New EFC peer-learning group shares experiences on data for social good

The EFC, in collaboration with the King Baudouin Foundation and Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, organised a peer-learning meeting on 30 July bringing together a group of data scientists working within philanthropic organisations to meet other data scientists within the sector, make meaningful connections, share experiences, and promote the use of data for social good.

The EFC’s Policy and Incubation Manager, Sevda Kilicalp, began the meeting by outlining the purpose of the session and introduced Chloe Vandendriesche, Data Scientist, KBF, who presented the foundation’s journey towards becoming a more data-driven organisation. Covering the KBF digital transformation, data strategy and objectives, Chloe outlined how the work directly serves to support reaching the key objectives of the foundation, namely tackling social poverty and poverty, promoting education and talent development, and public health.

Among the key challenges of the transformation was the need to include data in every KBF project and convince the people within the organisation that data scientists are there to help, not to make people’s work more difficult. This was coupled with a need to find structured ways of working while staying flexible enough to adapt to organisational needs, and the effort to promote a data-friendly working culture within the organisation.

A short Q&A followed the presentation and surfaced questions related to the tools used for the digital transformation, the best methods of tackling cultural challenges within organisations and echoes from other attendees regarding similar issues and solutions found within other organisations also seeking to promote the use of data.

The next meeting of the data scientists’ group will be organised in September and will see another organisation present their journey towards integrating data into philanthropy.

For more information contact Sevda Kilicalp.