Using data to tell great stories

Are you a numbers person, or a stories person?

A survey by KPMG and the charity National Numeracy found that over a third of adults feel anxious doing maths, and one in five say that they feel physically sick when doing calculations.

As Data Principal at NPC, I’m acutely aware of how many people feel worried by quantitative approaches they struggle to get their head around.

And as someone in the charity sector, I’m also aware of how essential it is that we exploit the full power of data – just as private firms do every day.

The stakes are high. Avoiding numbers can add up to leaving stories untold. Tales of social justice, innovation, and impact. Needs misunderstood, service users’ progress uncharted, and campaigns un-fought.

We need to use data to tell great stories.

‘You don’t look like a mathematician’

Why is this hard for some people? Part of the problem is the binary we often get put into – that you’re either a ‘numbers person’ or a ‘words’ person.

As a student (and gasp – a woman), I regularly used to hear that I ‘didn’t look like a mathematician’. This is a label that in retrospect I wear proudly, because I’m in good company. For example, with the wonderful Hannah Fry.

Hannah is a Professor at University College London, author of five books, prolific journalist, and successful podcaster. Recently on her podcast, she shared a striking story of the interplay of data, stories, and social change.

A story of data and change – mapping prison populations

This is the story that Fry shared:

In the 1970s Edwin Ellis, a leading member of the Black Panthers in Harlem, was sentenced to jail. When he arrived, he made an effort to ask all his fellow inmates ‘where are you from?’.

What he found was a striking pattern. He noticed how many prisoners came from just a few spots in New York. 75% of inmates came from just 7 neighbourhoods, out of a total of 336 in the city.

He documented these patterns as part of his college research. (Ellis was a campaigner for prisoners to have access to a college education, and studied sociology.) When he was released in the 1990s, the New York Times coverage of his release mentioned his findings.

That’s how Eric Cadora became aware of them. Cadora was a researcher in a criminal justice think tank. He replicated Ellis’ research for all prisons in New York state. And he found similarly shocking results. One block in New York accounted for nearly 10% of all imprisonments across the entire state.

What on earth could account for this? It seemed that police were focusing on certain neighbourhoods as part of the ‘war on drugs’. If they were targeted, it wasn’t for nothing – these were neighbourhoods with difficulties. But the policing and punitive sentencing was leading to a downward spiral of crime and exclusion.

Tough policy fed this spiral. Sentences were doubled. Incarceration rates, stable for a century, were skyrocketing. Men and women were bouncing from prison to their home block to prison again, without anything to stop their descent or start a different life.

What could be done? Cadora produced maps – and a clear economic argument. He found 35 blocks where the state was spending over $1million a year just on incarcerating residents. These clusters made a clear case for doing things differently. Even a small change in offending behaviour in these areas could save tens of thousands of dollars.

Creating change with data and stories

Change did not happen overnight. Many still felt incarceration was appropriate – but across political divides, these dramatic costs became widely known and an important part of the debate. You don’t need to believe in rehabilitation to think that there must be a better way than a revolving door with a steep price tag.

Ellis and Cadora’s surveys – their stories and their maps – changed policy and changed lives.

As Hannah Fry told this story, she reflected:

Those maps weren’t just abstract representations – they were stories about people

Stories are data. Data tell stories.

Collecting data can start from a single story. And one set of data can tell a powerful story.

What change could you achieve with the right data, the right story? Who would sit up and listen?

Let NPC help you use data to tell a story that changes lives.

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Image by Thomas Steinmetz from Pixabay