Making meaning of complexity.
The world is complicated and nuanced. It’s important to represent data accurately and truthfully. But it’s just as important to ensure data is communicated clearly, tells the intended story, and allows the audience to connect with and better understand their world. Collected here are some examples of this work.
Making the case for equity.
Over the course of two years, Democracy Fund’s Engaged Journalism team commissioned a series of research and reports to better understand how philanthropy was — and wasn’t — supporting equity in the field of journalism. The results were disappointing; at most, 10% of funding was going to support equity in journalism. The team wanted to take this information and make a compelling case to peer funders (some much more established) that our field had to do better. Rather than produce a written report, we created a striking infographic the team could take to conferences that armed them with a clear story they could tell. Staff have been excited to use this tool as a conversation starter — and have reported that staff at other foundations have been interested in furthering the conversation.
Helping make sense of complicated processes.
In the run-up to the 2020 election, Democracy Fund staff were in the midst of a full court press to protect the integrity of the election. In response to the Postmaster General’s changes to mail processing, we acted quickly to demonstrate just how damaging these changes would be to election mail — adding days to an already extremely tight process. This process diagram was picked up by the media, went viral among election officials, and was submitted in Congressional testimony on the need to roll back the proposed changes.
Making data meaningful.
At both Grantmakers for Effective Organizations and Democracy Fund, I’ve had the opportunity to work with brilliant researchers on staff who have collected and analyzed massive amounts of data. The challenge has been figuring out how to make this data stick — how to make it memorable and meaningful to audiences. In short: how to use it to tell a story. By taking a narrative-first approach and using clear language and intentional design choices, we translated data into scannable, understandable, and shareable graphics. Not only have these visualizations added context to longform reports, they’ve been successful on social media and have been featured in national and regional news outlets.
