A 2023-24 Annual Impact Report story
Our 2023-24 Annual Impact Report highlighted stories about how we navigated significant changes over the past year. We are sharing these stories as they reflect how our work embodies our values and impacts those we collaborate with.
Strengthening capacity
The PolicyWise team is dedicated to continuously strengthening individual and organizational capacity.
As we collaborate with partners on our projects, we embed strengthening capacity as part of our approach to research, evaluation, and data management and analysis. By doing this, we enhance skills to identify, assess, and act on opportunities for growth, change, and innovation. Working in this way also improves our own capacity, cultural responsivity, and understanding of the contexts in which we work.
This past year, our Build Better Data and Alberta Nonprofit Data Strategy initiative teams provided information, resources, and webinars that strengthened the data skills and capacity of non-profit and social-serving communities.
“As an evaluation partner, we have found that the PolicyWise staff really embed themselves in the work and truly take a collaborative approach. Matching the fluidity of our iterative process, the team at PolicyWise has been tremendous in advancing the objectives of our initiatives.”
—Richard Mugford, Senior Manager Community Information
Distress Centre Calgary
Building data capacity
For years, the non-profit and social-serving communities have struggled to gather, manage, and use data effectively. The Philanthropist Journal recently reported that Canada’s non-profits know their sector needs more data about itself and the people they serve. They are also aware that they need a unified approach to data collection.
This motivated us to launch our Build Better Data initiative in 2020. It provides non-profit and social-serving communities with innovative demographic tools and resources to unleash the power of data. With these tools and resources, organizations in these communities can enhance their ability to collect, manage, and use meaningful, high-quality data. By building their data capacity, they can improve their programs and outcomes, operate more efficiently, and develop impactful policy solutions.
This past year, the Build Better Data team collaborated with several non-profit and
social-serving organizations to strengthen their capacity to use data. Participating organizations co-designed and received capacity-building supports related to data practises essential to effective data collaboration, focused on three major areas:
- Data governance in collaborative contexts
- Data maturity
- Data culture
These capacity-building sessions engaged:
- 19 non-profit service providers
- Five system partners representing health services, municipal services, philanthropic foundations, and law enforcement
- One group comprised of people with lived experience
More than 60 people at all levels of these organizations, from senior leaders to front-line staff, enhanced their data skills and practices.
The results from these sessions will impact more than 300,000 Albertans across the province served by these community-based non-profit organizations. This ensures that these organizations collect, manage, use, and share personal information in safer, more ethical, and effective ways, thereby enhancing the community’s trust and well-being.
Championing the power of data
PolicyWise has been championing the power of data to enhance policy and programming decision-making in the non-profit community. Since 2019, our Alberta Nonprofit Data Strategy team has provided this community with sector-level analysis, connected them to other sector-level research and resources, and offered capacity-building activities to help them understand and effectively use data to enhance their services.
This year, the Data Strategy team provided Alberta non-profit organizations three free online training sessions about using Canada Census data to advance their organization. These sessions were conducted by experts from Statistics Canada and held in:
To further support the non-profit community, the May and June sessions were made available on our YouTube channel.
Throughout the year, our team shared information about Alberta’s non-profit sector and resources to support them on their data journeys. In April 2023, they provided data about the state of charitable donations in Alberta through our social media channels. In June 2023, they released recent economic data about Alberta’s community non-profits, offering a snapshot of the sector’s health. They also shared capacity-building resources from various organizations to enhance Alberta non-profits’ use of data.
Finally, the Data Strategy team released the initiative’s 2023-24 annual report on the state of Alberta’s non-profit sector. The report highlighted the sector’s impact, current challenges, and priorities over the past year, combining their previous work with other recent analyses on the sector. It also provided resources to help non-profits strengthen their data capacity and skills.
To learn more about how PolicyWise is making an impact and to read similar stories, check out our 2023-24 Annual Impact Report.
