9 Ways Data Science Can Accelerate Your Social Impact Work

NORTHAMPTON, MA / ACCESSWIRE / March 27, 2023 / Submittable

Foto: Accesswire

For people working across the philanthropic sector, data science can feel like an unwieldy topic. Where do you start? What data is important? How does it fit into your community work?

Before you get deep into the weeds, it's worth stepping back to understand what data science is and what it can enable you to do.

Data science for social impact is about structuring what is unstructured to help make data-driven decisions. It's not about drowning you in information you don't need. It's about using data strategically to make a deeper impact.

We hosted a webinar in partnership with Chantal Forster and the Technology Association of Grantmakers. Three data scientists working in the social impact sector-Antonio Campello of Wellcome Trust, Jonathan Hertel of the Impact Genome Project®, and Andrew Spott of Submittable-shared how data science and AI help them fulfill their missions.

Highlighting insights and examples from this event, we've laid out nine ways data science can help your organization do more.

Whether you have a strong background in data science or you're just getting data-curious, we've got some helpful insights for everyone.

Some quick definitions for data science

Before we get started, let's cover some of the terminology. For people new to data science, sometimes the language itself can be overwhelming, so here's a quick primer.

• Data analytics is the process of analyzing raw data to find trends and answer questions.
  • Most organizations do some form of data analytics. For example, you might ask, where do our grantees live? Tracking geographic data to determine the top states or countries you provide funding to is data analytics at work.
• Machine learning is the process of leveraging algorithms to give computers the capability to improve automatically through experience and with data.
  • Image recognition is a common application of machine learning; if you've seen your phone or computer identify on its own who is in a photo, you've seen machine learning in action.
• Data science is the application of machine learning algorithms to various data sources (i.e., numbers, text, images, video, audio, and more) to produce artificial intelligence systems that can perform tasks which ordinarily require human intelligence.
  • Even if you haven't worked in data science, you've likely benefited from it. Data science is leveraged across every sector-public and private-including healthcare, transportation, public safety, and more. For example, data science is now used to help analyze medical imaging and identify malignancies.
• Natural language processing is the branch of artificial intelligence focused on giving computers the ability to understand and respond to text and spoken words in the same way humans can.
  • Think Siri or Alexa.
• Taxonomy is a classification or categorization system used to group similar items.
  • In philanthropy, nonprofits might be grouped by size, mission, program design, location, or another designation.

Before you dive in, get the guide