Five Data Storytelling Strategies to Foster Learning

Data can be a powerful catalyst for change both within your organization and among your grant partners. But it can be challenging to transform mundane data into compelling narratives that can engage different audiences—your team, senior leaders, the board, your grant partners—and get them excited about the stories behind the numbers. To help PEAK2024 attendees navigate these challenges, Pivot Data Design Founder and CEO Jennifer Marsack led a workshop where she shared strategies for turning data into engaging dialogues, equipping your organization and its partners with the skills to communicate impact effectively. Here are a few edited highlights from her presentation.

Communicate the context. “Behind any problem, there’s a lot of context that is super important to share. But it’s hard because people can feel intimidated by that overwhelming amount of information—so sometimes people just leave context out of their storytelling. They assume everyone knows what the problem is, how history got us here, and that everyone is on the same page. There are huge risks in just starting with and focusing on a problem. We need to really start thinking about how we can responsibly report data, and talk about important things like root causes, and historical context.”

Avoid the language of deficit framing. “Deficit-framing sees people and communities as a problem, and asset framing sees people and communities as an opportunity. Oftentimes when we start talking about the populations and communities served, we use a deficit frame. That paints a picture that really strips the community of the amazing assets, and opportunities that they already have available, and it’s important to start with an asset-framing first, and then move into ways to responsibly talk about the problems at hand. For example, saying 60 percent of Black high school students do not go to college allows your audience to make assumptions about why this population is not going to college. Instead, you need to make those connections by shifting the focus of the problem from the people to the context: The lack of access to quality resources limits many Black students’ ability to get prepared for college.”

Share hard truths. “Our responsibility as people collecting and holding the data to make sure that the information is getting shared in responsible ways. And it’s hard. I’ve had many experiences and colleagues of mine experiences where certain pieces of data get left out of the story, because they’re worried that their audience is going to feel uncomfortable and doesn’t want to hear it—especially if power dynamics are at play and they’re communicating to the board or senior leadership. But it’s a journey, and you have to start somewhere. Just because an audience isn’t curious about that information doesn’t mean that’s okay. The reality, and uncomfortable truths still need to be shared. It’s about finding the right time to share them, and not doing it all at once.”

Tailor how you tell your story to different audiences. “If you are working with a captured audience with high data literacy—say, at a conference of people that are collecting that same type of data—they’re going to want to get into the nitty-gritty, the appendices, the methodology.

“If you don’t have a captured audience but you’re communicating to people with high data literacy, dashboards can be good. My caveat is I think dashboards are better for internal audiences, not external ones. With internal audiences, you can have spaces to talk about the data and do some sense-making and contextualization. I don’t think dashboards are a great solution for external audiences unless you can train them on how to use it. And because they connect back to the data source, and as the data updates, the dashboard automatically updates. But the downside is that the story behind the numbers is changing, so it’s harder to contextualize data in dashboards.

“And for general audiences who might not be highly data literate, go with something like a short presentation or one-pagers or infographics, all of which are point-in-time snapshots where you can provide some contextual information. Intense visuals, dashboards, and even one-pagers can be overwhelming to this audience, so think about social-media-sized snippets of information. Even a chart, a flyer, or an infographic, which are similar to one-pagers, are way more visual and have less information in them.”

Reimagine your reporting priorities. “A lot of staff time and resources are put into reporting for your organization’s leaders, and they define what success looks like—but the people you collect data from are often not the primary audience, which excludes them from the conversation of what the data means and how you can work together to create an impact. Instead, of focusing on what the board and donors need to know, ask: What data can we collect to create value for our grant partners and staff? Which data do we need to show the impact of our programs? How can we collaborate with our partners to measure success in ways that foster growth and learning? What is the best format to present my findings to get more funding or get more of a budget? What is the best format to present my findings to engage partners, staff, and community in conversation? This can be a huge shift because it positions data as a learning tool rather than a tool for compliance. It’s also a shift that can build trust through transparency. If you are collecting data from people, it’s important to give it back to them, and be transparent about how their information and data is going to be used to make decisions.”

Photo Credit: Julie Harmsen Photography