Introducing the NEW Data Champion Guiding Principles
One of the ways that Good Measure supports the nonprofit community is by reinforcing best practices through our Guiding Principles, both for funders and for data champions (nonprofits). This year’s refresh of the Guiding Principles for Data Champions went a little differently than in the past – and we’d like to share with you what the process was like, how we approached it from a community-driven mindset, and where we’re at today as we reveal the latest version of the Data Champion Guiding Principles.
An open letter to our Data & Learning Community –
Each year, toward the end of the program, the Data Leaders Academy (DLA) participants take a deep look at the Guiding Principles for Data & Learning Champions and offer updates based on their knowledge and experiences as well as general progress within the field. During this third refresh, the DLA 2020 cohort rallied around more inclusive language and equity throughout – we needed to intentionally re-center given the events of 2020 and the increased exposure of deep-seeded systemic racism, which was too blatantly obvious to blanket in soft language. We recognized that to be inclusive, we needed to include more voices central to this work, and a call was put out to DLA alumni and current participants to form a subcommittee to tackle these revisions. In late October 2020, five DLA alums from across the cohorts came together to write an eighth guiding principle focused on equity. Five months later, what we have to offer are completely refreshed versions of the seven original guiding principles.
The first thing we agreed on was that equity cannot be tacked on at the end; it must be embedded from the start.
We agreed to meet every few weeks, take our time, tackle each principle individually and bring research, multiple perspectives, and lived experience to the conversation. We agreed to work on this together, because no one person can make decisions about what equity means for everyone. We challenged each other and our ways of thinking. We called out systemic racism and language that perpetuates white supremacy and power. We retooled the guiding principles to center community voice and focus on the strengths and needs of our priority populations (the specific subset of the community that we serve). Sometimes, we left meetings feeling like we didn’t know anything, and systemic inequity is impossible to combat. Sometimes, we felt like we had a good handle on what we should say…. Right? Sometimes, we wrote more questions than answers and struggled to find words that could both accurately depict our thoughts and ideas and make sense to others. Sometimes, we felt like we would never be finished.
It is now March; we’ve lived through major illnesses, school cancellations, deaths in families, a historic snowstorm. We worked full-time jobs, supported family and friends, and found the time to come together to have these hard conversations with each other. We got to know each other and formed relationships. We built community and checked in. And we realized – this work will never be done. What we present here is our refresh of the Guiding Principles for Data & Learning Champions; it is not finished. It never will be. But it is a start on the path toward more inclusive, purposeful, and equitable community-based evaluation & data work. And we look forward to seeing what the next cohort of Data Leaders adds to our community’s learning.
- Alicia Guerrero, DeAna Swan, Sabine Monice, Sarah McQueen, & Amanda Miller