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Digital Impact was created by the Digital Civil Society Lab at Stanford PACS and was managed until 2024. It is no longer being updated.

DI Reads

10 Reads for Your 2021 List

We made a list of notable books (and a few articles) from 2020 that will inform and inspire you and your organization this year.

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Using Consequence Scanning to Mitigate Harm

Samantha Brown of Doteveryone explains how data practitioners can design for the best possible outcome.

When It Comes to Blockchain, Are Good Intentions Enough?

For Cara LaPointe, coauthor of the Blockchain Ethical Design Framework, better questions make for better technologies.

Meeting the Challenge of Impact Evaluation 

Nick Hamlin of GlobalGiving explains how the organization ran an impact study to measure its own effectiveness and why all nonprofits should follow suit.

To Really Protect Our Privacy, Let’s Put Some Numbers on It

Tracy Ann Kosa, a former Non-Resident Fellow at the Digital Civil Society Lab, discusses how and why we need to measure data privacy.

Privacy, Ethics, and Data Access: A Case Study of the Fragile Families Challenge

“Researchers, companies, and governments holding data face a fundamental tension between risk to respondents and benefits to science.”

Is GlobalGiving Making an Impact?

The world’s largest global crowdfunding community for nonprofits wanted to evaluate its impact, so it applied a new framework to find answers.

Nonprofits and Artificial Intelligence

The real question for nonprofits and foundations is not how will they use AI, but how is AI being used within the domains within which they work and how must they respond?

Democracy and the Digital Divide: Is Access Enough?

For most people in the world, getting online is too expensive, and for those who can afford it, service is often unreliable or non-existent. What could this mean for democracy?

Bridging the Gap of Humanitarian Data

UNOCHA’s Stuart Campo explains how the challenges of managing data risk are breathing life into a new set of guidelines for the sector.

When Nobody Knows You’re a Dog: Tech, Civil Society, and the Fight for Authenticity

Civil society organizations should guard against “authenticity theft,” a troubling trend that may yet reveal a silver lining.