Ideas You Should Steal From This Viz (Installment 17)

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

Today I offer up another steal-worthy viz. Luc Guillemot uses a connected scatterplot to show how the HIV/AIDS epidemic evolved over time.

Note: This is not a line chart! Here’s how to read it:

  • The X-axis (horizontal) shows the number of new HIV infections each year.

  • The Y-axis (vertical) shows the number of people dying from HIV/AIDS each year.

  • Time follows the line.

To understand it, start at the 1990 point in the bottom right, then follow the line year by year, reading the captions along the way.

Where the line turns from dark to medium red in the late 1990s, you’ll see something powerful: the line begins turning leftward because new infections begin falling. But deaths keep rising for years. The two measures are out of sync because people infected earlier were still dying before treatment became widely available.

A simple line chart wouldn’t show that relationship nearly as clearly. That’s why you should steal this approach. Use a connected scatterplot when:

  • Results lag behind effort

  • Two metrics influence each other

  • Progress isn’t linear

For example: plot program participation (X) against successful outcomes (Y) over several years. If the line loops or bends, you may have uncovered delays between investment and impact.

When you want to show how two forces move together over time — not just whether they go up or down — connect the dots. Just make sure your audience knows where to start and what each axis means.

To see past data tips, including other steal-worthy data visualizations, click HERE.

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 16)

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

Today I offer up another steal-worthy viz. This one is from the excellent Not-Ship blog in which Amanda Shendruk charts “the age of uncertainty.”

In the blog post, each of a series of charts positions a U.S. data point against a broader international comparison. The U.S. isn’t always the highest or lowest value, but by highlighting it consistently, readers can easily see how it compares and, in particular, where it diverges.

I recommend you steal this technique to:

  • Compare one key group (e.g., your organization, a target population, or a focal geographic area) to others.

  • Help viewers spot patterns across charts, not just within one chart.

  • Support a narrative about similarities, differences, or tradeoffs even when your focal group is not an outlier.

To see past data tips, click HERE.

 
 

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 16)

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

Today I offer up another steal-worthy interactive viz that I came across in the Tableau Public Gallery.

Source: James Goodall on Tableau Public

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

  • Three measures. This dashboard gets around the quandry of what to show: totals, change in totals, or percentage change by offering all three. The totals give you a sense of the relative size of the districts. The change gives you a sense of the relative size of the population change across districts (From 2020? The time period for the change is not indicated). And the percentage change give you a sense of the size of the change relative to the size of the district across districts.

  • Easy comparisons across subgroups. The bar charts allow for easy comparisons across both districts and gender groups.

  • Key finding captions. The dashboard includes some captions with key findings for each group: all, male, and female. The captions provide a summary of the data and thus a launching point for further exploration of the data.

To see past data tips, click HERE.

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.

Schedule A Free Consultation
 
 

What's Better Than Bare Naked Charts?

A study by MIT, UC Berkeley, and Tableau researchers found that people prefer charts with clear, helpful text over both plain, bare charts and text-only explanations. But what you write—and where you put it—makes a difference.

What works best:

  • Big picture messages (example: “Sharp drop in donations in 2024”) work well as chart titles—that’s what people notice first and remember best.

  • Key numbers or comparisons (example: “Highest turnout in 2023”) should go right next to the point or part of the chart they explain.

  • Context or background info (example: “Policy change led to spike”) also works best close to the related data—not just in the title

Check out how the simple changes made between the before and after charts allow you to more easily draw meaning from it.


Tip for nonprofits: When designing charts for funders, boards, or the public, guide your audience to the key point with well-placed text. They’ll remember your story—not just the numbers.

 
 

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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Nonprofit Inspiration from the Information is Beautiful Award Winners

Looking for quick and powerful data-inspired ideas to energize your nonprofit communications or campaigns? Explore highlights from the 2024 Information is Beautiful Awards, where data storytelling shines—and learn how to bring similar clarity, impact, and beauty to your mission.

Humanitarian – Gold Winner

Source: Reuters

The world’s hunger watchdog warned of catastrophe in Sudan. Famine struck anyway. (Reuters)

This article leads you through a series of visualizations, to help you to understand a complex humanitarian crisis and how the world’s hunger monitoring-and-response system is falling short in addressing it. Visualizations, such as the one shown above, help you to comprehend the system’s classification of the problem by looking at a sample of 100 people living in Sudan’s Zamzam camp.

Places, Spaces & Environment – Gold Winner

I Want a Better Catastrophe: A Flowchart for Navigating our Climate Predicament (University of Applied Sciences Potsdam)

This flowchart, which combines an audio narration with interactive elements, is an invitation to join Andrew Boyd, the designer, on his narrative path and explore the predicament on your own.

For more inspiration, check out other 2024 winners.

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 Your Data More Accessible & Inclusive

When your charts are hard to read, navigate, or interpret, you may unintentionally exclude people with visual, cognitive, or physical differences. The good news? A few simple tweaks can make your visualizations dramatically more inclusive—without sacrificing impact. Below are three practical ways to start, each with links to deeper dives from past 60-Second Data Tips.

