The acceleration of the open government movement is already making a big difference in the lives of people in communities around America. A new book from the Urban Institute illuminates the potential and practice of using data to enhance communities -- especially low-income ones. It's a practical resource for local funders and others seeking creative ways to inform and engage communities.

Released Dec. 4, What Counts: Harnessing Data for America's Communities is a collection of essays by experts in community development, population health, education, finance, law and information systems. A joint project of the Urban Institute and the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, this book explains how data is being used more intensively and creatively to enhance decisions at the local, metro, state, or federal level. This can yield more effective local programs, policies and services, as well as better-targeted funding. It can also help residents understand how well their communities are performing, or measuring up.

At the book release event (see video), Urban Institute president Sarah Rosen Wartell noted that "A vast volume of data is now accessible -- but for people trying to make communities better places to live, the potential opportunities and pitfalls for using this data are large. This book is an opportunity to bring more people into the fold to advance the use of data."

In the opening essay, "Data and Community," the books authors (G. Thomas Kingsley and Kathryn L.S. Pettit, of the Urban Institute) explain: "Today, very few institutions working in America's communities can honestly be characterized as 'data driven.' However, the past two decades have seen truly remarkable advances in the availability of relevant data and the technical ability to use the information inexpensively and in exciting ways. In the coming decade, these new capacities are likely to spur fundamental changes in how community-oriented institutions operate and how policy is made."

What kinds of data are they talking about?

• Administrative data collected through the operation of nonprofits, government agencies, and businesses.
• Surveys and catalogs. Everything from the U.S. Census to local surveys such as the Jacksonville Quality of Life study. Catalogs may enumerate community assets (such as parks and schools), or risk indicators (like the Detroit Residential Parcel Survey).
• Qualitative data, such as stakeholder interviews, focus group reports, or community meeting minutes.

The book covers several ways that data can be put to use to help communities:

• Situation analysis. Learning more about local problems and opportunities, and their implications;
• Policy analysis and planning. Deciding on a course of action to address an issue.
• Performance management and evaluation. Tracking and assessing how well a chosen course of action is working, to inform course corrections and other further decisions.
• Local data sharing. For instance: "The Camden (N.J.) Coalition of Healthcare Providers has developed an integrated data system with demographic, diagnosis, and financial information for all admissions and emergency room visits made by city residents to the city's three main hospitals."
• Sharing data with other communities or jurisdictions. For instance, Stewards of Affordable Housing for the Future has an Outcomes Initiative where "participating housing organizations collect consistent data on the outcomes of efforts to holistically improve the well-being of residents of affordable housing developments."
• Dashboards, which boil down complex data to focus on the most important and informative metrics.

In addition, What Counts discusses how to engage community members with data, enhance their individual decisions, and support neighborhood research.

There are, of course, several thorny challenges to putting data to community use. The main ones discussed in the book are:

• Access. Not all relevant and potentially useful data is public, or available.
• Quality and timeliness. Most data contains errors and inconsistencies, and thus needs "cleaning" to become useful. This is especially true when integrating data from multiple sources. And in some cases, data that is "too old" (by years, months, weeks or even days) might be useless.
• Usability. Not all available data is in an easily repurposable form. For example: complex and arcane raw administrative data sets, or large collections of scanned documents that have not been parsed into machine-readable text.
• Fragmentation. "Most administrative data sets released by cities are the products of individual agencies and, because of different standards and protocols, the data sets cannot be used together." This is where data intermediaries are playing a growing role.
• Topical coverage. Administrative data sets are often not created to directly focus on topics that are important to understanding and addressing community issues.
• Privacy and confidentiality. Even when individuals' identifying info has been stripped from data sets, combining different data sets may inadvertently make it easier to identify individuals.
• Insufficient capacity to work productively with data. "The underlying problem is that many of the institutions working in low-income communities are not yet committed to regularly conducting the systematic management processes that create the demand for good data." (As nonprofit technology expert Beth Kanter explained in a recent KDMC article, this is where finding good local "data nerds" can help.)

What Counts presents essays by 49 authors, all experienced practitioners talking about real-world projects. Sections include:

• Transforming Data into Policy-Relevant Information, explaining useful data tools and techniques.
• Enhancing Data Access and Transparency, on expanding the range of easily available data, and finding ways to safely integrate data across policy and program domains.
• Strengthening the Validity and Use of Data, on how to build capacity to choose and use appropriate data to understand and enhance communities.
• Adopting More Strategic Practices, the long view on how practitioners, funders, and policymakers can help put data to good use in communities.

Get What Counts. This book is available free of charge. Download a PDF version or request a print copy to be mailed to you.

What Counts builds on a 2012 project, What Works for America's Communities -- a joint project of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco and the Low Income Investment Fund. The authors and sponsors of What Counts strongly recommend reading both books. (Get What Works for free.)