Dear Colleagues,
We’re excited to announce the launch of the Intersectional Dashboard Design Cohort, a collaboration between Women’s Funding Network (WFN), Candid, and members of Women’s Funding Network. Together, we’re building an intersectional dashboard that provides an in-depth look at nonprofit leadership trends in the context of race and gender, making this data publicly accessible to all.
This project is grounded in the feminist idea that data and data gaps aren’t neutral—rather, they reflect the structures of power, priorities, and inequality from which they emerge. The strength of this work comes from the expertise and perspectives of the cohort members, whose backgrounds span advocacy, data analysis, leadership, evaluation, and equity-focused research.
- Carolyn Van Nelson, Director of Finance and Technology, Women’s Foundation of Minnesota
- Shawnda Chapman, Former Director of Innovative Grantmaking and Research, Ms. Foundation for Women
- Dr. Travis Speice, Applied Research Director, The Women’s Fund of the Greater Cincinnati Foundation
- Aleeka Kay Morgan, Executive Director, Nurturing Wāhine Fund
- Viviana Alvarado Pacheco, Senior Research and Policy Manager, The Women’s Fund Miami-Dade
- Taryn Kearns, Learning and Evaluation Officer, Global Fund for Women
- Maria Casey, Database and Reporting Associate, Fairfield County’s Community Foundation & Fund for Women and Girls
- Mara Montante, Knowledge Management Coordinator, WNY Women’s Foundation
- Solace Mensah-Narh, Data Analyst, G4GC
- Cesar del Valle, Partnerships Director, Candid
Demographic data about nonprofits is increasingly recognized as an important element of organizational transparency and funder accountability, but until recently has not been easily accessible to the public. Nonprofits make up 10% of the U.S. workforce, yet the Bureau of Labor and Statistics (BLS) only releases data about the nonprofit sector every five years—and without the comprehensive demographic analysis available in quarterly and annual reports generated about the private sector.
Together, this talented team will build a tool to meet a community need to apply an intersectional lens to data analysis and bring visibility to disparities within the nonprofit sector that are often masked by aggregated data. With data sourced from the Demographics via Candid dataset, the tool will provide funders, researchers, and nonprofits with a quantitative baseline to evaluate and build upon equity strategies. Work on the project will begin in November 2024 and will be featured at the upcoming UN World Data Forum in Medellín, Colombia.
Sincerely, Sara Keilholtz
Women’s Funding Network
Director of Data and Strategic Insights