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Over the past couple of blog entries, Taj has shared lessons learned about design thinking that you can apply to your work. Taj will be continuing that series soon, but in the meantime, we wanted to share a related example of creating a simple, but effective, visualization for a client. Background A local agency wanted to track client capacity on a monthly basis. This agency oversees services to pregnant women across multiple program locations, so tracking such information is necessary not only for their oversight of services, but also for sound management of dollars received from their funder

Lets face it, fundraising can be one of the most dreaded aspects of running a nonprofit. A lot of people feel unprepared and apprehensive about it; asking for money is hard. But there are ways to make it a little easier, and more effective. Thats where data come in. Perhaps you think of data and fundraising as natural complements to each other. Perhaps you never considered using data in your fundraising efforts.

by Taj _(Pardon our silence over these past several months! After our unintentional hiatus, were be getting back into our blogging routine, sharing evaluation related news, tips, and tricks on a somewhat monthly basis. Starting with todays post, the first in a series of posts about design and evaluation…) _ Introduction Over the past few years, as CRC has explored and embraced visual thinking, information visualization, and the use of technology in evaluation, Ive gotten a real world education in design, technology, and design thinking.

by Mandi Singleton (Note: this post is the second part of a two-part series.) As I mentioned in the my last blog post, one of my favorite things about my job at CRC is conducting focus groups. Focus groups with elementary school students can be the most challenging and the most fun for me as a focus group facilitator. Here in part two of my discussion of tips & tricks for doing focus groups with kids, I get into strategies that make for effective and enjoyable groups.

by Mandi Singleton One of my favorite things about my job is conducting focus groups. I enjoy the opportunity it gives me to interact with people, capturing and learning from their thoughts and feelings about experiences theyve had. While at CRC Ive had the opportunity to facilitate a series of focus groups with elementary school students. Although many of my projects are education-related, I had never done a group with children so young before.

Several weeks ago, one of our clients came to us with a challenge:** find compelling ways to present 10 years of grantmaking data.** The client wanted us to tell their story and present the data in a way that people at all levels (data nerds and non-data nerds) at their organization could easily understand. I was tasked with analyzing the data and worked closely with the CRC dataviz experts, Taj and Matthew, to come up with the different visuals for the report.

As we’ve said in the past, we at CRC LOVE MAPS. They’re useful and (often) beautiful, helping us to make all kinds of decisions in research and daily life. Some of you have been following our interest in maps at the Baltimore DataMind blog, but to make sure more of our readers get to see that content, starting with this post we’re “folding” the BDM blog in here. So now, along with the evaluation news, data tricks, and dataviz tips you’ve come to expect from CRC’s blog, expect to learn more about making and using maps.

CRC’s dataviz team recently completed a comprehensive and beautiful infographic documenting breastfeeding statistics in the United States. Our hope is that this infographic can play a part in spreading the word about this important issue. From a public health standpoint, the medical benefits of breastfeeding are well established.* Breast milk provides babies with all the necessary fats, proteins, and vitamins they need for healthy growth and development. Among other benefits, antibodies in breast milk can help babies fight infections and reduce the risk developing asthma and allergies.

Infographics are all the rage. They are beautiful, engaging, and fun to look at. This one is no exception: At first glance, it looks like a lot of fun. The Finance Office has done something unexpected, which is trying to make understanding the budget of Baltimore City a bit easier by using data visualization. It is likely to be successful in that more people will look at this than might read a website that breaks out funding by categories, or talks about the property rate; but, it also leaves a lot to be desired.