Presentations and discussion
Networking and connecting
Learning and workshops
Thank you to all you attended Data Day 2024! Data Day is an annual event, hosted by Data You Can Use, which provides an opportunity for leaders from neighborhoods, nonprofits, universities, the public sector, and beyond to better understand what data are available, the implications of data on community revitalization, and how to increase connections between research and practice. This year’s theme was Measures and Movements: Using Data to Spark Change. We had over 400 attendees.
Highlights
Keynote Address
Jesse Van Tol, the President and CEO of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC), delivered the morning Keynote Address, followed by a response from Greg Wesley, President and CEO of the Greater Milwaukee Foundation (GMF). After telling his own story of when his life was changed when his parents purchased a home through the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), Jesse dove into some of the current data tools and political movements that are fueling the justice system. Funded by a grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC) and the Institute for Social Research (ISR) at the University of Michigan, one of the world’s largest academic research organizations, have collaborated to create the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act Longitudinal Dataset (HLD). The interactive mapping tool opens new doors for investigating the historical effects of redlining and disinvestment through new, geographic alignment across multiple decades of mortgage reporting over forty years by census track.
Following the Keynote, Greg Wesley responded to Jesse’s comments about the wealth-building potential of homeownership and the historical barriers that prevent many communities from accessing it, focusing on the Milwaukee context. The Q & A section, moderated by Greg Wesley, dove deeper into the ways that banks and foundations can support building community wealth.
Data Dreams
Each year at Data Day, Data You Can Use awards community organizations Data Dream Awards. The winners receive 6-9 months of support from the Data You Can Use staff on a project that enhances their capacity to effectively collect, analyze, and use data to advance their organizations’ missions. This year, four finalists presented their data dream at Data Day: Clean Wisconsin, My Way Out, Plastic-Free MKE, and Sherman Phoenix. After the presentations, the Data Day audience was given the opportunity to vote for their People’s Choice Data Dream winner.
Clean Wisconsin’s mission is to combat climate change and pollution in our air, water, and land, and ensure a healthy future for every Wisconsin community. Our Data Dream is to provide a comprehensive, evidence-based evaluation of the local impact of green infrastructure in Milwaukee’s northwest side, incorporating an analysis of what environmental determinants of health are driving health inequities among the community and in the state of Wisconsin.
At My Way Out, our mission is to empower and enrich the lives of justice-impacted individuals by bringing together community resources, MWO supportive service providers and employers while reducing recidivism, building strong communities, keeping families together, and bringing hope and prosperity to marginalized individuals. My Way Out, Inc. purports that early and long-term inventions with justice-impacted individuals over a 3-year period delivered by individuals with lived experience from underserved communities brings credibility and competencies that address criminogenic needs and risks past the typical recidivism period and accelerating successful reentry to the community, family, and the workforce therein eliminating recidivism.
At Plastic-Free MKE, our mission is to reduce the harms that unnecessary plastics have on environmental health, public health, and social justice. We center those most harmed by plastics, build a community around plastics alternatives, advocate for producer and polluter accountability, and use collaborative problem-solving to eliminate plastics in the Milwaukee area. Plastic-Free MKE works with local food service businesses to help them reduce the amount of unnecessary plastics they are using and passing along to their customers. Our Data Dream is to have a simple, yet accurate way of tracking how much plastic usage our program prevents, as well as the long-term cost-savings to our businesses and the carbon emissions reduced as a result.
The mission of the Sherman Phoenix is to revitalize and uplift Milwaukee’s community of color through cultural celebration, entrepreneurship support, and wellness resources. There are significant disparities in entrepreneurship opportunities and venture capital funding that disproportionately affect Black and Latinx communities. Sherman Phoenix wishes to employ precise measurement and data collection methods to effectively track the impact of our initiatives and validate the critical role we play in providing essential support to Black and brown small businesses seeking funding and assistance. Our data dream is to identify the key indicators to substantiate our mission and facilitate the continuous improvement of our programs.
