Our Mission
The National Neighborhood Indicators Partnership (NNIP) helps local communities use data to shape strategies and investments so that all neighborhoods are places where people can thrive.
Our Work
NNIP is a national network of local organizations in more than 30 cities in the US. Each organization supports local priorities by connecting communities with the data they need and the help they need to use it.
- Member organizations have deep local knowledge and build relationships and trust with their communities to coproduce analyses relevant to local concerns.
- To respond to structural inequities, NNIP partners focus on working with communities of color and those with low incomes to use data to realize their aspirations.
The network as a whole engages changemakers to share insights from local partners to accelerate innovation and advance equity around the country.
- These collective insights include lessons from dozens of cities about using data in policy and practice, building a culture of data use, and applying principles for using data to advance equity. In these exchanges, we also learn from experts outside the network to further mutual goals.
Following NNIP's strategic framework, we are focusing our efforts to:
- engage changemakers and share insights to accelerate innovation and advance racial and economic equity in policy and practice around the country; and
- encourage national networks and organizations to promote and invest in principled data use for equitable outcomes.
Our Values
- Place matters for equity. The places where people live affect their health, security, education, and economic success. We need data to understand how these issues intersect and vary across neighborhoods and among different groups of people.
- Data is a transformative tool. With the ability to find and use relevant data, people can set priorities, advocate for what is important to them, and hold others accountable for promised changes.
- Collaboration speeds progress. Local partners connect diverse changemakers in their cities to create a shared understanding of community issues, codevelop solutions, and build a culture of using data to advance equity. As a network, members support each other and learn together to improve local practice.
- Improvements in equity only happen intentionally. We need deliberate effort to ensure that people use data for equitable outcomes and not to perpetuate harm. We invest time and care to accurately represent and fairly treat people in our data practices.
Our Partners
The power of our network lies in its partners: local member organizations, the Urban Institute, and NNIP alumni.
- Local member organizations are the evidence base for NNIP. Members’ on-the-ground experiences helping communities find answers to their questions are invaluable in shaping the network’s understanding of what works and what doesn’t.
- The Urban Institute brings policy expertise, spreads the NNIP model to new cities, provides a national platform for engagement and experimentation, and facilitates peer learning and technical assistance to meet our collective goals.
- NNIP alumni, people who are former staff of member organizations, bring NNIP values and lessons to their current organizations in the public, nonprofit, academic, or private sectors and share insights with the NNIP network.
Our History
NNIP was formed in 1996 as a learning network by six local organizations that a saw a need for neighborhood-level data to inform local decisionmaking. Creation of this capacity, which did not exist in any U.S. city at the time, represented an important technical and institutional breakthrough. The founding organizations believed that by democratizing information, they could give residents and community organizations a stronger voice in improving their neighborhoods. G. Thomas (Tom) Kingsley directed the network from its founding until 2012. Under Tom's leadership, NNIP grew to more than 30 partners and became a space for its partners to debate ideas, share lessons, and lift up solutions. Tom passed away in 2018, but through NNIP, he left a lasting legacy that benefits urban areas across the country.