Wise words from CoolData - how the non-profit sector needs to get serious about data

Kevin MacDonell is a fundraiser from Eastern Canada who writes about fundraising, data, and python -- so we're obviously big fans. From a recent post:

There isn’t a lot to do at my wife’s family summer cottage when it rains, especially if I’ve forgotten to bring a book. I find myself scanning the shelves for something — anything — to read. On one such recent rainy weekend, I picked up a book my niece had left on a table. It was a heavy hardcover textbook, and it contained a mild surprise. What I found was an introduction to such topics as liner and non-linear relationships, probability, scatterplots, best-fit lines, and correlation — concepts that I’ve come to have a deep interest in, mainly because I have profitably put them to work in the service of fundraising and alumni engagement. Was this a college textbook? A manual for budding data scientists? No, not at all. My niece is in Grade 9, and this was her mathematics textbook.

He ends his post with the prediction that "someday soon" lacking numeracy will prevent people from occupying some of the more important social change jobs. We're looking forward to a more numerate non-profit sector too, Kevin!

Datamlenczner