INTRODUCING COMMUNITY DATA
The goal of this report is ambitious: Bring much needed attention to community data by providing a shared understanding of what it is, what it isn’t, and why it’s needed. To meet this goal, the report sets out to do the following:
1) Describe our journey to community data. We acknowledge the many relationships and learnings that helped us arrive at a point where we can define it, provide examples of it, and clearly distinguish it from dominant data.
2) Consider what counts as trusted evidence and why the forms of evidence deemed most trusted, especially by dominant institutions, are insufficient for making decisions that impact people and communities. We propose that community data must be valued and relied on as trusted evidence.
3) Define community data and explain its key aspects (i.e., systematic, on the terms of community, and contextual). The definition is followed by examples of community data.
4) Present the Five Principles of Community Data. When organizations align their data efforts to these principles, they are demonstrating a respect for and reliance on community-centric ways of knowing, being, doing, and dreaming.
5) Define dominant data and identify several dominant contexts for data collection and use that may be confused for community data. We explain why these contexts don’t generate community data.