News & Updates
Elevating Our Partnerships In a Shared Vision for a Thriving Household Need Data Ecosystem
Since the release of our latest Data Landscape Report for 2024, we have been inspired by the discussions it has catalyzed and are excited by the energy beginning to develop around building data capacities and data culture for supporting households in need. Mahalo to the Hawai‘i Alliance of Nonprofit Organizations for creating space for a panel discussion on “Data Capacities and Culture in Human Service Organizations” in October at this year’s HANOCON.
Enhancing Hawai‘i’s Household Need Data Landscape: An Update to Aloha United Way’s 211 Search Engine and Dashboard
Aloha United Way (AUW) has connected Hawaiʻi residents to social services through 211 since 1990 when they transitioned a paper record-based service to an electronic database of over 3,000 health and human service programs across Hawai‘i. Since then, AUW 211 has emerged as an important resource that allows community members to access social services of all kinds. By offering a call line, text, email, live chat, and online access, AUW helps community members in need navigate a service provider landscape that may offer a lot of assistance but can be difficult for many to access on their own.
Meet the City and County of Honolulu’s First Chief Data Officer: Kira Chuchom
Kira Chuchom joined the City and County of Honolulu on April 1, 2024 as its first Chief Data Officer. Hawaiʻi Data Collaborative sat down with Chuchom to discuss her background, what excites her about this new position, her experience in the role so far, and her approach and vision for making data work better for our government and community.
Kumukahi Health + Wellness: When a Data Dashboard Makes Sense
With significant growth over the last several years, the team at Kumukahi Health + Wellness developed a desire to use their data to improve programs, and demonstrate the impact of their work beyond reporting requirements. With several programs collecting and storing data in different systems, while continuing to expand services, the challenge of visualizing all of the data in a centralized platform seemed daunting but necessary for Kumukahi to assess the full impact of its work.
Employment Opportunity with Hawai‘i Data Collaborative: Data Visualization Specialist
We are recruiting a Data Visualization Specialist to support our ongoing work to make data in Hawai‘i more accessible, meaningful and relevant for addressing pressing challenges. In this role, you will be responsible for building data visualization and dashboard products across a range of topics and use cases, primarily centered around the domain of household assistance. Hawai‘i Data Collaborative works mostly through partnerships with non-profit, philanthropic and government stakeholders, so this role will necessarily entail collaboration with both internal team members and counterparts in partner organizations.
In Our Latest Report, We Profile Four Organizations with a Shared Vision for a Thriving Household Need Data Ecosystem
We are excited to share our latest Data Landscape Report for 2024. Since our last report in 2022, we have partnered with frontline service providers, philanthropic funders, and government stakeholders to address their data challenges by building data capacities for a more insightful and connected data ecosystem. Now in year three of working alongside community partners to build these data capacities, we are releasing this report to highlight the stories of four organizations actively working to transform how they use and share data to improve outcomes for the households they serve, sharing a vision for a thriving data ecosystem.
NTEN’s Nonprofit Technology Conference: An Opportunity for Hawai‘i Nonprofits to Get Resourced
Nonprofits often lag behind for-profit entities in terms of data capacity and technology access. Lack of general funding and human resources, in addition to programmatic funding and operations structures prioritizing direct services over capacity building are all challenges that nonprofits across the country, including Hawaiʻi service providers, often face. NTEN is an organization that supports nonprofits in leveraging technology to increase impact and equity. Similar to Hawaiʻi Data Collaborative (HDC), NTEN’s focus is on providing capacity-building resources and support to nonprofits rather than offering direct services that address specific issues.
Making Household Need Data More Accessible: DHS Launches Its Interactive Databook
On April 16, 2024, the State of Hawaiʻi Department of Human Services (DHS) launched a new interactive version of their databook. As the largest state department that provides services for Hawai‘i residents across all islands, DHS collects a wealth of data regarding the conditions and needs of communities statewide. The interactive databook – along with the PDF version that will continue to be released annually – will provide valuable aggregated, anonymized, community-specific data so that the public, service providers, and policymakers may make data-guided decisions when it comes to accessing, providing, and funding benefits and services.
A Discussion with Hawai‘i’s First State Chief Data Officer
In 2022, Hawaiʻi joined the growing list of states with a Chief Data Officer (CDO) role, when Governor Ige signed Act 167 into law. Housed within the State of Hawaiʻi Office of Enterprise Technology Services, the CDO role “supports the the state’s Chief Information Officer (CIO) in overseeing a comprehensive state strategy to govern data capture, storage, maintenance, visualization, analysis, sharing, integration, and access that will drive transparency and customer satisfaction for the public.” Now six months in, we invited Hawaiʻi’s inaugural CDO, Rebecca Cai, to share insights about the role, the approach she envisions, and her experiences thus far.
