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Listening and learning in strategy design at The Skillman Foundation

How The Skillman Foundation uses data to inform strategy 

At The Skillman Foundation, data is more than numbers—it’s a tool for shaping strategy, amplifying community voices, and driving meaningful change. We are developing a data strategy that strengthens our grantmaking by centering insights from our grant partners and Detroit community members including students, parents, and educators. Our goal is to ensure that data isn’t just collected but actively informs education decisions, reflects the lived experiences of the people it represents, and is used ethically and equitably to advance policy change.  

Understanding needs and opportunities 

A landscape analysis is a powerful data tool to help nonprofit and philanthropic organizations understand the context in which they operate. It helps to identify opportunities, challenges, and contributions they can make to effect change. 

Graphic illustrating People Powered Education

One of my first projects as a Data Fellow for The Skillman Foundation and the Council of Michigan Foundations was conducting a landscape analysis of Detroit’s K-12 education system. A landscape analysis is a powerful data tool to help nonprofit and philanthropic organizations understand the context in which they operate. It helps identify opportunities, challenges, and contributions to effect impactful change. In September and October of 2024, the Foundation conducted this analysis to inform the development of the data and research strategy supporting its organization-wide framework, People Powered Education. The goal was to deepen our understanding of Detroit’s K-12 education data ecosystem.  

To gather insights, a survey was sent to 86 stakeholders and received 56 responses, including 7 partial responses, resulting in a 73% response rate. A non-response analysis showed the organizational demographics between respondents and non-respondents were similar. Additionally, six interviews were conducted with leaders and staff from Data Driven Detroit, Detroit PEER, Detroit Public Schools Community District, local charter schools, and a local out-of-school time consultant. Survey respondents and interviewees represented a diverse mix of stakeholders, including grant partners, data experts, researchers, consultants, education professionals, policy advocates, community organizers, media organizations, and others focused on Detroit families and youth. 

What we wanted to learn 

  1. Who are the primary actors in Detroit’s K-12 education data ecosystem and what role do they play? 
  1. What are the strengths and challenges of the ecosystem?  
  1. How do partners use data to inform education organization and advocacy and what challenges or barriers do they face? 

What we learned 

Primary actors and roles 

  • The ecosystem is diverse, including data providers, educational organizations, policy research organizations, community organizers, policy advocates, funders, media and nonprofit organizations, consultants, data intermediaries, and university-based research organizations, among others.  

“I often think that the regular Detroit parent is often not at the center of the discussion of what sorts of data might be helpful.”

-Consultant
  • Within the ecosystem, those who hold positions of power or influence frequently guide the direction of data collection and usage, while community voices, particularly youth, parents, and teachers, remain underrepresented.  
  • External audiences also play a key role in the ecosystem, with 74% of the respondents indicating that they communicate data to external audiences to encourage action and create change in the Detroit education ecosystem. 

Challenges/barriers hindering the use of data for education policy change 

  • Fragmentation within Detroit’s education system complicates efforts to generate comprehensive, actionable insights.  

“Our ecosystem is so fractured. We have a lot of potential data we could get from DPSCD, but that only covers less than half the students that live in the city. And when I say fractured, I mean we have 56 school districts, operating 181 schools in Detroit. And that’s not even including the 25% of Detroit children who go to public school outside of the city in dozens of school districts, and frankly hundreds of schools. So, if you want to really understand what is happening with school kids in Detroit, you have to look across all these systems. Some of that data is available at the state level, but it is student administrative records which are not a complete story about what is going on in schools and what is going on with students.”

-University-based researcher
  • Delays in accessing state-level data hinder timely decision making. This shows up in challenging how a school can use data to create strategies to target areas of low performance or areas needing improvement, as revealed by state testing.  

Strengths/assets of Detroit’s K-12 education data ecosystem 

  • There is a growing enthusiasm for data-driven change. This growing momentum can be a catalyst for increasing the opportunities available for using data to leverage change. 
  • Robust collaborations and partnerships have enabled positive local impacts, enhancing the ecosystem through shared understanding, goal setting, and action.  
  • Despite ecosystem fragmentation, there is an increasing availability of education-related data sources. 

Data usage 

  • Survey respondents report using data for several purposes, including program planning and development, grant reporting, strategic planning, evaluation, performance measurement, fundraising, and advocacy and policy work.  
  • Respondents report using data frequently to inform action, with 39% reporting daily use to support their operations and another 18% using data on a weekly basis.  
  • Just over 61% of respondents indicated they have contracted or requested help from other organizations. The three most common areas of assistance were collecting data, analyzing data, and reporting data findings. This demonstrates a large role in the ecosystem for consultants and other data experts for contract style work. 
  • 64% of the respondents said that data is fully or often integrated into decision making and planning.  

Leveraging data for education policy change 

  • There is a desire to see more longitudinal and holistic data, that can better inform advocacy and program decisions. 
  • While data is essential to partners’ operations, only 25% of respondents have dedicated staff for data analysis. This is reflected in respondents’ low reporting of their organizational capacity to take on technical areas of data work like data visualization and data storytelling. This decreases their ability to use data for policy advocacy.  
  • Although there is an increasing availability of education-related data sources, 51% of responding organizations stated that the data they need to support their mission is only moderately or rarely available. 
  • The top three barriers respondents face in using data effectively are limited financial resources, lack of staff capacity/expertise, and lack of training/professional development. Another form of this question raised the issue of accessibility to data tools and software for the organizations. 
  • Creating opportunities for training and professional development in data skills was the top answer for what was needed to better leverage data. The training specifically mentioned included how to identify data sources, how to ethically tell stories with data, how to identify what data matters for education systems change and influence equitable student outcomes, and identifying what platforms, tools, and methods should be used to collect, analyze, and report data.  
  • One interviewee specifically identified that helping create a collaboration that could introduce youth to data skills and create opportunities for the youth of Detroit to be a part of this journey would enhance both the data community and accomplish the goal of empowering the youth to play a role in education change.  

Looking ahead

The landscape analysis provided valuable insights into how partners use data as well as some of the strengths and challenges across the broader education ecosystem. It also brought forward partners’ hopes and what they think is needed to transition data from knowledge and facts to policy action. The knowledge gained underscores the critical role of data in driving equitable education reform in Detroit.  

By addressing identified gaps and fostering collaboration, The Skillman Foundation can support systemic, community-centered change within the education ecosystem. We continue to look forward to designing strategies that will support our partners as they collect and use data, including telling the story of the data, to inform and influence education change in sustainable and impactful ways.  

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