Rhetorics of data in nonprofit settings: How community engagement pedagogies can enact social justice

Abstract

More and more, nonprofit agencies and organizations are required to provide data-driven evidence of their impact on communities. Our research tackles the thorny problem of how to ensure that this data imperative captures the dignity of the human beings who might be represented in that data. We outline a service-learning partnership across multiple courses in which students collaborate in collecting, analyzing, and understanding data about visitors to a local food pantry, data that the pantry needs to create rich narratives and arguments on behalf of their users. We demonstrate how we teach students to navigate and adapt to the intricacies of existing nonprofit software, ethically initiate data sharing with vulnerable populations, and convert narrative and non-numerical data into more quantitative evidence. Our pedagogical approach helps students understand how digital data collection from, and analysis of, vulnerable populations can be accomplished ethically and productively for social justice. The ultimate goal in this case study is to exemplify the principles we want to enact as we teach students how to navigate, collect, analyze, and apply digital forms of data in ethical and humane ways.