleek presentation with all the requisite disclaimers about the limitations of the data in small type below the chart.

Source: Mona Chalabi on Ted Talks

Hand-drawn visualizations aid exploration.

They aren’t limited by an application’s capabilities and thus allow you to think outside the box plot, bar chart, or line graph. And, as Stefani Posavec and Georgia Lupi (who have written several books on visualizing personal data by hand) note, drawing aids memory. Even if you end up visualizing your data digitally, beginning with a pen and paper will help you to explore and absorb your data.

Source: flickr

To see past data tips, click HERE.

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Let’s talk about YOUR data!

Got the feeling that you and your colleagues would use your data more effectively if you could see it better? Data Viz for Nonprofits (DVN) can help you get the ball rolling with an interactive data dashboard and beautiful charts, maps, and graphs for your next presentation, report, proposal, or webpage. Through a short-term consultation, we can help you to clarify the questions you want to answer and goals you want to track. DVN then visualizes your data to address those questions and track those goals.

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Top 10 Data Tips of 2024

Here are the top ten reader favorites of 2024, in case you missed them. Looking forward to sharing more 60-Second Data Tips with you in 2025.

To see past data tips, click HERE.

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Let’s talk about YOUR data!

Got the feeling that you and your colleagues would use your data more effectively if you could see it better? Data Viz for Nonprofits (DVN) can help you get the ball rolling with an interactive data dashboard and beautiful charts, maps, and graphs for your next presentation, report, proposal, or webpage. Through a short-term consultation, we can help you to clarify the questions you want to answer and goals you want to track. DVN then visualizes your data to address those questions and track those goals.

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What's Fundamental to Quality Data?

In their Harvard Business Review article How to Make Everyone Great at Data, Thomas Redman and Donna Burbank describe how companies and nonprofits, despite good intentions, get data wrong due to:

• the way they enter data into databases,

• perverse incentives around data, and

• general distrust of data among employees.

How can organizations get data right? Redman and Burbank sum it up as follows:

I can think of no better way to show staff how the data they collect and input influences decision-making than to visualize that data. Show them a chart with a trend and then ask questions like these:

• Does this trend look right?

• Do our data entry procedures appear to have affected the data and thus the trend? If so, what can we improve?

• What concerns do you have about basing decisions on this trend?

• Assuming the trend is correct, what might we do differently based on what the trend is showing? What other data would help us to make this decision?

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Let’s talk about YOUR data!

Got the feeling that you and your colleagues would use your data more effectively if you could see it better? Data Viz for Nonprofits (DVN) can help you get the ball rolling with an interactive data dashboard and beautiful charts, maps, and graphs for your next presentation, report, proposal, or webpage. Through a short-term consultation, we can help you to clarify the questions you want to answer and goals you want to track. DVN then visualizes your data to address those questions and track those goals.

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The Average Nonprofit Overuses Averages

I’ve warned of the danger of averages before. Yet, I continue to see nonprofits defaulting to averages when they show data about their clients, participants, volunteers, fundraising, etc. So here’s another warning.

The visualization below (which, by the way, is called a bump chart), does a great job of illustrating the danger of averages. In this chart, average wealth is the wealth of a country’s people divided by the size of its population. The median is the middle value when everyone’s wealth is arranged in order. So billionaires have an outsized effect on the average, but the median is less affected by big outliers like billionaires. That’s why the U.S. ranks 4th in average wealth but 14th in median wealth.

Before you share an average with your board or on your website, consider what the median is. If it’s quite different from the average, you might consider showing both the average and the median or just the median.

Source: Visual Capitalist

To see past data tips, including those about other chart types, scroll down or click HERE.

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Let’s talk about YOUR data!

Got the feeling that you and your colleagues would use your data more effectively if you could see it better? Data Viz for Nonprofits (DVN) can help you get the ball rolling with an interactive data dashboard and beautiful charts, maps, and graphs for your next presentation, report, proposal, or webpage. Through a short-term consultation, we can help you to clarify the questions you want to answer and goals you want to track. DVN then visualizes your data to address those questions and track those goals.

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Best Data Viz of 2024

Looking for a fun (if somewhat geeky) study/work break? Check out these best-of lists for 2024:

New York Times

Visual Capitalist

FlowingData

The Webby Awards

To see past data tips, click HERE.

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Let’s talk about YOUR data!

Got the feeling that you and your colleagues would use your data more effectively if you could see it better? Data Viz for Nonprofits (DVN) can help you get the ball rolling with an interactive data dashboard and beautiful charts, maps, and graphs for your next presentation, report, proposal, or webpage. Through a short-term consultation, we can help you to clarify the questions you want to answer and goals you want to track. DVN then visualizes your data to address those questions and track those goals.

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