This year, the two Data Dream winners are Clean Wisconsin and Sherman Phoenix. Clean Wisconsin’s data dream is to provide a comprehensive, evidence-based evaluation of the local impact of green infrastructure in Milwaukee’s northwest side, incorporating an analysis of what environmental determinants of health are driving health inequities among the community and in the state of Wisconsin. Sherman Phoenix’s data dream is to employ precise measurement and data collection methods to effectively track the impact of our initiatives and validate the critical role we play in providing essential support to Black and brown small businesses seeking funding and assistance. They aim to identify the key indicators to substantiate their mission and facilitate the continuous improvement of their programs.
Social Determinants of Health Panel
Moderated by Andrés Gonzalez, Vice President of Community Engagement and Chief Diversity Officer at Froedtert ThedaCare Health, Inc., the afternoon panel focused on the ways that local organizations used data to advance community health. The panelists represented organizations from sectors along the spectrum of social determinants, such as housing, education, healthcare, community-based development, and the built environment. The panel was made up of Antonio Butts, Executive Director of Walnut Way Conservation Corps, Anne Christiansen, Executive Director of Milwaukee Healthcare Partnership, Stephanie Maney-Hartlaub, PhD, Executive Director of City Year Milwaukee, and Teig Whaley-Smith, Executive Director of the Community Development Alliance. Highlights from the conversation include how each organization was utilizing data to advance their mission. For example, the Community Development Alliance compiles data on the individuals going through homebuyer counseling, grouped by neighborhood and political districts. They recently used this data as an advocacy tool with the Milwaukee Common Council when the city was considering cutting the home loan assistance budget considerably. Other examples of how panelists were utilizing data included measuring individual student progress, creating awareness and planning among community members, and guiding strategies for coalition-building.
Ignite Presentations
The Ignite presentations are consistently highlighted as a crowd-favorite feature at Data Day! Ignite presentations are lightning presentations, where the presenter is only given 5-minutes to highlight a data project. This year, we heard from a variety of community organizations and nonprofits about their research project and data tools, including the Milwaukee Food Council, Community Advocates, Milwaukee Succeeds, Reflo, VIA CDC, SecureFutures, and Milwaukee Healthcare Partnership.
Thank you to our Data Day and Data Dream Sponsors:
Community Advocate Sponsors
Community Sustainer Sponsors
Community Partner Sponsors
Learn about past Data Days!
2023 - Journey to Justice: Using Data for Systems Change in Milwaukee
Data Day 2023 took place on October 18th at the Italian Community Center, with 300 attendees. The theme was “Journey to Justice: Using Data for System chance in Milwaukee.” Our two keynote speakers were Cashauna Hill and Dr. Tonya Howard Calhoun. Cashauna Hill is the Executive Director of the Redress Movement, and previously served as the Executive Director of the Louisiana Fair Housing Action Center. The Redress Movement is committed to leading a multi-racial movement that empowers communities to take director action to redress racial segregation. Dr. Tonya Howard Calhoun is the Director of the Environmental Defense Fund’s (EDF) Office of Community Collaboration & Engagement. EDF is a global nonprofit tackling climate change through bold, game-changing solutions which put people at the center.
Data Dreams were awarded to two finalists at the event – Milwaukee Community Land Trust and Milwaukee Food Council. The Milwaukee Community Land Trust’s data dream is to compare the wealth created for families in three different scenarios: rental / fair market / community land trust. Using Milwaukee housing historical data to create a ten year comparison of the different scenarios, they hope to to inform potential homebuyers’ decision-making and the general public’s understanding of the land trust model. The Milwaukee Food Council’s data dream is to create a social network map of the pre-existing programs, policies, organizations, and businesses within the complex food system of Milwaukee to determine if they are meeting public need. Through facilitating dialogue among organizations doing overlapping work, they seek to mitigate the historical and systemic barriers that inhibit individuals from accessing nutritious, healthy food by fostering an organizations of shared resources and collaboration.
