Selecting Appropriate Data
Data is the evidence you present to make your case. Find supporting data from your organization and other nonprofit agencies in your community. Just as in a court case, you must present irrefutable evidence of the need for action, and thus, funding.
The RFP will describe some necessary data, but you must be the judge of what other data you can gather to support your case. Some of the more unusual data Maggie has been asked to supply include the following:
Rate of suicide or suicide attempts among high school students
Blood lead levels among children living in a specific area of the city
Rate of volunteerism among alternative-education students
Purchase date of every piece of computer equipment in a building
Number of individuals in the United States who use a prosthetic arm or leg
Number of people in a city who speak a language other than English
Infant mortality rate by ethnicity, age of mother, family income, and native language of mother
Number of active prostitutes in a city
You will be asked to supply numbers to support your case and to form your evaluation of the program. Along with being a good writer, you will have to develop your research and mathematics skills. First you have to find the data and then you have to “crunch the numbers.” For instance, you will often be given raw numbers when the RFP requests percentages or vice versa.
