Digital Impact was created by the Digital Civil Society Lab at Stanford PACS and was managed until 2024. It is no longer being updated.
March 4, 2014
Beth Kanter, Master Trainer, Blogger, and co-author of “Measuring the Networked Nonprofit,” winner of 2013 Terry McAdam Nonprofit Book Award: “You don’t need to be a trained data scientist or be the world’s best graphic design artist to visualize your data and tell a compelling story. And it doesn’t require a lot of time or […]
February 26, 2014
Beth Schechter, Education and Outreach, Stamen Design, writes with Eric Rodenbeck, CEO & Creative Director and offers a fundamental insight to inform data strategy: think about the future – how you will maintain your visualization outputs and capabilities (both human and technological) on a shifting landscape. This post is a check on both our ambitions […]
February 25, 2014
User Experience professional, Nikki Roda, brings a perspective built for our times, fueled by her varied experience and a data journey that began with a conscious eye on us, the users, as she studied “how to make information useful for everyone else who isn’t a data obsessed nerd like myself.” It’s cool to take a […]
February 19, 2014
Imagine driving behind a paving machine [left], watching the road being laid, then following shortly behind on still-warm asphalt. At times, the conversation on “data” feels like that, given the pace of tools and practices being developed then put into play at sector scale. Given this landscape, Alfred (Alf) Gracombe, founder of GivingData, provides insight […]
February 18, 2014
To speak of “information infrastructure” is also to speak of the many habits that make up good practice. In that spirit, here are three tips you can use right now. But, more importantly, we appreciate that Josh Hurd, founder of NonprofitMetrics provides the context and rationale for each. Josh comes to us from a fast-developing […]
February 12, 2014
There are no pictures or visualizations here. Well, just the one here to the left – of a woodshed. I use it not per the Wikipedia definition, but rather per that of Wynton Marsalis. “By the time I was sixteen, I understood what the (wood)shed was about – hard, concentrated work.” Data visualization isn’t new, […]
February 11, 2014
Markets for Good caught up with Dino Citraro, Head of Strategic Design and Operations at Periscopic. We wanted to explore a few essential questions that might help us as we shape a view on the landscape and progress of data visualization as a tool for social impact. Dino offers his perspective on the current state, […]
February 5, 2014
We present, in this first of a series of video interviews a tour of some of the sharpest work going on with data visualization in the social sector, spanning large-scale visualization efforts (e.g. for the UNHCR by our first subject, Hyperakt) to Beth Kanter giving another classic brief that leaves no one, regardless of budget size, with […]
Lauren-Glenn Davitian, recipient of the NTEN Lifetime Achievement Award: “As nonprofit organizations increase their focus on results and measurements, data visualization becomes a new and important skill set. We can put our data to work and increase its analytical power by presenting it visually. Here is an overview and useful resources to get you started.” […]
February 3, 2014
“…the volume and complexity of what we know has exceeded our individual ability to deliver its benefits correctly, safely, or reliably. Knowledge has both saved us and burdened us.” – Atul Gawande in “The Checklist Manifesto” ~ There must be a green shoot somewhere in Dr. Gawande’s paradox. If so, it certainly won’t be found […]
