The Beginning
Today, we are proud to celebrate a significant milestone: GDI has now worked on 80 projects, dedicated over 6,000 volunteer hours, and supported 60+ charities. Each project has been a testament to the power of data in driving social change.
It’s a moment to look back to look forward.
Back in 2019, we (Vivek and Tom) were working typical early-career jobs in the private sector – Vivek as a data scientist and Tom as a management consultant. Like a lot of folks in the tech and corporate sector, we could see the gap between what we were doing in our day jobs and the kind of impact we wanted to have on broader social issues like climate change, income and wealth inequality and racial justice.
The spark for GDI came from a simple realisation: the data and analytics community is packed with talented people spending their days on things like optimising ad clicks and predicting sales figures — work that pays well but doesn’t exactly change the world. Meanwhile, non-profits that could really use these skills often lacked the resources or know-how to get started with data.
We started with one initial project with one of the world’s largest microfinance charities – Opportunity International. We began by collaborating with one of the world’s largest microfinance charities, Opportunity International, to address a critical need: understanding and demonstrating their impact to donors. Through an impact measurement project and donor socio-economic profile analysis, we equipped them with data-driven insights that strengthened their ability to showcase their outcomes and engage supporters more effectively. The project was a success and before we knew it, our friends were getting involved on their own projects.
We kept seeing it everywhere – friends and colleagues wanting to do more with their skills, and non-profits who saw the value of data but lacked the confidence, resources, and capacity to invest in it. So, we created the Good Data Institute (GDI), building the bridge between data analytics and the social sector. We want to thank Charlie Norton and Luke Mills for their incredible early support, and our third co-founder Charles Zhang who helped shape GDI's early direction, as we built this bridge between data analytics and the social sector.
The Vision and Mission
In a survey by the Stanford Social Innovation Review (SSIR), 75% of nonprofits were found to collect data, but only 6% felt they are using it effectively. What can we distill this down to? Essentially, the majority of these nonprofits have failed to create a data culture. A culture where data lies at the heart of the organisation and is used to drive decision making and empower actions and efficiency.
Our vision was simple: use our data science skills for social good and empower causes we deeply care about. We started off working to achieve this by first connecting ourselves and secondly, our community of friends of data analytics professionals (as volunteers) with an ever expanding list of NFPs worldwide through our online platform. Our mission was clear from day one: help NFPs harness the power of data to amplify their impact.
Building the Model: Learning from Our Early Partners
When we started, we knew we had to prove we had the chops to execute our idea. The best way to do that was actually to work on some projects.
One of our early big projects was with The Hunger Project. Led by Tom’s colleague, Luke Mills and early GDI volunteer Lizzie Reid, they sought to understand their donors better. The team spent about 50 hours analysing at their donation patterns – when people gave, how different fundraising campaigns performed, and what made donors stick around. We surfaced the insights via a dashboard that the team at The Hunger Project could engage and interact with.
Our work with Inclusive America showed us a different side of what's possible with data. While THPA needed help understanding its existing data, Inclusive America needed us to build something new from scratch. Led by Vivek and GDI volunteer Nina Kashyap, this project involved showing how diverse presidential appointments were compared to the actual U.S. population. The project involved scraping government websites, cleaning messy data, and writing code to generate hundreds of visualisations automatically. Inclusive America even featured some of this data in the New York Times!
These early projects taught us something valuable: nonprofits need different kinds of help with their data. Sometimes, it's as simple as making sense of donor information in a spreadsheet or setting up a Google form. Other times, it means building custom bespoke tools from the ground up. We learned to be flexible and meet each organisation where they were, whether they needed:
Basic data analysis to understand their supporters better
Custom dashboards and visualisation tools
More complex data engineering solutions
Or just help figuring out where to start
Every partnership showed us that the social sector was ready for data work – from simple analytics to more technical solutions. What mattered most was making sure our work helped these organisations create more impact.
As we worked on these projects, more data folks started reaching out to want to help. Our volunteer Slack was getting growing, but we didn't have a proper way to run things or build a community.
Enter Jessy Wu and Olivia Grivas, two brilliant early leaders who shaped the next chapter of GDI – our cohorts.
