Visualizing Place

The Challenge

The state of Mississippi is in a “data drought,” says Sophie Wolf, Director of Communications at Community Foundation for Mississippi. “There’s not one clearinghouse to find a lot of data, and people are really selective about sharing it if they do have it,” she adds.

There’s also a lack of systematic organization of data. Rather than collecting it in the same way each year, data is collected haphazardly. Without clean, systemized and precise data, it’s difficult for Sophie and her team to accurately measure impact and make better decisions about the communities they serve in Mississippi. As a community foundation, that means it’s tough to equitably distribute funding in counties that need it most.

The Solution

“To really understand our communities, we need data,” Sophie says. “That's where mySidewalk comes in.” The Community Foundation for Mississippi is accessing data, finding insights, and building powerful stories about communities in Mississippi, all powered by mySidewalk's data storytelling workflow.

“I have the numbers, I have the demographics, I have the geographic place, and it's all in one place. It's all complete and right there,” she says.

The Outcomes

What's a Community Foundation?

Community Foundation for Mississippi allows individuals to open funds and combine their financial resources to grow investments more quickly. This approach helps fund charitable projects for communities across Mississippi at a faster rate. Community Foundation for Mississippi houses funding for “every type of interest that you could imagine,” Sophie says.

Data plays a huge role in the foundation’s work to support valuable programs and resources. “We’re using data for seeing gaps and barriers, but also to learn how we can give a little more context to the stories we’re telling,” Sophie says.

Mapping is another important part of the data. But, Sophie says, powerful data storytelling is also about visualizing place. “It’s one of the reasons we really love mySidewalk — being able to visualize that in terms of place. That’s crucial to our work, especially finding gaps.”

Driving Strategic Initiatives

Beyond visualizing place and mapping counties, data drives the Community Foundation for Mississippi’s strategic decisions for nonprofits, grant applications and funding, and even long-term strategic planning.

Sophie says the foundation is starting to help nonprofits build stronger grant pitches with mySidewalk reports. “How can we leverage information that people have, use this data that we have, and put it together, while simultaneously doing some technical assistance to get nonprofits a stronger grant proposal?” To answer this question, Sophie takes organizations along the journey

She recently worked with a nonprofit on some test reports around health equity. The nonprofit provided a map of all the families that they serve, and Sophie pulled it into a mySidewalk report. From there, she offered suggestions on how the nonprofit could use data findings to tell a compelling story and create a rich report for a grant application. This project is just one example of how data supports the strategic development of the Community Foundation for Mississippi, and by association, its strategic partners.

Data is also important to the strategic distribution of grant funding to philanthropic groups in the Community Foundation for Mississippi’s service area.

“We have our own [grant] focus areas: placemaking, children and families, community partnerships, and capacity building,” Sophie says. With data, the Community Foundation for Mississippi is able to review details like where they’ve provided funding in the past, who’s started a grant application but didn’t finish, and who received approval for funding. By mapping these details, it’s easier to find gaps, uncover barriers, and have a conversation to understand the roadblocks to a grant application.

“That starts to tell a story about where capacity is,” Sophie says. “Then there’s stories we want to tell, semi-related to our funds.”