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Published May 2025
The Data Conversation: Data learning community
Social enterprises deal with many different types of data - from data on their inventory to data on their impact, and everything in between. This learning community aims to support small and start-up social enterprises with all aspects of data.
About the learning community
This learning community aims to support small and start-up social enterprises with all aspects of collecting, using, and managing data.
It's common for people to feel overwhelmed or anxious about data, worried about “what they don’t know they don’t know" or unsure about how to improve their data environment. This learning community will share ideas and tips for making your data more secure, more useful, and less stressful. Together, you'll work on identifying common data challenges, creating a safe space for learning, and supporting each other to problem solve and iterate.
About the convenor
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The Data Conversation supports not-for-profit organisations, social enterprises, and other community organisations to collect, manage and use their data to support their missions. They provide a range of data services, including building data systems, developing reporting dashboards, and advising organisations on data security, governance, and visualisation.
Being a small, start-up social enterprise, they share the challenges (and fun!) of working out how best to use data to help achieve goals.
How will this learning community work?
This learning community will include five online meetings (each 90 minutes long) between October 2025 and June 2026.
- Thursday 22 January, 11:30am - 1:00pm: Planning what to collect.
- Thursday 19 February, 11:30am - 1:00pm: Managing data safely and securely.
- Thursday 19 March, 11:30am - 1:00pm: Managing data on a budget.
- Thursday 23 April, 11:30am - 1:00pm: Collecting stories, managing stories, telling stories.
- Thursday 21 May, 11:30am - 1:00pm: Hot Topic to be determined!
After each meeting, we’ll create simple “Tip Sheets” that sum up the best advice, ideas, and solutions shared by the group. These will also include helpful links to guides, tools, and presentations that are especially useful for small or new social enterprises.
How to get involved
This learning community is intended for social enterprises that are small (fewer than 20 employees) or start-up (in the first 5 years of operation).
To find out more and join this learning community, register here. All welcome.
Resources
Stories are data
ArticlesStories can be a powerful form of data for social enterprises. This tipsheet offers some practical tips on how to collect, manage and share stories respectfully, even when time and resources are limited.
Stories are dataManaging data on a budget
ArticlesSmall and start-up social enterprises often have tight budgets. Here are some practical tips from the data learning community on how you can improve your data management, even if you don’t have time or money for major changes.
Managing data on a budgetPlanning
ArticlesPlanning is an important step for your social enterprise when it comes to using data to support your mission. Here are some tips from small and start-up social enterprises for successful planning.
PlanningSharing data to tell the story of your social enterprise
ArticlesOne of the common questions we heard in the data learning community was: how do you turn data into an interesting story to share with others? Social enterprises often want data to help communicate their impact to customers, community members and funders. But moving from spreadsheets to stories can be a challenging step. Here are some tips to get started with data storytelling.
Sharing data to tell the story of your social enterpriseManaging data safely and securely
ArticlesKeeping data safe and secure is a worry for many small businesses, including social enterprises. Here are some tips shared in the data learning community for managing data. We have also included links to useful resources on cyber security.
Managing data safely and securely
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