Guest Post by 2011 American Express NGen Fellows

The 2011 American Express NGen Fellows, convened by Independent Sector, are providing an opportunity for D.C.-based nonprofits to receive free help from leading data scientists, developers and digital do-gooders!

If you’re an organization that’s looking to analyze and visualize data about your work or needs assistance in using data to further your mission, then we’d like to invite you to apply for an opportunity to be part of an upcoming Data Dive in Washington, D.C., March 2-4, 2012.

At the D.C. Data Dive, selected organizations will team up with groups of data enthusiasts to explore their data, create analyses and insights, and receive free consultations. The hands-on event is hosted in collaboration with Data Without Borders and is part of the 2011 American Express NGen Fellows’ group project, Leading Through Data – a 4-month long series of blogs, events and case studies highlighting the tools and practices of organizations using data to improve their effectiveness and leadership in the social sector.

Space for this event is limited, and so we encourage you to apply quickly! Simply fill out the brief application, telling us a little bit about the project(s) you’re working on that involve data, what you’re interested in doing and what you hope to achieve.

Applications will be vetted by the Data Without Borders team, and successful applicants will be invited to the weekend event. Applications close on February 3, 2012.

More information is included below about the Data Dive, along with examples of projects nonprofits and data scientists have worked on and the groups hosting the event in D.C.

We hope you’ll consider applying and sharing this information with other organizations that you think might benefit from this opportunity! 

If you have any questions, feel free to ask in the comment section below, or leave your email address and a team member will follow up with you directly.  


Additional Details:

What is a Data Dive? Data Dives are weekend long events where a handful of organizations team up with volunteer data scientists to explore their data, build analyses, and to ask and answer important questions for their mission. Some of the kinds of projects that teams worked on at past Data Dives include: helping a microfinance organization scrape financial information from multiple banking institutions, building maps and visualizations of police stop-and-frisk databases for a civil liberties group, and assisting a public health organization with the beginnings of an automated prescription system.  Read more information on previous Data Dives held in NY and San Francisco.

Who is eligible to apply? We’re looking for D.C.-based non-profit organizations* who are working on projects that involve data, or are seeking ways to further their mission by better analyzing and visualizing data about their practice or their field. (For the purpose of this event, ‘D.C.-based’ means your organization has an office in D.C.)
* Data Dives are city-based events where organizations and data scientists from the same area are teamed up.  The reason for the geographic focus is that the Data Dives are designed to create relationships between organizations and developers/data scientists that might last beyond the specific event.

How do you apply? Simply fill out the brief application below, telling us a little bit about the projects you’re working on that involve data, what you’re interested in doing and what you hope to achieve. (On the applications page, select ‘Do You Have Data’.