5 Ways to Use Data Storytelling for Advocacy
By: Sarah Aoun
Tags: Data Visualization, Advocacy, Journalism

Nonprofits are often wary of creating their own data visualizations, and for valid reasons. Setting up such a project can require a team of designers, developers, and coders to bring it to life. Unfortunately, many organizations and individuals that usually collect insightful data lack access to such resources.

We’re helping to bridge that gap. With Silk, developing custom websites, maintaining them, or creating complex data visualizations can be within anyone’s reach, regardless of tech skills. More and more nonprofits, journalists, activists, and advocates are making use of Silk’s data visualization platform. And data storytelling is at the forefront of such initiatives.

At first thought, data and storytelling sound like an odd mix. “Data” sounds dry, while storytelling weaves narratives aimed at appealing to people’s emotions. Combining both, however, can be incredibly powerful and yield high-impact results.

Bringing data to life, giving it context and meaning, is crucial. Within the nonprofit sector, visualizing data in a compelling way allows users to increase impact and awareness around the work that they do. Such exposure often improves capacities to fundraise.

We’ve been positively surprised, over and over again, by the innovative ways that Silkers have used the tool to reach their audience. Sometimes, it requires taking a step back to gain perspective on all the different ways data storytelling can enhance advocacy efforts. Here are some highlights we’d like to share by using Silk projects as examples.

1. Creating a Searchable Database

Over the past year, many different initiatives and projects have emerged that focus on tracking people killed during interaction with law enforcement. Fatal Encounters is one such effort. By making use of Silk’s powerful database, the folks behind Fatal Encounters have logged over 12,000 incidents between January 2000 and today.

The database speaks for itself. The image gallery is visually high-impact, and details on every person killed by law enforcement are noted on a datacard, providing information surrounding his or her death. The database and gallery highlight the immensity of the issue.

2. Online Guidelines and Handbook

IJNET, the International Journalists’ Network, put together a journalism safety toolkit for journalists in the field. Journalists can find resource articles and tip sheets on how to protect themselves in tough environments.

What was surprising, and different is that IJNET did not make use of the data visualization tools whatsoever, which was definitely one of the more surprising ways to use Silk. It simply relied on Silk’s publishing platform to create a website.

As an advocate, consider creating an online data handbook or toolkit by making use of the publishing aspect of Silk. Your target audience can then skim through the material you provide and always refer back to it in times of need.

3. Community Contributions and Collaborations

A neat aspect about some data visualization tools is the ability to collaborate and integrate with other platforms. Checkdesk is one such tool; it allows someone to draw research from multiple sources. A great example that illustrates this combination is Bellingcat’s Vehicle Tracking Project, which tracks movements of Russian military equipment related to the Ukraine conflict.

Locations of the latest 20 added sightings

It does so by collecting sightings from social media and mapping them. The team behind Bellingcat relies on community sightings and submissions, and thus creates a large-scale collaborative story. Advocates can think of similar tactics when tracking events, incidents, and developments that impact a community, and can rely on collective contributions.

4. From Dry Legal Documents to Interactive Visualizations

Data comes in all shapes and forms. And sometimes it can seem inaccessible or too complex for your audience. Transforming that data into compelling and engaging visualizations can be incredibly powerful in its reach and impact.

SMEX, also known as Social Media Exchange, is a nonprofit based in Lebanon that compiles an Arab digital rights dataset. By transforming legal documents from around the Arab world into interactive visualizations, SMEX has allowed users to gain access to otherwise difficult, sometimes obscure legal texts to get ahold of. Users can sift through types of law, as well as legislation that affects digital rights, and gain new insights through clear and interactive visualizations.

5. Mix It Up: Different Mediums for More Impact

Silk’s publishing platform allows you to integrate different mediums into your project. Users can add text, videos, images, audio files, Twitter feeds, PDFs, and more. Those can spark your audience’s imagination to encourage examining relationships among and facilitate interacting with the data.

The Insight TWI project is a good example. Visualizations are accompanied by videos and photos, which are dynamic forms of engagement.

Another interesting case is the data project from the Vermont Public Radio, focused on environmental hazards. The extensive text accompanying the visualizations allows the audience to gain insight from the data presented. It also succeeds in appealing to the audience’s emotions, which can be essential when including a call to action.

Making otherwise costly resources accessible to nonprofits and advocates can yield powerful results for their campaigns and projects. And learning how to adapt them to the work and objective can increase impact. Before delving into data storytelling, it’s important to remember what the goal is. What are you trying to achieve? Who is your audience? And what are they expecting from the information?

Establishing those answers is essential to determine your advocacy or fundraising strategy. And with Silk, you can take matters into your own hands. Forget relying on a team of designers and developers to build a data visualization project. Turning data and information into impact reports, maps, galleries, and more has never been easier. Learn more about Silk for nonprofits.

This post originally appeared on Techsoup.