In our latest news roundup, we take a look at Paul Karon's article for Inside Philanthropy on how governments should be using data to track program performance and implement continuous improvement efforts.
In this news roundup, we take a look at Paul Karon’s article ‘Can Big Data Help Government Do Better? This Foundation Seems to Think So‘, first published on Inside Philanthropy.
Philanthropy has been investing heavily in big data over the past year, following the lead of for-profit corporations like Amazon that are using data incredibly well. This is also true for academia, but research from the Laura and John Arnold Foundation has found that the public sector has been slow to adopt data and information technology tools. In addition, the public sector and governments have been exceedingly slow at adopting a data-driven culture.
In response, the foundation have announced a $7.4 million grant to Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government in an effort to improve government effectiveness. Karon, however, adds that while philanthropy should use data science as a powerful tool, unless funders see results, overuse of ‘big data’ as a buzzword might hurt its development.
Make sure you read the original article featured on Inside Philanthropy here.
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