Data for Humanizing Impact: How Smaller Teams Can Generate Outsized Impact with Better Data Tools & Practices
Over the past several months, City Rising's Social Impact Learning Series has explored questions that many people working in communities, nonprofits, philanthropy, public institutions, and collaborative initiatives are asking right now.
Why do collaborations fail, even when everyone shares good intentions? How can we better understand the ecosystems, relationships, and flows that shape our work? And perhaps most importantly: how do we make better decisions in increasingly complex environments?
Our upcoming panel discussion, Data for Humanizing Impact: How Smaller Teams Can Generate Outsized Impact with Better Data Tools & Practices, (June 9, 1-2 EST) continues that conversation.
While the word data often brings to mind spreadsheets, dashboards, and reporting requirements, we believe the most important role of data is helping us better understand people, relationships, experiences, and systems. When used thoughtfully, data can help organizations move beyond assumptions, identify emerging needs, strengthen strategy, communicate impact, and make more informed decisions.
The good news is that many of the tools and practices that once required large budgets, specialized staff, and significant technical expertise are becoming increasingly accessible. Small organizations now have opportunities to collect meaningful information, generate actionable insights, visualize complex challenges, and learn from their work in ways that were difficult—or impossible—just a few years ago.
This discussion is designed for nonprofit leaders, community practitioners, evaluators, funders, public sector professionals, and anyone interested in strengthening their ability to learn from and act on the information available to them.
We are excited to welcome two outstanding panelists who bring both practical experience and thoughtful perspectives to this conversation.
Michael Russell, Co-Founder and CEO of ZOIQ, helps organizations transform conversations, experiences, and engagement into actionable insight. His work focuses on designing human-centered digital solutions that enable organizations to better understand the people they serve and create measurable impact.
Nora F. Murphy, PhD, founder of Live Undivided, works at the intersection of data, evaluation, systems change, and community engagement. Her work emphasizes using data not simply for measurement and compliance, but as a tool for learning, belonging, adaptation, and collective decision-making. Nora's approach helps organizations connect quantitative evidence with lived experience, creating a fuller picture of what is happening and why it matters.
As with all Social Impact Learning Series events, we want this conversation to be responsive to the questions and challenges people are facing in their own work. Participants who register for the webinar will be invited to submit questions in advance, helping shape the discussion and ensuring that the conversation reflects the interests and realities of those joining us.
Our hope is that participants leave with more than a list of tools. We hope they leave with new ways of thinking about data, practical ideas they can apply within their own organizations, and a deeper understanding of how data practices can support learning, strategy, accountability, and human connection. Most of all, we hope participants leave better equipped to use information not simply to measure impact, but to create it.
We invite you to join us for what promises to be an engaging and timely conversation.