1. Design with Color Blindness in Mind

About 1 in 20 people live with some form of color vision deficiency. Relying solely on color to differentiate data points leaves these viewers behind. Use texture, shape, or labels—not just color—to distinguish categories. Also, tools like Color Oracle can help simulate how those with color blindness see your work, and you can generate an accessible color palette using an online tool like this one from Venngage.

Read more: How To Make Your Data Viz More Accessible: Color Blindness

2. Size Text for Readability

Small fonts and tight spacing are common in data visuals—but they create major accessibility barriers, especially for older adults or users with low vision. The rule of thumb is: Text must not be smaller than 9 points in size. And always test readability at 100% zoom—especially on dashboards.

Read more: What's The Right Text Size to Make Data Viz Accessible?

3. Structure for Screen Readers & Keyboard Navigation

If your charts are embedded in websites or reports, they should be usable by people who rely on screen readers or keyboard controls. You can make your data visualizations more screen reader- and keyboard-friendly by reducing the number of marks and adding text that clarifies the content of the visualization.

Read more: How To Make Your Data Viz More Accessible: Screen Readers and Keyboard Navigation

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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Nonprofits Need This Dashboard

Reposted from November 2023

Does your nonprofit have participants (or volunteers or clients or human beings of another sort) in various programs? If so, you could benefit from a dashboard like this one (see below). Give it a spin. Select a program at the top to highlight participants in that program in the charts. This dashboard allows for easy comparisons across programs, across statuses (e.g. enrolled, waitlisted, and withdrawn), and across time. Scroll over charts to learn more.

My inspiration for this dashboard came from Eve Thomas at The Data School. Check out Eve’s article, which includes instructions for creating this type of dashboard with Tableau (assuming basic Tableau knowledge.)

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.

Schedule A Free Consultation

What's The Difference Between An Infographic and A Data Visualization?

Reposted from April 2018

Infographic and data visualization often are used interchangeably. And, indeed, the distinction is not hard and fast. They both focus on showing rather than telling. They explain something using more visual cues than words or numbers and so take advantage of our visual superpowers. (For more on these superpowers, see Tip #1.) The difference is that an infographic is more of a story, and a data visualization is more of a tool.

An infographic typically uses images to lead the viewer through a story. Some of those images might be visualizations of data. For example, the point of this infographic is to highlight aspects of a nonprofit workforce shortage. Infographics are usually meant to explain or show something to people who are not all that familiar with the topic.

A data visualization, unlike an infographic, uses visual cues (shape, color, size, etc.) primarily to represent data. Think bar chart, line graph, pie chart, and maps. And though the creators of the data visualization may have a story they want to tell, the viewer can use the visualization to discern any number of stories.

For example, on the quadrants chart below, each circle represents an educational strategy. The strategies are plotted along two measures: how much importance educators place on the strategies and how often they put these strategies into practice. We can use this chart as a tool to decide what to do next. Clearly, most of the educators represented in the data already feel these strategies are important. But they use most of the tactics less than 50 percent of the time. So we need not waste time explaining the value of the strategies to them. Instead, we should determine what is preventing them from implementing the strategies.

If you are looking to tell a specific story particularly to an outside audience, consider an infographic. If you are looking for a tool to explore data, consider a data visualization.

 
 

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Schedule A Free Consultation

Ideas You Should Steal From This Viz (Installment 14)

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

Today I offer up another steal-worthy viz that I came across in the Tableau Public Gallery. All nonprofits need to understand and show the demographics of their participants or the communities they serve. This dashboard of South Korea’s demographics uses some good strategies you can apply to your organization’s charts and maps. Keep scrolling to examine the dashboard and see my suggestions on what to steal from it.

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

  • Heat = Density. The map uses warmer colors to show higher population density and cooler colors to show lower density. This makes finding the big population centers easy.

  • Charts for key demographics. A quick review of the charts on the right gives you a clear understanding of demographic trends over time.

  • Chart title as color legend. Using the chart title to explain the color coding in the chart is a great way to save space on small charts.

To see past data tips, click HERE.

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.

Schedule A Free Consultation

Ideas You Should Steal From This Viz (Installment 13)

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

Today I offer up another steal-worthy interactive viz that I came across in the Tableau Public Gallery. Scroll down to see what you should steal from it.

Source: Nir Smilga on Tableau Public

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

  • Small Multiples. To highlight each country and to allow for easy comparisons across countries, Smilga created one small chart per country and placed them alongside each other, aka a “small multiples chart.”

  • Gray comparison trends. While Smilga highlights the trend for the featured country in each chart using color, the trends for other countries are also in each chart but in a light gray. This allows us to easily compare the trend for the featured country to that of others in general.

  • Color distinguishes trend types. Recent downward trends are highlighted in red, and recent upward trends are highlighted in blue.

  • Choose your view. Smilga allows the viewer to customize the view by selecting the number of columns, time period, and countries shown.

To see past data tips, click HERE.

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.

Schedule A Free Consultation

Ideas You Should Steal From This Viz (Installment 12)

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

Today I offer up another steal-worthy interactive viz that I came across in the Tableau Public Gallery.