Growing Through Cohorts
When GDI started, volunteers joined our projects as opportunities arose. This ad hoc approach had limitations: It was harder to create the strong sense of community we envisioned, and we needed a better way to ensure volunteers had the right skills and level of commitment our NFP partners deserved.
Our solution came in 2020 with the launch of the Data For Good cohort program. This 12-week journey runs on Tuesday evenings and combines learning sessions with hands-on experience. Each cohort moves through the program together, building relationships while developing their skills and understanding of data for social good. Our weekly learning and development seminars, delivered by experts from our community and external luminaries, have become a cornerstone of the experience. Some notable speakers include Renee Cummings, Mala Kumar and Ayodele Odubela
Before long, with zero paid advertising, we started receiving over 100 applications per cohort, allowing us to regularly select ~25 individuals per cohort. These volunteers typically complete 1-2 projects annually, bringing fresh perspectives and innovative solutions to the NFPs they support. If you are an emerging leader in the data analytics world, we want you to apply for our next cohort!
Beyond building technical capability, our cohort model has helped create a more inclusive data community. Our first two cohorts achieved 62.5% and 50% women representation - significantly higher than the data & analytics industry average of 17%. This diversity strengthens our community and improves the solutions we deliver for NFPs.
We're seeing real impact from this approach. Recently, our volunteer Ashish Chopra was nominated for the NSW Volunteer of the Year Awards for his work with Margaret Skagias and CaringKids. As we prepare to welcome our 6th Data For Good cohort, we're proud to have built a community of over 200 volunteers, each contributing their expertise to create lasting social impact through data.
Transitioning Volunteers to GDI Fellows
Our cohort program became foundational to our growth as it provided a pipeline of talent, many of whom were promoted to further leadership roles and project leadership roles, which we refer to as GDI Fellows.
Fellows are the lifeblood of our organisation. Fellows quickly become trusted advisors to senior decision-makers at NFPs / social enterprises. Moreover, our Fellows have built warm relationships with our NFP clients, scoped out suitable data analytics projects, and met regularly during engagements to ensure our outputs are delivering value for the NFPs involved. We have an incredibly high degree of trust in GDI Fellows. Those who take on the role of a GDI Fellow, have the opportunity to lead teams of enthusiastic and highly skilled GDI volunteers, creating supportive environments where they can grow as data practitioners. Suffice to say, we are incredibly proud of our Fellows, both past and present.
The People Behind GDI
Reaching our milestone of 80 completed NFP projects was only possible with our dedicated advisory board and leadership team. We extend heartfelt thanks to Jeff Forrest from L.E.K. Consulting and Lauren Peate from Multitudes for their invaluable guidance on our advisory panel. We also acknowledge key leaders, notably Olivia Grivas from Skip Capital and Jessy Wu from Encour, whose contributions as past organisation directors have been foundational.
Our current executive leadership team, including Andrew (Andy) Smith and Shakeel Lala, both Directors, continues to drive our mission forward with passion and expertise.
Looking Forward
While celebrating these achievements, we recognise this is just the beginning. Our mission to empower the not-for-profit world with cutting-edge data analytics capabilities is more relevant than ever. We envision a future where the NFP sector is seen as the frontier of data science, not a laggard. We aim to build a network of thousands of volunteers supporting hundreds of NFPs, driving significant social impact.
People, impact, and collaboration are at the heart of the Good Data Institute. We are at the beginning of our journey. But, whether we create a social movement for good with 1,000 people or 1,000,000, social movements – no matter how big or small – can change the world for the better. I’m excited to see where this takes us; thank you for your involvement and compassionate efforts to use D&A for social good.
Call to Action
If you're passionate about scaling data-for-good initiatives, we welcome conversations with potential funders and corporate partners about growing our impact. For data professionals looking to create social change, register interest for our next Data For Good cohort. And if you're from a not-for-profit organisation seeking to use your data better, we'd love to explore how we can support you.
By Vivek Katial and Tom Perfrement (Co-Founders)
About GDI:
The Good Data Institute (established 2019) is a registered not-for-profit organisation (ABN: 6664087941) that aims to give not-for-profits access to data analytics (D&A) support & tools. Our mission is to be the bridge between the not-for-profit world and the world of data analytics practitioners wishing to do social good. Using D&A, we identify, share, and help implement the most effective means for growing NFP people, organisations, and their impact.
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