Making Space for Nonprofit Shared Data Systems

Ana Ranković
Aug 13
3 min read

Welcome to Making Space, our newsletter for nonprofit leaders navigating the real and challenging work of becoming more data-driven. In this issue:

Why the public data you rely on is getting shakier
The case for a local shared data ecosystem
An interview with Aligned Impact Muscatine on how they built their own

Let's get into it.

Olivia & Charles from North Arrow

Why Federal Data Is Getting Less Dependable

🚨The Problem: Almost everything nonprofits do (needs assessments, grant applications, program targeting, advocacy) sits on public data from the Census, CDC, and other federal agencies. But that foundation is getting shakier due to significant changes under the Trump Administration.

Releases are no longer predictable. The shutdown pushed the ACS 5-year data, the one most nonprofits actually use–think data on poverty, housing insecurity, race, immigration, educational attainment, etc–, to late January 2026. If your grant deadline depends on a release date, you can no longer count on it.
The teams behind the data are shrinking. The Census Bureau has lost roughly 1,500 staff since January 2025, advisory committees have been disbanded, and response rates still haven't recovered, with undercounts hitting hardest in the communities nonprofits serve.
Data is being removed and altered. In early 2025, about 13% of the CDC's online datasets were taken down. A court ordered them restored, but some came back changed.

And for some communities, public data was never reliable enough to begin with. In small and rural places, margins of error balloon: when we tested this for a partner in rural Iowa, the only indicator they could reliably map at the census-tract level was internet access.

Fighting Back By Building Shared Data Systems

💡 The Solution: A local shared data ecosystem in which partners working in the same place or on the same issue collect, standardize, and share their own data through a common system they govern together. Instead of each organization working from its own partial picture and waiting on a federal agency, everyone sees the same current, trusted view of the community and acts on it together.

Schools, nonprofits, and public agencies each hold a piece of the picture. Their data streams are complementary but insufficient in silos. A shared ecosystem puts the pieces on one table and what you get is both safer and stronger than public data.

Safer, because none of it depends on a federal agency: the data is current whenever you need it, the partners decide what gets measured, and the numbers come from people you trust.
Stronger, because it's real records rather than survey estimates, no margins of error to fight, the freedom to zoom into any school, program, or group, and the ability to follow the same people over time instead of comparing yearly snapshots of different samples.

And no, sharing doesn't have to mean handing over sensitive records.

A concern that comes up: organizations that receive student data through New York City's portal aren't allowed to share it with each other. That's true and it doesn't have to stop you. You might pool aggregated, school-level numbers instead of student records, or share data you collect yourselves that never came from the portal at all.

Start by asking: Who works in the same neighborhood as you? What are they keeping track of? Would seeing it help you both?

Shared data ecosystems were the hot topic at our last Community of Practice in NYC! We will be reconvening in November, email us for a personal invite.

Data sharing in action

Aligned Impact Muscatine County (AIM), in partnership with United Way of Muscatine County, runs a county-wide data system in rural Iowa that tracks every student, following their progress in real time from kindergarten through their careers. The schools, nonprofits, and agencies serving those students all see the same picture and respond together, instead of each working from their own partial view.

Muscatine County is home to about 43,000 people, exactly the kind of place where public data is weakest. A locally owned system is how they get the accurate, current picture the public numbers can't give them.

❌ Public data couldn't tell them which students were struggling

💡Their shared, disaggregated data revealed that Latino and first-generation students were falling behind on post-secondary enrollment

🌟 School-based partners responded by creating a "Summer Melt" mentorship program to close the gap.

Because the data is nearly live, interventions happen by the second semester, not after the year ends. And the trust barrier? Districts stopped fearing judgment once they saw the data used to support students rather than assess and punish schools.

Now partners ask for more data, not less.

→ Watch the full Q&A with AIM