A Few Sources of Innovative Thinking about Data and Nonprofits

Thanks to hot tipper Kevin Johnson for introducing me to Markets for Good, which is "is an effort by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation, and the progressive financial firm Liquidnet to improve the system for generating, sharing, and acting upon data and information in the social sector."  Currently, Markets for Good is hosting a conversation with the theme "Beyond Data Silos".  Each day, they are featuring a blog post on this topic.

From Markets for Good, I followed a trail to Data Analysts for Social Good, which is sponsoring the conference Do Good Data 2014.  This conference looks awesome.  For example, there's a session on "Making Maps with Google Fusion Tables," alongside "Calculating Social Return on Investment".  I wish I could make it, but my conference budget is limited this year. 

However, I will finally be attending the DRIVE (Data, Reporting, Information and Visualization Exchange) Conference, a little closer to home, in March.  I am really stoked about this, as I have managed to miss it in the last few years, and all I have heard is rave reviews.  And if you can't make it to Bellevue, WA in person, in the spirit of open source awesomeness, DRIVE has posted past conference videos online.