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

  • Dot Matrix Chart Type. Each dot in a dot matrix chart is colored to represent a category and sized to represent the magnitude of the category. Thus the chart provides an overview of the distribution and proportions of each category in the data set. By clicking through the ban categories at the top (classrooms, libraries, etc,), we get a quick sense of the magnitude and origin of book ban challenges.

  • Explanation/Directions. The text on the left tells us everything we need to know to extract meaning from the visualization without loading us down with unnecessary details.

  • Details on Demand. For those who want more information, details are available on demand by scrolling over the individual circles and the info button.

Source: Gbolahan Adebayo on Tableau Public

To see past data tips, click HERE.

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 11)

“Every artist gets asked the question: ‘Where do you get your ideas?’ The honest artist answers, ‘I steal them.’ . . . What a good artist understands is that nothing comes from nowhere. All creative work builds on what came before.” —Austin Kleon in Steal Like An Artist.

Today I offer up another steal-worthy interactive viz that I came across in the Tableau Public Gallery.

Source: Kizley Benedict on Tableau Public

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

  • Beeswarm Chart. The beeswarm chart at the top allows you to easily compare several countries and to see the overall distribution along the Gender Inequality Index among large and small countries. For more on beeswarm charts, see this tip.

  • Highlight a Country. For users who want to know about a particular country, the dashboard provides a search tool which highlights the selected country.

  • Overall Then Zoom In. After getting a sense of the overall distribution from the beeswarm chart, the user can zoom in and make comparisons among and within regions with the maps along the bottom of the dashboard.

To see past data tips, click HERE.

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.

Schedule A Free Consultation

Nonprofits Need This Dashboard

Does your nonprofit have participants (or volunteers or clients or human beings of another sort) in various programs? If so, you could benefit from a dashboard like this one (see below). Give it a spin. Select a program at the top to highlight participants in that program in the charts. This dashboard allows for easy comparisons across programs, across statuses (e.g. enrolled, waitlisted, and withdrawn), and across time. Scroll over charts to learn more.

My inspiration for this dashboard came from Eve Thomas at The Data School. Check out Eve’s article, which includes instructions for creating this type of dashboard with Tableau (assuming basic Tableau knowledge.)

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.

Schedule A Free Consultation

Ideas You Should Steal From This Viz (Installment 10)

Here’s another steal-worthy viz to inspire you. There’s so much I like about this data dashboard created by Alessia Musìo on Tableau Public. In the Information is Beautiful Awards submission for this dashboard, Musìo notes: “Simplicity, coherence, and clarity are the words that have guided me in the development of the project.”

Here’s what I especially like and suggest you apply to your own dashboards:

  • User friendly: There’s no need for a user guide for this dashboard. The simple left-hand panel tells you all you need to know: how to navigate to other pages, how to filter the data, and how to interpret the color coding.

  • Limited views of data: There are only two ways of looking at the data contained in the dashboard: in a map which allows you to make comparisons across regions and countries or in a chart showing change over time. And there are limited ways to filter the data. This simplicity makes the dashboard more approachable and instantly usable.

  • Methodology and sources page: For those interested, the methods and sources are presented in an organized way with links.

Take the dashboard out for a spin. Be sure to hover over the circular elements on the single country charts to see comparisons with countries of the same continent.

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 9)

Source: Source: Yusuke Nakanishi on Tableau Public

Here’s another steal-worthy viz to inspire you. This one is from Yusuke Nakanishi on Tableau Public. Filling the numbers to show the percent is cool, particularly because the chart is about drinking and the numbers appear to be filled like a glass. Nakanishi created the chart in Tableau by making a simple bar chart and then placing a virtual stencil (i.e. numbers with a transparent fill) over the chart. The best place to make this type of stencil is probably Adobe Illustrator. But if you don’t have an Adobe subscription, you can do it for free in Canva. I created this image in Canva as indicated below.

  1. Open Canva and click on “Create a design” in upper right corner of the screen. Select a size (I chose presentation).

  2. Select “Background” on left side of screen and then choose a background.

  3. Select “Elements” on left side of screen and enter' “number frames” in the search window. Number frames look like numbers filled with an illustration of grass and sky. Click on the numbers you want and place and size them on the slide as you wish.

  4. Select “Elements” on left side of screen and enter search terms in the search window to find a photo with one color on the bottom and another color on the top. I entered “oil” and used a photo with oil on the bottom and white on the top.

  5. Drag that image over each number frame until it fills the frame.

  6. Double click on the filled number and resize and move the image until the bottom color fills the number frame to the right height. To determine the height, you can use Canva’s rulers and guides.

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 8)

Today I offer up yet another steal-worthy viz. The Racial Wealth Gap viz uses data from the U.S. Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finances to show the proportion of households that own different kinds of assets by racial group. Here’s what I like about this chart (and what you should steal from it):

  1. The use 100 families in addition to percentages. We can wrap our brains around 100 families. We can imagine it.

  2. The use of icons that help tell the story and also remind us of Monopoly pieces.

  3. Highlighting the gaps between the White group and other racial groups. The pink squares help us to appreciate how large the gaps are and how they compare across different asset groups.

To see past data tips, click HERE.

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.

Schedule A Free Consultation