Building Data Capacity to Transform How We Fight Hunger in Hawai‘i
Hawai‘i needs more timely, quality, local data to better understand food security and the related challenges of households statewide. Our partners at Hawai‘i Foodbank - the largest food bank in the state - aspire to be a source of this information so that all concerned with supporting households in need have timely information to do so. While they currently track, report and share data on the number of people served and pounds of food distributed, they have identified an opportunity to collect data to better understand the circumstances of those seeking food assistance - data that will inform better responses to food insecurity and related challenges in Hawai‘i.
Strengthening Hawai‘i’s Data Ecosystem Through Capacity Building and Network Connections
After taking time to connect and recharge with family and friends at the end of 2023, we at HDC are off to another year of building data capacities for a better Hawai‘i. In starting a new year, we remain committed to building sustained data capacities that will transform not only the work of individual organizations, but over time, the effectiveness of direct household assistance overall. To do so, we will focus on supporting the connections across those working to transform how we understand and support community members struggling to get by in Hawai‘i, while also continuing to engage in direct partnerships with organizations committed to using data to change the household need landscape.
Data to Insight: Bridging the Gap with Data Literacy
We have unprecedented access to data, but what does it mean to be “data literate”? For those of us who arenʻt trained data scientists, how do we navigate, make meaning, and make choices in a “data-guided” way? According to Kendrick Leong, Research and Analysis Lead at Hawaiʻi Data Collaborative, data literacy starts with knowing where to find data and being able to discern if a source is reputable.
Effective Cross-Agency Collaboration Enabled by Data
The Hawaiʻi School Facilities Authority (SFA) has been tasked to create 465 pre-K classrooms by 2032 in coordination with supporting teacher housing efforts to ensure there are trained and available teachers to teach in the newly added classrooms. In order to build classrooms and housing where they are most needed and will be best utilized, SFA – alongside other community and government partners, including the Executive Office on Early Learning – has turned to data to make the most informed choices possible.
Reimagining the Role of Data in Philanthropy
Sulma Gandhi, DrBA MSc, joined Stupski Foundation in 2021 as the Hawaiʻi health program officer, her first role from a funder perspective after years of experience as a grantee. As a longtime East Hawaiʻi Island resident with a background in public, private, and nonprofit work, Gandhi’s approach to grantmaking is rooted in community and power sharing. Gandhi sat down with HDC to discuss the role data plays – along with relationship building – in redefining the dynamic between funders and grantee organizations.
Getting to the Heart of Data
As a freelance writer, Diana Hahn works with a variety of organizations and projects that span multiple sectors – from education, to health, to science, to community-based organizations. The writing she does to support Hawaiʻi Data Collaborative, however, sits at the intersection of these domains, because insight from data can make us smarter in just about anything.
In this blog piece, we invite you to peer behind the curtain to see what goes into the process of making data more relatable to broad audiences through writing.
Addressing Hawai‘i’s Child Care Needs Through Data and Collaboration
Carol Wear, interim executive director at PATCH, has dedicated over 30 years of her career to the early childhood sector and helping families navigate the child care system. In recent years, however, Wear has witnessed the system become more challenged and strained. While the current shortage is concerning, stakeholders of the early childhood sector, have mobilized to respond to the issue through innovative program design and cross-sector partnerships and collaborations to begin working towards ensuring all children in Hawai‘i have access to quality child care.
The Native Hawaiian Data Landscape: Making Data Available to Better Address Household Need
Justin Hong began working at the intersection of data and the Native Hawaiian community in 2010. Though he’s observed challenges inherent to cross-sector collaboration as well as barriers to data accessibility over the years, Hong is hopeful given the progress made to date. Looking ahead, Hong sees the potential for further strategic growth and collaboration in the field of Native Hawaiian data and accessibility.
Using Data to Democratize Education on Hawai‘i Island
Chancellor Rachel Solemsaas of Hawai’i Community College (HCC) is clear about her priority when it comes to serving students in need: democratizing education. She defines democratizing education as open access, equity, and commitment to success. To make these priorities a reality, we’ve partnered with Chancellor Solemsaas and her team to leverage existing data while also cultivating a data culture at HCC that not only informs decision-making, but teaches students how to be data literate as well.
The Chief Data Officer: An Opportunity For a New State Data Strategy
In Hawaiʻi, we now have the opportunity to appoint a Chief Data Officer (CDO) and data task force to create a strategic approach that leverages data to improve government efficiency, services, decision making, and policy. If set up well and leveraged appropriately, the CDO and data task force could have a significant impact on not only the effectiveness of our state government, but on all organizations that rely upon – or, are relied upon – by state government to serve the public interest at large.
The Bigger Picture: Research and Analysis to Make Data Meaningful and Inform Action
As the Research and Analysis Lead at Hawaiʻi Data Collaborative (HDC), Kendrick Leong works with local organizations to develop actionable insights, contribute to collective understanding, and develop strategies to better address household need. Part storytelling, part hypothesis development and testing, and part contextualization, HDC’s research and analysis support elevates actionable data insights from those working closest to an issue to make a real difference for nonprofits, policy makers, and the people they serve.
In this blog post, Kendrick shares HDC’s research and analysis process that consists of five steps designed to operationalize and maximize the value of available data.