What does it take to strengthen organizational and collective capacity for equitable data and evaluation to help ensure that all communities and people have a full, fair, and just opportunity for good health?
The bi3 Fund, HealthPath, and Interact for Health are exploring this question through a partnership called the Data for Equity Funding Collaborative. Data and evaluation efforts are not inherently objective and unbiased. However, when captured accurately, data and stories help us better understand the realities and opportunities for improving our community’s health. They also shed light on the systemic barriers and root causes that undermine health and well-being, and the wide disparities between different places and the health of the people who live in them.
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Improving health and closing gaps in outcomes requires examining the purpose and practice of data and evaluation efforts. Decisions about how data is collected and interpreted—and whose voices are or are not included—are often inadvertently influenced by our values, biases, and worldviews. We’ve learned from groups like We All Count and the Equitable Evaluation Initiative that intentionally taking an equitable approach strengthens transparency and rigor in data and evaluation efforts, leading to better data and work that drives toward healthier communities for us all.
What is Data for Equity?
bi3 Fund, HealthPath, and Interact for Health came together to support the launch of Data for Equity with a $2 million dollar investment from 2023 to 2027. Data for Equity will support over 40 grantee partners across the Greater Cincinnati region to collectively learn and test equitable data and evaluation practices.
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The initiative was created in direct response to feedback from grantee partners about areas of organizational capacity they hoped to strengthen. Specifically, partners requested funding, technical assistance, and opportunities to learn together about—and deploy—equitable data and evaluation approaches. Inspired by a similar initiative at St. David’s Foundation and informed by a push for philanthropy to reimagine capacity building, the inaugural Data for Equity cohort launched in 2023. To date, Data for Equity has supported 21 non-profit organizations across two cohorts—with a Request for Proposals open now to identify a third cohort beginning in 2025.
Learning and Impact
Reflecting on their experiences, Cohort 1 grantees shared that they found value and enhanced learning in the combination of different resources and technical assistance offered. They noted that Data for Equity was a unique opportunity to strengthen their organizations because evaluation and learning capacity are not typically supported by grant funding. They also shared that the flexibility of the grant structure and cohort model provided them with the time, space, and resources to reexamine the intentions behind their data collection and to learn about—and change—evaluation practices.
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Grantees reported that participating in Data for Equity supported several mindset and action shifts, including:
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Changing how their organizations understood equitable data and evaluation practices and identifying gaps in their existing approaches
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Modifying their data collection efforts to align with equitable practices, including the intentional use of qualitative data
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Inviting community members into the evaluation and research process
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Over the course of the cohort, grantees use specific projects to apply and test their learning. These projects have ranged from modifying evaluation processes and data collection tools to data analysis and visualization. Below are examples of several grantee projects.
Trained and hired community members to design and facilitate focus groups. Insights and data are helping to guide strategy development.
Grantee B
Hosted community listening sessions to guide program design and developed a data dashboard to track learning and support strategic planning.
Grantee C
Adapted data collection, analysis and reporting processes to better understand program impact and the distinct needs of the populations they serve.
Grantee A
Data for Equity is intentionally designed to co-create the cohort experience with grantees. Grantees identify their learning goals and the Funding Collaborative designs training and learning sessions to meet those goals. Learning topics have included Culturally Responsive and Equitable Evaluation (CREE), engaging community voice, data collection methodologies and tools, and ethical storytelling.
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Through the cohort, grantees and funders create a shared language and understanding of equitable evaluation. Centering this shared definition of success, and learning as the priority, helps create a space in which grantees feel safe and supported to try out new approaches and work to shift mindsets. Additionally, past grantees have highlighted the value of an organizationally diverse community of practice where they are not in competition with one another and they can call on each other to celebrate successes and problem solve challenges. Several grantees have developed long-lasting collaborations to support each other’s work. In response to feedback from past grantees, the Funding Collaborative is making changes to the initiative for Cohort 3 by providing a longer timeframe (18 months instead of 12 months) and larger grant awards to support time for learning and testing of new practices.
“Data for Equity gives you permission to say ‘it’s OK to reconsider a lot of your practices.’ It helps to have a group of people alongside us saying we are all changing our strategies.”
– Data for Equity Grantee
The Role of Funders
At the start of Data for Equity, the Funding Collaborative set out to apply the principles of Trust-Based Philanthropy in order to grow and enhance their individual practices and test new approaches. We aim to listen and respond to grantees about their needs, challenges, and hopes.
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To ease the burden on grantees, we provide flexible grants and streamlined processes. Grantees have indicated that the approach saves them time through the ease of the grant application, the ability to define their level of participation, and final reports that are conversation-based rather than written. As grantees learn and test new practices, the grants provide flexibility to adjust their goals and engage in continuous improvement.
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Through the initiative, the funders have created a practice we call Ask-Act-Reflect-Ask Again, to help center the grantee experience and test our own assumptions about the initiative, capacity building, and trust-based philanthropy. This practice encourages us to take the time to reflect and challenge ourselves to unlearn some of our embedded philanthropic culture and approaches. It helps us lean into the expertise of our grantee partners who know best about what they need to strengthen their organizations. Through this practice, we’ve wrestled with some tensions such as:
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Wanting more information (reports) from grantees vs. creating additional burden
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Adhering to our individual grantmaking processes vs. finding opportunities to challenge and align with each other
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Responding to grantees’ training interests vs. what funders think grantees should learn
Listening to grantee feedback throughout the cohort helps us identify opportunities to improve the experience, bring in new resources, and remain flexible so grantees capitalize on their learning and pivot when needed.
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Funders are learners in this process as well – challenging ourselves to improve our own equitable evaluation practices, strengthen our trust-based approach, and apply the learning from Data for Equity to other work within our individual foundations. While these practices can be uncomfortable, we see opportunities to change the culture of our organizations and enter into deeper partnership with our grantees to create better outcomes for our community. We look forward to continuing our learning journey together with our grantee partners and invite others in our community to join us in learning and unlearning.
“All funders should operate this way. The funder should be open to knowing things didn’t go as planned. The people they are funding have the best pulse on the work.”
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– Data for Equity Grantee