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Nonprofit research community convenes at ASU for West Coast Nonprofit Data Conference
May 1, 2024 — Researchers, professors, students and nonprofit professionals alike gathered at Arizona State University’s Downtown Phoenix campus April 19-20 for the 2024 West Coast Nonprofit Data Conference, hosted by the ASU Lodestar Center for Philanthropy and Nonprofit Innovation.
Beginning at the University of California Los Angeles in 2004, the West Coast Nonprofit Data Conference has a 21-year history as a place for collaboration in data, research and scholarship. Past years have seen the conference hosted all across the western U.S., from Seattle, Washington, to Tucson, Arizona, to Austin, Texas.
The 21st annual conference returned to Phoenix for the first time since 2019. Traveling from 17 U.S. states, plus one professor from Scotland’s University of Stirling, nearly 100 attendees arrived to share knowledge, findings and ideas at the two-day event.
The conference’s first day began with a panel conversation, “Funders’ Perspectives on Nonprofit Data.” Representing a diverse set of views from across the funding landscape, panelists included representatives from the Garcia Family Foundation, Virginia G. Piper Charitable Trust and Vitalyst Health Foundation alongside moderator Kim Covington, Arizona Community Foundation’s vice president of community initiatives.
The role of data in nonprofit funding
According to the panelists, data is crucial in driving funding decisions. Whether the initiative is national, regional or local, accurate and reliable research data is a necessary part of identifying where funding has been or will be effective.
For example, Vitalyst Health Foundation’s Director of Capacity Building and Community Engagement David Martinez III identified the role of U.S. Census data in what he calls “the four D’s”: data, decisions, dollars and districts.
According to Martinez, U.S. Census data informs political decisions, which then drives government dollars and, eventually, can even impact Congressional districts. Through this process, data can be a breaking point that “inhibits an Arizonan’s ability to be heard,” said Martinez.
Erin Goodman, senior program officer of Virginia G. Piper Charitable Trust, echoed a similar idea. According to Goodman, Virginia G. Piper Charitable Trust is a contributor to the Cultural Data Project — a national initiative collecting data about the arts to be shared with funders. This data is then used to aid grantmaking across the country.
Challenges in the nonprofit data landscape
While the impact of data is measurable in all aspects of funding, the effects can be positive or negative. To ensure that funding makes it to populations in need, effective communication and accuracy are a necessary part of the data collection process.
However, panelists highlighted that, in certain situations, maintaining these tenets can be a challenge.
Sharing and implementing data across organizational boundaries is a pressing issue in the nonprofit data landscape. According to Goodman, this is amplified among state agencies, which have no existing process for sharing data with other agencies or organizations.
Even in organizations that are collecting data, “they are not set up to do anything but collect and display” it, Goodman said. She stressed the importance of creating conditions where data can be used more efficiently.
Garcia Family Foundation President Jon Ehlinger cited his organization’s long-term goals in response. To enhance the effectiveness of the Garcia Family Foundation’s data aggregation efforts, Ehlinger said it has set a goal of releasing trends in data as they arrive, speeding up the implementation process.
“We have a lot of data, but it’s in 15 different places,” said Ehlinger. “We want the work to go from done to immediate next steps.”
Another challenge frequently cited by panelists was maintaining enough trust to continue collecting data in marginalized communities.
“Communities of color are concerned about the data we collect to serve them,” said Covington. Ehlinger added to this, saying, “The issue we run into is fear of aggregated data being misused.”
To combat this, panelists argued for the importance of transparency and communication with these communities.
Martinez, for example, asked that data be used to “move resources the community is asking for.” Panelists highlighted a shift towards “trust-based philanthropy,” a funding style where donors limit check-ins with the organizations they fund to demonstrate trust.
“It improves the relationship,” Covington said.
Conference sessions share the latest in nonprofit research
Attendees who arrived early for the conference had the opportunity to tour the ASU Helios Decision Center. A partnership between ASU and Helios Education Foundation, the center convenes key stakeholders and uses data tools to examine the education system and model and visualize the impact of potential new policies and innovative solutions on education outcomes.
For graduate and doctoral students, the conference also offered a pre-session with the associate editors of “Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly,” Elizabeth Dale (Seattle University) and Dyana Mason (University of Oregon). They shared advice on being a journal reviewer and writing book reviews.
Following the panel conversation, the conference moved into research presentations, which continued on Saturday as well. Topics spanned from the practical (“Data Extraction from NGO Financial Statements”) to the philosophical (“How Do We Measure Social Entrepreneurship?”), from data collection (“A Method for Collecting and Analyzing Nonprofit User Data”) to nonprofit communications (“Enhancing Audience Engagement in Small NPOs on Facebook through Community-Centric Strategies”).
Over lunch on Saturday, the ASU Lodestar Center’s research team of Dan Hunting and Pravalika Samala gave a plenary presentation on how they developed their new Scope of the Arizona Nonprofit Sector platform, which blends IRS and Census microdata to quantify the full size and true impact of Arizona’s nonprofit sector.
Image: Opening session of the 2024 West Coast Nonprofit Data Conference in the Thunderbird School Global Forum
Story by Lillian Finley, ASU Lodestar Center
Check out the Scope of the Sector to see how the nonprofit sector compares to the rest of Arizona
Based on the most recent data, the Scope of the Sector is an interactive tool for understanding and researching nonprofit organizations, their workers, and the nonprofit sector’s contribution to the Arizona economy. You can compare things like pay and education levels for employees, types of nonprofits in the State, and more.