Guide for Community Training on Data and Technology

Local government and nonprofit staff are charged with designing and implementing programs to serve residents and neighborhoods. Incorporating data and technology into their everyday practice could help them perform their work more effectively and ultimately bring greater benefits to their communities. To this end, training is a critical component in building individual staff skills to analyze, interpret and share data related to current programs and community needs. This guide is intended for local organizations that are interested in providing in-person training on data and technology for the people who are working to improve our communities. A wide variety of organizations are well-suited to providing training - libraries, universities, local government agencies, coalition leaders, nonprofit support organizations, and civic technology groups. This guide provides suggestions on steps on how to assess community needs, plan a successful training, and strengthen the environment for integrating data and technology into practice.

This guide is part of the Expanding Training on Data and Technology to Improve Communities project, launched by the National Neighborhood Indicators Partnership and Microsoft’s Civic Technology Engagement Group to explore community training on data and technology. Other products include a brief highlighting the benefits of community training, a catalog of trainings from across the country, and a summary of current training content and practices from our survey.